The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal has denied the appeals of three convicted gang members’ first-degree murder convictions.
In 2018 Bronson Gordon, Daniel Theodore and Andrew Bellegarde were found guilty by a jury and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years for killing Reno Lee on April 17, 2015. Lee’s dismembered remains were found on Starblanket First Nation.
Justices Jeffery Kalmakoff, Robert Leurer, and Jerome Tholl handed down their 59-page decision Nov. 24. The appeal was heard in September 2020 in Regina and the justices had reserved their decision.
The murder of Lee in 2015
“The circumstances of his death were gruesome,” said Justice Kalmakoff on Nov. 24, 2020.
“Mr. Lee was kidnapped and held by armed men for several hours. His hands and feet were bound with duct tape and zip ties. He was shot twice in the head, at close range, with a small-caliber firearm. After that, a handsaw was used to decapitate and dismember his body. The body parts were transported and disposed of approximately an hour’s drive to the east of the city.”
Justice Kalmakoff said Lee was a drug dealer and that was how he met a young woman (J.R.) who lived in Regina and Alberta and was a member of the Alberta Warriors street gang. When she moved to Regina she became associated with the Saskatchewan Warriors, which had direct ties to the Alberta Warriors. She was also involved in drug trafficking and was addicted to crystal meth. She met Gordon through the Saskatchewan Warriors. Gordon enlisted J.R. to sell drugs for him and collect money from his debtors.
J.R. considered Bellegarde to be a close friend and knew him to be a member of the Indian Mafia, a street gang with close ties to the Saskatchewan Warriors, the court heard.
Lee had provided J.R. with quantities of drugs to sell. In April 2015, Lee asked J.R. to help him make a drug run from Calgary to Regina. She met him in Strathmore, Alta., and got about four kilograms of crystal methamphetamine. She brought the drugs back to Regina on April 16, 2015, and gave them back to Lee.
After the drug run, J.R. went to Gordon’s apartment and told him about Lee and his drug enterprise. Gordon proposed a “business meeting” with Lee to discuss an arrangement with their drug dealing operations. J.R. spoke to Lee and he agreed to meet with Gordon later that day.
On the evening of April 16, 2015, J.R. and Lee met Gordon at a restaurant in Regina. Gordon said he wanted to assess the quality of Lee’s product but didn’t want to in a public place. Gordon suggested they go to his apartment. Lee agreed.
Once at the apartment, Theodore suggested they discuss the drug deal in the bedroom so the women in the apartment wouldn’t overhear the conversation. Lee agreed.
J.D. and Bellegarde were waiting in the bedroom and Lee was assaulted and his cell phone was taken. Gordon instructed others to take Lee to a different house on Garnet Street.
Once there, Lee was forced into the basement. Lee’s wrists and ankles were bound with duct tape. Theodore and Bellegarde interrogated Lee about where he kept his drugs and money.
Lee was shot twice in the head at close range with a .22 calibre firearm. After Lee was shot, Bellegarde came up from the basement, handed the sawed-off .22 rifle to J.R. and told her to clean it. Theodore told her to wipe the shells clean. Then they all went to McDonalds to get something to eat.
Bellegarde and Theodore went back into the basement and cut up Lee’s body. They put his body parts into a hockey bag and loaded it into J.R.’s vehicle.
They stopped at a hardware store in Regina and bought shovels. Bellegarde, Theodore and J.R. then drove to Star Blanket First Nation and threw the saw used to dismember Lee into a slough. They dumped Lee’s remains. Bellegarde and Theodore changed their clothes and threw out what they were wearing.
They went back to Regina and told J.R. to clean the vehicle at a carwash. They went to Gordon’s apartment and Gordon gave Bellegarde a television and about $200 in cash.
During the 2018 trial, Crown prosecutor W. Dean Sinclair said they all participated in Gordon’s plan to rob and kill Lee. After the five-week trial the jury found Bellegarde, Theodore and Gordon guilty of first-degree murder. Theodore and Bellegarde were also found guilty of offering an indignity to Lee’s remains.
The appeals
Bellegarde, Theodore and Gordon were tried jointly but each filed an appeal separately, raising different grounds for an appeal.
Theodore’s lawyer Chris Murphy argued Theodore didn’t receive a fair trial because the trial judge failed to ensure jurors were properly screened for racial bias and failed to properly instruct jurors on the need to set aside biases, prejudices and stereotypical views about Indigenous persons.
