William Sandeson wants new trial, this time for 2nd-degree murder
Sherri Borden Colley | CBC News | Posted: July 4, 2017 7:33 PM | Last Updated: July 4, 2017
Sandeson calls jury's guilty verdict for 1st-degree murder 'unreasonable'
William Sandeson is appealing his first-degree murder conviction in the 2015 death of fellow Dalhousie student Taylor Samson and is asking for a new trial, this time on the lesser charge of second-degree murder.
In a handwritten appeal, Sandeson calls the jury's verdict last month "unreasonable" and said the media should not have been allowed to report damning information about him while the jury was sequestered last month.
After the jury started its deliberations, media outlets reported that Sandeson allegedly threatened to dismember his girlfriend and dump her body on his family farm near Truro, N.S., just weeks before Samson disappeared. His body has never been found.
Under the Canadian Criminal Code, details from bail hearings and voir dires that are not heard by the jury during the trial are permitted to be published once deliberations begin.
In his appeal, Sandeson also alleges that police violated his Charter rights and that Justice Josh Arnold erred in ruling that a statement he gave to police was voluntary.
Sandeson, who is being held at the Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility in Dartmouth, was found guilty June 18 in Nova Scotia Supreme Court. Formal sentencing is set for July 11.
First-degree and second-degree murder convictions both carry automatic life sentences with different parole eligibility. Under a first-degree sentence, an offender is eligible for parole after 25 years, compared to between 10 and 25 years for second-degree murder.
Sandeson's parole eligibility was reduced by two years because he spent two years in custody before his trial.
What the court heard
During the trial, the court heard that Sandeson, who was having money problems, lured Samson to his Halifax apartment to do a drug deal on Aug. 15, 2015.
When Samson arrived at the apartment, the Crown said Sandeson fatally shot him and and stole his nine kilograms of marijuana.
The jury did not hear during the trial that Sandeson's defence team had unsuccessfully requested a mistrial because its own private detective had tipped off a police officer and pointed him to incriminating evidence he'd heard from two witnesses about Sandeson.
Those two witnesses, Justin Blades and Pookiel McCabe, were in the apartment across the hall from Sandeson. They testified they heard a gunshot and saw a bleeding man slumped over in Sandeson's kitchen that night.