N.S. man set to face 2 first-degree murder trials in 2024

A Nova Scotia man will go on trial twice next year on charges of first-degree murder.

Lawyers for Adam Joseph Drake, 32, appeared in Nova Scotia Supreme Court Thursday morning to set dates for a jury trial in the killing of Dartmouth battle rapper Pat Stay last September.

Drake's trial is scheduled to begin in September 2024, and run into the following month.

The 36-year-old Stay was stabbed outside a bar in downtown Halifax and died later in hospital. Drake was charged a week after the stabbing and has been in custody ever since.

A bail hearing for Drake started this week and will resume at the end of May. As usual, evidence and arguments in the bail hearing are banned from publication.

Drake's other trial will begin on April 2 next year and run until early May. That charge relates to the killing of Tyler Keizer in November 2016.

Keizer, 22, was shot in north-end Halifax and died later in hospital.

Drake was originally supposed to stand trial in Keizer's death in 2021, but the Crown withdrew the charge just before the trial was scheduled to begin after saying there was no longer a reasonable prospect of conviction.

The murder charge in the Keizer case was only resurrected after Drake was charged in Stay's killing.

Drake's lawyer in that case, Stan MacDonald, is challenging the way the charge was resurrected and he wants that challenge to be heard before the trial. The Crown preferred an indictment, meaning there was no preliminary inquiry.

A preliminary inquiry in the Stay killing is set for this September.