Windsor judge lifts publication ban in murder trial

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A Windsor judge has sided with the news media in ruling against an application to prevent any reporting on a murder trial currently underway in the downtown.

Superior Court Justice Brian Dube, in a written ruling released Monday, said there was “relatively strong community interest” in the current second-degree murder trial of Frederick Leon. Covering the trial, he said, does not jeopardize the rights of co-accused Prince Charles at his own future murder trial.

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“Reasonably alternative measures are in place to ensure that Charles receives a fair trial by an impartial and unbiased jury,” Dube said in his 10-page decision.

“It’s always heartening when a judge doesn’t take the safest and easiest approach,” Toronto media lawyer Iain MacKinnon told the Windsor Star.

“I always consider it a big deal when judges do the right thing … and rule in support of freedom of expression.”

At a hearing last week that followed Charles’s counsel obtaining a temporary reporting ban at the May 13 start of Leon’s trial before 12 jurors, MacKinnon was hired by the Windsor Star, CBC and CTV to argue against it.

“It’s a very high bar to obtain a publication ban in such circumstances,” MacKinnon told the Star after Dube’s decision on Monday.

A year ago, another Windsor judge ruled against the media, imposing a ban on reporting details presented in a different murder trial pending the 2025 trial of a co-accused who can’t be named in any event due to his youth.

But Dube, who is presiding over the Leon trial, cited another Windsor judge in deciding against keeping his trial off-limits to the media and public.

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In the lead-up to last year’s first-degree murder trial in Windsor of a London man charged with killing a Muslim family, Justice Renee Pomerance ruled that “Canadian criminal trials must be subject to public scrutiny. Trials must not be secret affairs.

“The accused has the right to a fair trial, and the public has a right to see that promise is fulfilled” — and that comes with the public getting to see and hear the evidence put before the jury.

With competing Charter interests at stake — the accused’s right to a fair trial vs. the media’s right to report on it and inform the public — Dube cited yet another judge’s decision, that openly reporting on court proceedings “is so strong and highly valued in our society that the judge must have a convincing evidentiary basis for issuing a ban.”

The defence for Charles argued that much of the prosecution’s evidence and the Crown’s list of witnesses will be largely the same in both trials.

Dube ruled, however, that the defence for Charles — whose jury trial isn’t expected until fall 2025 — fell “far short” of providing convincing evidence. At last week’s hearing, Charles’s Toronto lawyer, Devin Bains, said the defence would consider applying to have his trial moved to a different city if the temporary publication ban wasn’t extended.

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In his ruling this week, Dube said he has “strong confidence” in “proven legal processes that are designed to safeguard the rights of an accused to have a fair and impartial trial by jury.”

Typical of jury trials in Windsor and elsewhere, prospective jurors are vetted based on their ability to filter out biases, and they’re instructed by the judge to ignore any outside influences, including the opinions of others and previous or ongoing news media coverage.

Leon and Charles were each charged with murder in the death of Jovan Burgher, 30, who was discovered with life-threatening injuries at a home in the 500 block of McEwan Avenue in Windsor on May 18, 2021. He died three days later.

Leon was 26 at the time and Charles was 25, and all three men were from the Toronto area.

According to assistant Crown attorney Iain Skelton’s opening statement for the Leon trial, which can now be reported, the prosecution alleges Burgher was visiting a Windsor couple when Leon and Charles arrived and there was a confrontation inside the home.

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Burgher and Leon “grappled” and the former pulled a handgun from his waistband and a shot went off. Everyone fled outside. Witnesses then saw what the Crown alleges was a struggle in a walkway between homes, with Leon, according to witnesses, striking Burgher repeatedly with what appeared to be a firearm.

When police arrived, Burgher was conscious but covered in blood from multiple cuts and lacerations, and he lost his heartbeat while being transported by ambulance. His heart was restarted at hospital but he never regained consciousness and died days later.

dschmidt@postmedia.com

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