Crown calls on defence lawyers to look for possible police misconduct in past convictions involving charged WPS officers

Winnipeg defence lawyers are being asked to wade through “hundreds, if not thousands” of old case files looking for possible miscarriages of justice following the arrest of four city police officers on corruption charges.

Last month, Manitoba Prosecution Services sent letters to every defence lawyer who has represented a client whose conviction involved Winnipeg Police Service constables Elston Bostock, Vernon Strutinsky, Jonathan Kiazyk or Matthew Kadyniuk.

Bostock, a 22-year veteran of the police service, was first arrested last November and then re-arrested on more charges in August, along with the three co-accused officers.

The officers face a raft of charges, including breaking and entering, theft, drug trafficking, breach of trust and extortion.

“Out of an abundance of caution, you are receiving this letter because a conviction was entered on the above charge(s) and Officer Bostock had involvement in the incident’s file,” read one of the letters sent by Winnipeg trials director Jennifer Mann, a copy of which was reviewed by the Free Press.

The letter concludes with a list of the charges Bostock is facing. He is accused of conducting more than 80 drug deals while on and off duty over the course of nearly nine years, among many other allegations. He has also been accused of taking an intimate photo of a half-naked dead woman at a sudden-death call, then texting the picture to another officer.

Neither Mann nor Justice Minister Matt Wiebe could be reached for comment Thursday.

“Do a summary review to determine whether the conduct of the officer named in the letter may have committed misconduct and whether that misconduct would have reasonably resulted in a miscarriage of justice.”

The intent of the letter is made clear in a subsequent “Notice to the Profession” distributed by Legal Aid Manitoba.

“If you have received one of these letters, your duty as counsel requires that you do a summary review to determine whether the conduct of the officer named in the letter may have committed misconduct and whether that misconduct would have reasonably resulted in a miscarriage of justice,” reads the notice, adding Legal Aid Manitoba has not been provided funding to pay defence counsel for the work.

“If counsel concludes that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred based upon the facts of the case, LAM is of the view that this would constitute new evidence and is prepared to fund an appeal,” the notice says.

One lawyer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said his office alone received dozens of letters, each one representing an individual case involving one of the accused officers.

“Go to any of the (older law firms) you can just imagine how many letters they got,” the lawyer said, speculating Manitoba Prosecution Services sent out “hundreds, if not thousands” of the letters, all told.

“You have four officers whose conduct is at issue,” the lawyer said. “How many cases would they have touched, even if it’s peripheral?”

“How many cases would they have touched, even if it’s peripheral?”

The lawyer said it was unlikely that any review of their cases would result in an appeal, as most of the cases involved offences such as assault, domestic assault or impaired driving, where the honesty of the arresting officer was not a contested or relevant issue.

“In these kinds of cases, you might not even call the officer (to testify) most of the time,” the lawyer said. “If it was a case where the officer’s honesty was central to the conviction, I would remember it.”

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dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca

Dean Pritchard
Courts reporter

Dean Pritchard is courts reporter for the Free Press. He has covered the justice system since 1999, working for the Brandon Sun and Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in 2019. Read more about Dean.

Every piece of reporting Dean produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.