Neither Just Nor Honorable

On paper, the Honourable Mr. Justice David Henry Wright was ideally suited to conduct a fair and impartial inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the November 1990 death of Neil Stonechild, the task to which he was appointed in 2003. 

Wright graduated from the University of Saskatchewan (U of S) law school in 1955. The following year, he passed the Saskatchewan bar exam, and joined the firm of MacDermid & Co. Four years later, he was a senior partner. He was appointed a Justice of the Court of Queen’s Bench of Saskatchewan in 1981. He taught Civil Procedure and Ethics as a regular faculty member at the U of S College of Law in 1982.

Mr. Wright obviously must have known that “assuming facts not in evidence” is a valid objection in any court of law; yet he himself assumed facts for which there was no supporting evidence, and considerable negating evidence. Specifically, in order to discredit and justify his rejection of Bruce Genaille’s testimony, he invented a disturbance at a 7-Eleven convenience store on the night that Neil Stonechild died. There was no evidence of this disturbance; no 911 call was recorded, no police were dispatched to the convenience store, and no eyewitnesses to the alleged disturbance were called to testify. 

Major thesis

Under intense pressure from the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, and international scrutiny because of the Amnesty International reports, the government of Saskatchewan had a compelling interest in showing that Saskatoon police officers had been criminally responsible for Neil Stonechild’s death on the night of 24/25 November 1990. The evidence that Constables Hartwig and Senger had picked up Stonechild, driven him to a remote industrial park in the north end of the city, beaten him badly, and left him there to die, consisted entirely of the ten-year old recovered memory of Neil Stonechild’s drinking companion that night. Ten years had passed; Jason Roy was now a career criminal with a lengthy rap sheet, including armed robbery, kidnapping, home invasions – and FOUR convictions for lying to the police. Hartwig and Senger had encountered Roy at 11:56 pm, when they arrived at Snowberry Downs

Roy admitted that he had given Hartwig and Senger a false name – Tracy Lee Horse. That name does not even contain the letter “J”; yet Roy says that Stonechild was sitting in the back of the police cruiser, “gushing blood” from his face, with his hands cuffed behind him, and that Neil was screaming “Jay, Jay, they’re going to kill me.” Yet the Honourable Mr. Justice Wright never wondered why two trained police officers would completely ignore the fact that their prisoner was addressing “Tracy Lee Horse” as “Jay”.

There was no blood found on Neil Stonechild’s clothing; yet Mr. Wright never questioned how a man sitting down, with his hands cuffed behind him, and blood “gushing” from his face, could avoid getting blood on his clothing.

A few minutes after speaking with Jason Roy, aka “Tracy Lee Horse”, Constables Hartwig and Senger stopped and spoke to Neil’s cousin, Bruce Genaille – a gainfully employed construction worker who, unlike Jason Roy, was not wanted by the police. Genaille testified at the inquiry that they spent about ten minutes questioning him, before he convinced them he was not Neil Stonechild (to whom he had a strong family resemblance).  Genaille testified that there was nobody in the back of the cruiser when he spoke with Hartwig and Senger. Mr. Wright concluded – with absolutely no supporting evidence – that the encounter between Mr. Genaille and the two constables had actually taken place an hour earlier, and that the police officers had waited an hour before thinking to query “Bruce Genaille” on their vehicle-mounted computer terminal.

Mr. Wright concluded that there was a 27-minute gap, which Constables Hartwig and Senger could not account for, between the time they spoke with Jason Roy (11:56 pm) and the time they arrived at their next call, at 118 O’Regan Crescent (12:24 am).

There are two problems with this.

First of all, the 27-minute gap only exists because Wright chose to explain away the ten minutes that Hartwig and Senger spent talking to Bruce Genaille, by conveniently inventing a phantom disturbance call at the 7-11 convenience store at the corner of 33rd Street West and Confederation Drive – in legal terminology, “assuming facts not in evidence”.

Second, why would Hartwig and Senger be questioning Bruce Genaille about Neil Stonechild, half an hour before they were dispatched to look for him? What evidence did Wright have that they encountered and questioned Genaille at the 7-Eleven store between 11:18 and 11:51? It is true that Neil Stonechild was wanted for being unlawfully at large (UAL); but so was Wright’s star witness, Jason Roy; and the police weren’t driving around questioning random strangers about Jason Roy’s whereabouts, either. They were only looking for Neil Stonechild because at 11:49 pm, a man named Trent Ewart had called the police to complain about Stonechild being drunk and harassing him and his girlfriend at Ewart’s apartment in Snowberry Downs. Prior to that, they had no reason to question Bruce Genaille about Stonechild’s whereabouts.