Lawyers Brian Pfefferle, Lauren Scharfstein and Christopher Funtfor Bellegarde and Gordon, argued that the trial judge’s final instructions to the jury were cumbersome and confusing, failed to properly explain certain aspects of the law, and wasn’t adequate.
Bellegarde’s lawyer also argued that the trial judge erred by permitting a key witness for the Crown to testify from a remote location, rather than requiring she be present in the courtroom.
Theodore’s appeal
Theodore’s appeal focused on the issue of racial bias. His lawyer maintained there was reason to believe the jurors were biased against held stereotypical beliefs about Indigenous persons and their involvement in crimes. Theodore is Caucasian. Bellegarde and Gordon are Indigenous, as was Lee, the victim.
Theodore’s lawyer argued that the trial judge erred by not questioning prospective jurors about racial bias during jury selection. He also argued that the trial judge’s failure to address racial bias violated his right to a fair trial by an impartial jury. He argued that these “irregularities” in the trial combined formed a miscarriage of justice.
Theodore’s lawyer asserted that racism is so widespread and pervasive in Saskatchewan that there existed an ‘air of reality’ that jurors would be biased against his co-accused because they are Indigenous.
He said this, coupled with the nature and circumstances of the crimes he was accused – a gruesome killing connected to a drug enterprise involving members of an Indigenous street gang – required that appropriate steps be taken to ensure that matters of race didn’t play a role in the outcome of the trial.
During the trial the Crown’s theory was that Gordon was a drug supplier for the Indian Mafia and Bellegarde earned his “patch” with the gang through his participation in the murder of Lee.
Justice Kalmakoff said the trial judge informed prospective jurors they must be impartial and approach the trial with an open mind without preconceived ideas.
One juror was excused because her cousin was beaten, abducted and robbed by an Indigenous person and she didn’t feel she could be unbiased. Another juror was excused because her husband’s job involved working with various First Nations, including Star Blanket First Nation, and through her husband’s work, she had met members of Bellegarde’s family.
Justice Kalmakoff said he wasn’t persuaded there were any irregularities in the trial and Theodore’s rights weren’t violated.
Justice Kalmakoff rejected the argument that the trial judge erred by not questioning potential jurors about racial bias.
He also rejected the lawyer’s argument that the trial judge failed to address racial bias in jury instruction, thus violating Theodore’s rights under the Charter.
“Even accepting for the sake of argument the premise that wide-spread prejudice against Indigenous persons exists in Saskatchewan, there is no basis to conclude that Mr. Theodore’s …rights were violated,” said Justice Kalmakoff.
Justice Kalmakoff said the trial judge’s opening instructions to the jury included an admonition to decide the case only on the evidence and “not be influenced by sympathy or prejudice for or against any person.”
They also included instruction regarding bad conduct evidence, advising jurors they would hear evidence about Theodore, Bellegarde and Gordon using drugs, selling drugs, being involved with or associated with gangs and weapons, and being in jail.
Bellegarde’s appeal
During the appeal hearing in September Bellegarde’s lawyer argued the trial judge erred by permitting a key Crown witness to testify remotely thus not allowing him to confront his accuser during cross-examination. He asserted that the personal presence of witnesses is of particular importance in a jury trial so jurors could observe demeanour and assess credibility.
Justice Kalmakoff said the Criminal Code has provisions relating to witness accommodation and that Parliament recognized in certain circumstances witnesses can testify remotely.
He said considering J.R.’s relationship to the three appellants, her role in the events, the testimony she gave against them, and the reasons for her fears and concern for her safety, testifying remotely was justified.
“In general terms, she said that because of the nature of her association to the three accused, which stemmed from their mutual involvement in the world of gangs and drug trafficking, she feared being subjected to intimidation and violent reprisal if she were required to attend court to give her evidence in person,” said Justice Kalmakoff.
Bellegarde’s lawyer also argued that the trial judge’s instructions to the jury were inadequate.
Justice Kalmakoff said he wasn’t persuaded the instructions were inadequate.
Gordon’s appeal
The lawyer for Gordon argued that the trial judge didn’t sufficiently relay evidence and was unbalanced and erroneous in regards to cell phone metadata evidence.
Justice Kalmakoff said he rejected that argument.
In addition, Gordon’s lawyer argued that the trial judge didn’t properly instruct the jury that they could find Gordon guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter instead of first-degree murder.
Justice Kalmakoff, however, said if the jurors weren’t satisfied that Gordon was involved in anything more than unlawful confinement they were required to acquit him.
