Crown fights 'excessive delay' stay of murder charge in prison stabbing

Alberta Justice will attempt to overturn the stay of a first-degree murder charge, citing "legal errors" made by the judge, CBC News has learned.  

In early October, Justice Stephen Hillier ruled the constitutional rights of Lance Matthew Regan, an inmate at the Edmonton Institution, had been violated because of excessive delays getting to trial.

It took more than five years to get the case to trial.

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Regan was accused of stabbing fellow inmate Mason Tex Montgrand in 2011.  According to court documents, Regan dismissed two lawyers and had three separate trial dates scheduled.

Regan's lawyer applied for the stay in the wake of a landmark Supreme Court of Canada decision that provides guidelines for timeliness of access to the court system.

In the so-called Jordan framework, there is a "presumptive ceiling" of 30 months in superior courts.  Any timeline beyond that period forces the Crown to prove the delays were due to case complexity or unavoidable circumstances.  

Justice Hillier found the Crown did not meet that burden of proof in Regan's case, making it the first murder charge to be stayed in Canada following the "Jordan decision."  

But in a notice of appeal filed recently, the Crown states the judge "erred in law" in staying the charge.

Reagan is part of a group of inmates suing the federal maximum-security penitentiary in Edmonton.

The civil suit alleges guards spit and put feces in their food, regularly beat them and ran a sadistic prisoner fight club.

None of the allegations have been proven in court.