All drug and gun charges against a man found guilty last March were stayed Wednesday, Feb. 12 when a provincial court judge in Prince George decided the case exceeded the Supreme Court of Canada-mandated time limit.
Mitchell Ryan Wayne Lamothe, 31, was originally charged June 24, 2020 with five counts of possession for the purpose of trafficking and one count of careless use or storage of a firearm. His trial ended 1,301 days later, on Jan. 15, 2024.
“The Jordan timeline for this case in provincial court is 18 months or 547 days. This case is 754 days over that time limit,” said Judge Martin Nadon.
Nadon was referring to the Supreme Court of Canada precedent set in the case of Barrett Richard Jordan, a B.C. man accused of drug trafficking in 2008. Jordan’s lawyers successfully argued their client’s right to a timely trial was violated. In 2016, the high court set 18 months as the “presumptive ceiling” for a provincial court case. A delay attributable to or waived by the defence does not count towards the time limit.
Prince George RCMP arrested Lamothe and two others after search warrants on June 27, 2019 led to seizure of three shotguns, cash and a total 1 kilogram of cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin-fentanyl.
In his ruling, Nadon listed the numerous types of delays that affected this file: “Applications during the trial requiring rulings for the next step, intervening events such as limited availability of defence counsel, especially on short notice, unavailability of witnesses, other trial pressures on a busy court, days cancelled by the court once the matter is underway, defence adjournments, sickness of counsel and a woefully inadequate time estimate requiring ongoing adjustments to the calendars of Crown, defence and the court.”
In addition, Nadon noted the matter lagged because it had to compete with others in a pandemic-related scheduling backlog.
“The above categories are not water-tight silos,” he said. “Each factor leaked into and affected the next.”
Nadon blamed the Crown for 492 days of the delay, leaving 754 days at issue.
“However, I cannot attribute 709 days solely to defence delay and extraordinary events to remain under Jordan ceiling. The approach must be more nuanced than that.”
Nadon said that, on four occasions, the court caused delays. In October 2021, the court cancelled two days and gave priority to another case. Similarly, days were cancelled by the court in June and August 2022.
“I will not parse each and every appearance. While I am of the view that the delay after the first dates lies primarily at the feet of defence for the reasons said above, it still exceeds the Jordan timeline, primarily because the initial 492 days lies at the feet of the Crown. After that time, there was very little room to manoeuvre,” Nadon said.
“For those reasons, I direct a stay of proceedings.”
