Prince Albert Court of Queen’s Bench. Photo by Chelsea Laskowski.
Jurors in a Prince Albert murder trial received their final instructions before heading into deliberations on Tuesday.
Jordan Herron and Orren Johnson are on the stand, accused of killing Clayton James Bear. He was 17 years old at the time of his death in April of 2014.
Queen’s Bench Justice J.D. Kalmakoff provided a lengthy jury charge, taking several hours to explain to jurors that they are the “judges of fact,” and to guide them through the elements necessary for a finding of guilt for Herron and/or Johnson.
Credibility and reliability was a large issue at trial, with a number of witnesses providing inconsistent evidence.
Kalmakoff provided a number of warnings specific to this case.
He told jurors it is “dangerous” to rely solely on evidence from witness Miranda Soderberg, Herron’s then-girlfriend. Her three previous sworn statements to police “varied considerably,” Kalmakoff said, and while on the stand Soderberg admitted she had lied to police.
Kalmakoff urged jurors to use the “greatest care and caution” and to consider whether other evidence supports what Soderberg said before relying on her evidence.
He made no ruling on the credibility of witnesses, saying it’s up to jurors to make the assessment of whether they accept some or all of the evidence provided by each witness.
Kalmakoff told jurors that eyewitness testimony is an important issue in this case, because it is not always reliable and has resulted in wrongful convictions in past criminal cases.
Two witnesses who spent much of the night with Johnson and Herron have placed them at the scene of the Prince Albert house party where Bear died.
The credibility of those witnesses – Danielle Josie and Soderberg – was called into question multiple times throughout the trial. Both women were intoxicated at the time.
Three people who witnesses say were present around the time Bear was shot did not take the stand at trial. Those three people – Derek Laliberte, Scott Dzik, and Chanese Umpherville – were mentioned so much by defence that Kalmakoff said he needed to address them. He said two of those people were subpoena’d and failed to attend court, and one was not.
It is unknown how long deliberations will take.
MBC’s story on the trial’s closing arguments can be accessed here.