A young Montrealer who was pinned in his vehicle with a firearm escaped with no consequences due to flaws in the justice system. It took a year for the weapon’s DNA testing to be conducted, allowing Corven’s Joachin Gabriel to benefit from a stay of trial under the Jordan decision.
Posted at 5:00 am
The 21-year-old man was picked up by Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) officers on June 2, 2021 for speeding. He was alone on board. A police officer then saw the butt of a firearm sticking out of a pocket in the back of the vehicle.
It was an old revolver model. There were five pieces of ammunition in the drum, but they were not of the same caliber as the gun. The handbag in which the revolver was hidden contained a bank card in a different name from the defendant.
Corvens Joachin Gabriel faced four charges including possession of a loaded restricted firearm without a license. He was conditionally released a few days after his appearance with an acknowledgment of several thousand dollars.
However, his trial will never take place as Judge Sonia Mastro Matteo announced on February 10 that the court case would be dismissed due to unreasonable delays. Delays in his trial had reached 20 months, while the Supreme Court’s Jordan ruling set the maximum delay at 18 months, barring exceptional circumstances.
Long waiting
For a year, the defense required getting DNA sample results from the firearm before setting a trial date. The defense wanted to know if the young man’s DNA was on the revolver. Most delays in Jordan are based on this expectation.
The Forensic Science Lab took forever to produce the results. Surprisingly, the police waited three and a half months after the gun was seized to send their sample request. Four months later, a report concluded that a genetic profile was present. However, a further five months were needed to match the suspect’s genetic profile. After all, the defendant’s DNA was not on the gun.
The prosecutor offered no explanation to justify these delays, leaving the judge’s many questions unanswered.
“At first glance, with no explanation for the delay or complexity in obtaining the analyses, a single observation stands out: the state does not show the zeal required for the culture change that forces all parties to take the initiative and to ensure that past practices no longer exist,” concluded Judge Sonia Mastro Matteo.
The judge recalled that the public prosecutor’s office has a duty to “expeditiously” (underlined in the judgment) fulfill its burden of proof, which is a quasi-constitutional right. The judge is reminding that the Jordan judgment was aimed precisely at eradicating this “culture of complacency”.
crown arguments
Crown Prosecutor Me Khalid Alguima argued that the defendant was responsible for the delays because he had “repeatedly” refused to set a trial date. According to prosecutors, having the DNA trace results was not necessary to fix the trial, as the defendant would have received them in time to seek a second opinion.
In addition, the possession of the weapon could also be proven without DNA traces, since the revolver was in the vehicle driven by the accused, the prosecutor argued.
Judge Mastro Matteo disagreed. This evidence is not of “secondary importance” in this case and could have “significant” implications. Knowing if his DNA was on the gun could make the defendant change his strategy, the judge analyses. Therefore, the defense’s surrender requests have a “legitimate aim,” she said. The study was also terminated immediately upon receipt of the results.
Me Anthony El-Haddad and Me Lory Zakarian defended Corven’s Joachin Gabriel.