Calling it “crazy” that lawyers for four admitted killers wanted to set a one-day sentencing hearing for next spring, a Calgary judge on Tuesday sent them looking for an earlier date.
Justice Sean Dunnigan said he would be more than willing to hear sentencing arguments sooner than the proposed date of March 21, 2025, more than two years after four Drumheller Institution inmates pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
The four, Tyrell Runningrabbit, Stuart Fox, Vincent Cardinal and Thomas Abraham, pleaded guilty on March 13, 2023, to the reduced charge in connection with the Feb. 21, 2022, beating death of fellow inmate David James Klassen.
They’d each been charged with first-degree murder.
Defence lawyer Allan Fay, who represents Runningrabbit, said the long delay was as a result of the lawyer for Cardinal, Shawn King, not being available in the interim.
“Mr. King was not available until then,” Fay said of the Edmonton lawyer, who was not present in court and had another counsel act as his agent.
He said the sentence his client was serving at the time of Klassen’s killing concluded last month, while Abraham, who is represented by lawyer Matt Browne, finished his sentence last October.
Crown prosecutor Heather Morris indicated she was not happy to have to adjourn the sentencing hearing that far down the road. It was supposed to proceed before Dunnigan on Tuesday, but the judge was stuck in another trial.
“This is crazy,” Dunnigan said of the long delay.
Both Browne and defence counsel James McLeod, who along with Balfour Der act for Fox, indicated they were available much earlier.
Dunnigan said a new date would have to be found and if King can’t be available “the accused can get other counsel if he has to.”
According to a statement of agreed facts read in by Morris, when the four men pleaded guilty last year the offenders and Klassen were on the same unit at the federal institution about 130 kilometres northeast of Calgary.
Closed-circuit TV footage from the jail showed the group gathering in the hallway of Klassen’s range at 12:19 p.m. on Feb. 21, 2022.
Two minutes later Abraham prevented Klassen from exiting his cell, pushing him inside before being followed by Fox, Runningrabbit and Cardinal.
“The door is closed from the inside,” Morris told Dunnigan.
During the next 16 minutes all four are seen leaving and returning to the cell on multiple occasions and at 12:55 p.m. more than a half hour after they first entered, staff find Klassen “unresponsive and not breathing.”
“Runningrabbit, Fox, Cardinal and Abraham admit they acted as joint principals by participating in a group assault of Klassen … by hitting, kicking and stomping Klassen in the head and body, thereby causing his death,” Morris said.
The agreed facts did not disclose a motive for the attack.
The case is back in court next week to set a new sentencing date.