The judge handling an application to stay proceedings against a Prince George RCMP officer convicted of obstruction of justice warned lawyers on Nov. 25 to keep the case on schedule.
Judge Adrian Brooks found Const. Arthur Dalman guilty last July of directing a witness to delete a smartphone video recording on the night of the violent July 18, 2017 arrest of Dale Culver. The 35-year-old Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en man died in Prince George RCMP custody.
Dalman’s sentencing was delayed indefinitely when his lawyers applied in August for the stay of proceedings. They claim their client’s constitutional rights to a timely and fair trial were violated. The court is scheduled to hear Dalman’s application between April 28 and May 2, 2025.
“It's very important that the administration of justice, and specifically this court, does its business in a timely way, or it just loses the respect to the community,” Brooks said in Prince George Provincial Court. “That is a concern that I truly have, and that impacts my view that we really have to go, we have to get everything done. I don't care what it takes.”
The judge said he would not view favourably an application to adjourn the start of the April hearing. He gave the warning as Dalman’s lawyers asked for a so-called LaPorte List, a court term for an inventory of evidence, as they took issue with the Crown withholding some evidence as privileged information.
“I share the court's concern for those April dates as effectively being fixed,” said Dalman’s lawyer, Danielle Ching McNamee. “Certainly, from Const. Dalman’s perspective, that would not be in his legal best interest to seek any adjournment.”
McNamee told Brooks that the LaPorte List would be useful in the disclosure process to gauge the accuracy of items the Crown categorizes as privileged or irrelevant. For instance, McNamee said at least five or six email messages out of the 72 items disclosed last week contained redactions of lines or paragraphs.
Prosecutor Anthony Chang said that the Crown has so far disclosed 243 gigabytes of data including 9,385 documents and 326 folders and that the two sides have been “collegial and working together up to this point in a good fashion.”
“At the end of the day, the Crown submission here is that the LaPorte List seems like a practical solution in order to try to forward this particular case,” Chang said.
Brooks said the Crown would “go as far as they can without piercing that privilege that is in existence and providing information to the defence, and the defence will then assess what they can do and what is their next step that they need to take. All of which will have to be done quickly.”
Chang suggested they convene a pretrial conference, but Brooks said it would have to take place prior to Jan. 9, when he is scheduled to be out of country until mid-February.
In 2020, Independent Investigations Office of BC chief civilian director Ronald MacDonald found reasonable grounds to believe that two officers committed excessive force offences against Culver and three others committed obstruction of justice.
B.C. Prosecution Service announced charges in 2023. But, earlier this year, it stayed manslaughter charges against Const. Paul Ste-Marie and Const. Jean Francois Monette and an obstruction of justice charge against Const. Clarence Alexander MacDonald.
The only other officer charged, Sgt. Bayani (Jon) Eusebio Cruz, was tried at the same time as Dalman and found not guilty of obstruction of justice.
