Judge refuses to toss murder convictions for Lukas Strasser-Hird's killers
Meghan Grant | CBC News | Posted: December 15, 2016 4:42 PM | Last Updated: December 15, 2016
Trio who killed 18-year-old Calgary man will be sentenced early next year
The three men who killed Lukas Strasser-Hird will not have their convictions overturned despite arguing their constitutional rights were violated by unreasonable court delays, a Calgary judge has ruled.
Strasser-Hird died after being attacked in an alley at Second Street and 10th Avenue S.W. in November 2013.
Franz Cabrera and Assmar Shlah were found guilty by a jury of second-degree murder — convictions that come with an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 10 to 25 years — while Joch Pouk was found guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter.
A fourth man, Jordan Liao, was found not guilty of second-degree murder.
A fifth man, Nathan Gervais, was charged with first-degree murder, but disappeared weeks before the trial began while on bail. He remains at large.
R. vs. Jordan
A 2016 Supreme Court decision, R. vs. Jordan, puts hard timelines on what is considered an unreasonable delay for matters to get to trial —18 months for provincial court matters and 30 months for Superior Court cases to make it to trial.
In this case, the trial only exceeded the 30-month mark by a few weeks and Court of Queen's Bench Justice Glen Poelman found the "Crown established a transitional exceptional circumstance."
A sentencing hearing will take place in January.