A lawyer for a person who fatally stabbed a highschool pupil 4 years in the past in Abbotsford, B.C., says he’ll argue in court docket that the person just isn’t criminally accountable due to a psychological dysfunction.
The announcement comes only a week earlier than Gabriel Klein was to be sentenced for the second-degree homicide of 13-year-old Letisha Reimer and aggravated assault of her buddy.
Defence lawyer Martin Peters says his consumer has modified his thoughts and desires to train his proper to boost the problem of a doable psychological dysfunction after he was discovered responsible in March.
Peters says he was involved about finishing the case earlier than addressing the problem of whether or not there must be an exception to prison legal responsibility due to his consumer’s psychological sickness.
He says Crown legal professionals advised a B.C. Supreme Courtroom choose they had been blindsided by the information throughout a latest assembly and the sentencing listening to set for Sept. 23 has been cancelled.
As an alternative, Peters says they may meet Sept. 24 to repair a date to argue the declare of not criminally accountable.
Peters says a defendant has the proper to boost problems with psychological sickness both through the trial or after a verdict.
“It is similar to entrapment. You possibly can increase psychological dysfunction or entrapment as a part of the trial […] or you’ll be able to wait and see if the Crown can truly show their case, which [it] did, after which increase it post-verdict.”
Gabriel Klein, captured on surveillance video in November 2016, hours earlier than stabbing two feminine college students at a highschool in Abbotsford, B.C. (IHIT/Twitter)
Through the trial, Peters had argued that Klein didn’t imply to kill Reimer and urged Affiliate Chief Justice Heather Holmes to search out him responsible of manslaughter. Peters argued there was cheap doubt associated to the homicide cost as a result of his consumer exhibited odd behaviour and psychological misery beforehand, suggesting he didn’t deliberately plan to kill anybody.
Crown lawyer Rob Macgowan mentioned in his closing argument that Klein faked signs of a psychological dysfunction after his arrest as a way to be discovered not criminally accountable of the crimes and even advised a psychiatrist who assessed him at a hospital that his lawyer would use that as a defence.
Holmes mentioned there was no proof that the unusual behaviour and sounds exhibited by Klein within the hours earlier than the assault indicated a psychological situation, however that does not imply they had been “intentionally feigned.”