Third, the Google Maps estimated driving time from Snowberry Downs to the field where Neil Stonechild’s body was later found is from 12 to 14 minutes. This would mean Hartwig and Senger spent:

• 12 minutes to drive Neil Stonechild through the centre of Saskatoon to the field between 57th and 58th Street;
• 3 minutes to drag Stonechild out of the car, halfway across a snow-covered field, leaving only one set of footprints and no drag marks, and beat him until he was dead, unconscious, or unable to move; and
• 12 minutes to drive back to O’Regan Crescent for their next call

all for the rather questionable thrill of throwing racial insults at, and murdering, a 17-year old boy who’d had too much to drink.

Other Testimony

Dr. Emma Lew: From the Wright report:

Dr. Emma Lew is a Forensic Pathologist attached to the Medical Examiner’s office of Dade County, Miami, Florida, and has held that position since 1992. She was born in Saskatoon and attended the University of Saskatchewan and served her internship at St. Paul’s Hospital. She completed her residency in anatomical pathology at the University of British Columbia and at the University of Saskatchewan and obtained a forensic pathology fellowship from the Dade County Medical Examiner’s office from 1991 to 1992. She is also an Assistant Clinical Professor of Pathology at the University of Miami School of Medicine. She has published a number of articles and lectured.

So Dr. Lew was not only extremely well-qualified; she was born, raised, and educated in Saskatoon and was familiar with the weather and temperatures that accompanied living in Saskatchewan. 

Commission Counsel had not intended to call Dr. Lew but was strongly urged to do so by Counsel for the Saskatoon Police Service and others.

Why would the Commission Council not want an expert with Dr. Lew’s impeccable credentials to testify? Why did the Council for the Saskatoon Police Service have to “strongly [urge]” the Commission Counsel to do so?

Wright was seemingly determined to prove that the parallel wounds on Neil Stonechild’s nose and face were caused by a pair of police handcuffs. Dr. Lew testified that it would be very difficult to inflict those wounds with a pair of police handcuffs:

Dr. Lew: Yes. The edges of the bracelet of a handcuff are relatively smooth. There is one area on the interlocking part of the handcuff where there are teeth. Those edges are jagged. However, the spacing between the abrasions on the nose and the spacing between the – the teeth on that particular portion of the handcuff are not the same. And if you were to look anywhere else on the pair of handcuffs, it is not possible for handcuffs to produce those linelike, fairly superficial but fairly thin and straight line-like scrapes.……An abrasion of this sort is made by a relatively sharp edge. The blunt edge of the metal bracelet will not cause an abrasion. Sure, the bracelet of a handcuff is very capable of causing other injuries, but those injuries would be more blunt-force type.

In other words, if you were struck with any other part of the handcuff except for those teeth, and struck with enough force, you would get a bruise, you could get a cut or what we call a laceration, which is a tear of the skin, and with enough force you can break the nose. But, as I said before, all other parts of the handcuff are smooth apart from these little teeth which are capable of causing the scrapes or abrasions.”

Lew testified that a fall into vegetation was more likely the cause of the nose injury.

Wright rejected Dr. Lew’s testimony, calling it “unreliable”. Instead, he relied entirely on the questionable testimony of Gary Robertson, whom Wright described as “one of the most controversial witnesses at the Inquiry.” Mr. Robertson obtained a “Cartography Technician (Photogrammetry) Diploma” from Algonquin College of Applied Arts and Technology in 1973. Mr. Robertson’s CV stated that “[from] 1976 to ’77 under government sponsorship [he had] attended Ottawa University to complete credits for certification in civil engineering.” Under cross-examination, Mr. Robertson admitted that he had not, in fact, completed any of those course. 

The inquiry later established that the set of handcuffs Robertson used for his measurements were a different brand from those issued to Saskatoon police officers, but Wright concluded – he never explained how or why – that this did not make a difference to Mr. Robertson’s findings.

Wright accepted Gary Robertson’s testimony, while rejecting that of Dr. Emma Lew and several other highly qualified experts:

Deputy Chief Wiks initially suggested that the purpose in contacting Dr. McGee was to

assist in understanding the report of Gary Robertson and, in particular, photogrammetry.

The minutes of the meetings of the Issues Team disclose that they were advised that

Dr. McGee knew nothing about photogrammetry. I am satisfied that the real purpose was

to obtain an opinion that the marks on Stonechild’s nose and right wrist were not caused

by handcuffs. They ultimately got such an opinion from Dr. Lew.

In short, one might reasonably conclude that the Honorable Mr. Justice David H. Wright rejected all and any exculpatory evidence, simply because it was exculpatory and for no other reason. 

This only scratches the surface. For a more detailed professional analysis of the Honorable Mr. Justice Wright’s “fact-finding” report, read Candis McLean’s “When Police Become Prey”.