The defense team has a lot of its chance to determine how the crown managed to shift a case into a preliminary hearing during a case. The saint john case is a manslaughter hearing.
The judge, justice Darrell Stephenson, dismissed the defense team’s application to have more further documents provided to explain the direct indictment.
In a very rare circumstance, the legal process sends the accused person straight into the trial phase without going through a preliminary stage under Canada’s criminal code. This kind of shift needs very extraordinary circumstances as well as the attorney general approval.
Defense lawyers Rodney Macdonald and Brian Munro, both residents of Rothesay when the incident happened, face a manslaughter charge due to their involvement in Mark Baker’s death, aged 59 years.
Police discovered Baker lying unconscious after he had sustained injuries. He was lying at the intersection of Union Street and Waterloo in Saint John in the hours of 2:30 am, on the 26th of October, 2019.
He was rushed to the hospital for treatment but succumbed to his injuries along the way.
For quite a while, Baker, who worked in the rail sector, is survived by a wife and two grown children.
He is remembered as a man who loved adventure, traveling, and riding his bike up the mountains.
The two were charged with manslaughter on the 29th of October and have been on conditional release since their bail case on the 31st of October, 2019.
In September of 2020, the date for a preliminary court session was set for January. However, the crown presented a motion for a direct indictment with the deputy attorney general signature on the 7th of January.
This implied that the two would proceed straight to trial. Their jury trial has been set for the 15th of November.
The defense will be back in court on the 28th of April to iron the underlying legal ussies before trial.