Corrections officer's trial heads to closing arguments Wednesday after Charter challenge shot down by judge

The trial of corrections officer Robert Jeffrey Morden on charges related to the death of an inmate at the Headingley Correctional Centre over two years ago will head to closing arguments this week.

Defence lawyer Richard Wolson tried to keep Morden's incident reports that document events before the death of William Ahmo out of court.

Wolson argued using the reports in court constitutes a breach of Morden's Charter rights, including an expectation the notes were private or personal.

Provincial court Judge Tony Cellitti dismissed the challenge in court on Monday. Cellitti said the reports are essentially the same as those made by police officers, and they were fair game for prosecutors in this case.

Ahmo, 45, was an inmate at Headingley when he was involved in an altercation with corrections officers on Feb. 7, 2021. He was rushed to hospital in medical distress after the events in a common room of the provincial jail, which is just west of Winnipeg.

Ahmo was taken off life support a week later and died. Manitoba's chief medical examiner ruled Ahmo's death a homicide. 

Morden is charged with criminal negligence causing death and failure to provide the necessaries of life. He has pleaded not guilty.

The judge-only trial started earlier this month, beginning with court being shown footage of Ahmo's final hours.

In the video, an agitated Ahmo paces in a common area, at one point ripping a water tank off the wall. 

Corrections officers shot chemical projectiles at Ahmo as he stood on the second floor of a correctional centre unit, holding a broom handle. Ahmo swung the broom at about a dozen officers, who then took him down.

The video presented in court showed Ahmo saying "I can't breathe" more than 20 times while under restraint in the prone position.

The court has also heard from a paramedic who was called to the jail and found Ahmo unresponsive. He said paramedics revived Ahmo using CPR and he was taken to hospital, where he later died.

A forensic pathologist also testified this month, saying Ahmo died from a brain injury caused by a lack of oxygen and blood to the brain.

The pathologist said that was likely triggered by how Ahmo was restrained. He also said that Ahmo's heart stopped during the confrontation with officers. 

Morden, the captain of Headingley's emergency response unit, was obligated to document what happened in incident reports.

On Wednesday, Wolson argued Crown attorney Jason A. Nicol should not be allowed to use details from those incident reports as evidence.

Among other reasons, Wolson suggested there was an expectation the reports were private or personal in nature.

He said Morden was under stress at the time of the reports, and Wolson also suggested use of the reports could be unreliable, a form of coercion or abuse by the state.

Nicol argued corrections officer reports, required by provincial policy in use-of-force incidents, are akin to police incident reports that are commonly used in the course of prosecutions.

Judge Cellitti agreed the reports were fair to use for a number of reasons, and he dismissed the Charter challenge.

As a result, Nicol could have drawn on the incident reports in cross-examination if Morden had been called to testify by his lawyer, but Wolson won't be calling his client or any other witnesses to testify. 

Instead, the trial was adjourned for the day and is expected to go straight to closing arguments on Wednesday.

Cellitti said he doesn't believe he'll have a decision in the case by the end of the week.