No aboriginal people in jury pool delays fatal LRT beating trial

Concerns over a lack of aboriginal people called for jury duty has postponed the trial of a man accused in a fatal beating on Edmontons LRT in late 2012.

Jeremy Lyle Newborn, a man of aboriginal descent, is charged with second-degree murder in the death of John Hollar, 29.

Hollar was badly beaten in a mid-afternoon attack as the train travelled between the Coliseum and Clareview stations on Dec. 28, 2012. He died in hospital two days later.

• Judge dismisses Alta. jury-selection case

Newborns trial was supposed to startin Edmonton Court of Queens Bench on Monday. Instead, his lawyer, Simon Renouf made an application challenging the way the jury pool was brought together last Thursday.

According to Renoufs notice of motion, 186 people were called for jury selection.

At Renoufs request, Newborns mother Delores Sanderson walked among the potential jurors waiting on the third floor of the courthouse. She determined that not one of them was aboriginal.

Given that about 60,000 people or six per cent of Edmonton residents are of aboriginal descent, Renouf contends that it is almost statistically impossible for a randomly selected group of people not to contain a single aboriginal person.

Renouf said the odds of this happening are about one in 250,000. The lack of diversity in last weeks pool of potential jurors suggests to him that there is a systemic problem.

The case has now been put over to Oct. 22.

In 2010, Edmonton lawyer Tom Engel raised similar issues in the case of an aboriginal man accused of committing offences against a police officer who was trying to arrest him.

Engel argued that Edmonton jury trials violate the rights of aboriginal people by leaving First Nations reserves out of the pool of possible jurors.

The judge in the case ruled that the jury selection process was fair and that aboriginal people were not systematically excluded. The charges against Engels client were eventually stayed.