Two men found guilty of trafficking-related charges will face sentencing after a judge determined Thursday that the trial on the matter was concluded within a reasonable time.
On June 21, Marshall Luther Cade was found guilty of possessing cocaine, methamphetamine and fentanyl for the purpose of trafficking and John Jacob Ceal was found guilty of possessing cocaine for the purpose of trafficking.
The trial ended on June 15, or 35 months and 17 days after charges were first approved, well past the 30-month time limit for matters taken to B.C. Supreme Court.
But in a decision issued Thursday, Justice David Crerar found that once delays attributed to defence counsel and other factors are taken into account, the trial was concluded well within the time limit as set out under the so-called Jordan ceiling.
Much of the proceeding centred on challenges under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms related to an execution of a search warrant. In part, Crerar found that if not for three "intrusions" late in the trial, it would have been over by February 3 and well within the time limit.
"I must agree with the Crown that defence counsel must bear most of the blame for the intrusions," Crerar said adding lawyers Tony Zipp and Justin Myers provided no notice of the challenges until January and no time had been allocated for them in the estimates for the trial's timeline. Had they been raised earlier, Crerar said they could have been included with the other challenges that had been considered earlier in the proceeding.
Crerar also found that delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic amounted to a discrete exceptional event that could not be reasonably mitigated by the Crown or the justice system and that the case was particularly complex, where the nature of the issues require an inordinate amount of trial or preparation time, and so justifying a delay.
Had Crerar found the delay was not reasonable, the counts against Cade and Ceal would have been stayed. A four-day sentencing hearing for the two is tentatively scheduled for mid-November.
The two were arrested on July 5, 2019 when RCMP's street crew unit executed a search warrant on a home in a 3800-block 15th Avenue apartment building as part of an investigation into an alleged dial-a-dope operation. The 30-month clock started ticking when charges were approved on June 29, 2020.
A third person arrested as part of the investigation, Shawn Brian Omark Whaling, has pleaded guilty to possessing the cocaine for the purpose of trafficking and possessing a prohibited or restricted firearm and is due for sentencing in provincial court on Tuesday.
