The trial against Steeve “L'Artiss” Charland could be jeopardized by a USB stick affair. The two parties will discuss on Thursday a request from the defense that aims to terminate the proceedings.
Steeve Charland's lawyer, Me Nicholas St-Pierre, made the request on Monday because he and his client had not analyzed certain elements of the evidence before the trial began. These items include a report on a Farfadaas meeting that took place on February 8, 2022 and was attended by an undercover police officer.
Mr St-Pierre and the Crown attorney, Mr François Dulude, initially assumed that only this three-page report had not been consulted by the defence.
But on Tuesday afternoon, the two lawyers discovered that there were actually 67 pages of unread documents.
These were part of a 378-page document stored on a USB stick and sent by the Crown in May 2022. However, Me Dulude had sent another USB stick containing a shorter version of the document a few months earlier.
Because the defense assumed it was a duplicate, it did not fully consult the updated version of the document.
To further complicate matters, police last week released an audio recording of the encounter with the Crown on February 8, 2022.
Is the fairness of the process compromised?
If the cause of the confusion was finally clarified after several hours of discussion on Tuesday, Steeve Charland's lawyer claims that not examining this evidence affects the fairness of the trial.
He also argues that the trial should be aborted due to the late release of the recording of the February 8, 2022 meeting.
Mr. Dulude said he was prepared to ignore the 67 pages of documentation that had not been consulted by the defense to prevent the trial from collapsing.
The latter initially wanted to attack Steeve Charland's credibility, but he believes he can do this with the help of other evidence.
Both sides will discuss the trial's abortion claim on Thursday.
Meanwhile, Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Pelletier plans to consult case law on similar cases.
Steeve Charland is accused of committing misdeeds during the trucker convoy and of inciting other people to commit misdeeds.
With information from Rémi Authier