Crown gives closing arguments in Kelvin stabbing case

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This article was published 07/11/2017 (2909 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Crown attorneys prosecuting a second-degree murder case against a 20-year-old man accused of fatally stabbing a former Kelvin High School student during a lunch-hour fight have urged jurors to disbelieve the accused’s court testimony.

In her closing address to the jury Tuesday, Crown attorney Erika Dolcetti suggested the version of events the accused recounted on the witness stand — in which he said he rushed in and stabbed 17-year-old Brett Bourne because he was scared Bourne would kill one of his friends — was just one of the stories he’s told since his arrest.

“He is untrustworthy, and we can see that from the many times he was dishonest to the authorities,” she said.

The now-20-year-old was 17 at the time of the stabbing and can’t be identified under a publication ban.

He pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder, arguing he didn’t intend to kill Bourne and had the knife for self-defence because he feared for his friend’s life after Bourne started a fight with another 17-year-old boy outside Kelvin High School on June 2, 2015.

The other teen had been dating Bourne’s ex-girlfriend but, unbeknownst to Bourne, they’d broken up about a week earlier.

After hearing evidence from former students, teachers, Winnipeg police and friends of the victim and the accused, jurors learned Bourne had been cycling by the Crescentwood-area school over the noon hour that day, when he spotted the other boy and tried to start a fight before chasing him into the school.

During the fight, Bourne was stabbed in the torso and died of a wound that damaged his heart, court heard.

Defence lawyer Greg Brodsky encouraged jurors to listen to each other and not to jump to conclusions before reaching a verdict.

“I also want to emphasize to you that what you will be doing in that jury room is something that (the accused) didn’t have a chance to do — that is to consult, to evaluate. His was a split-second decision,” Brodsky said.

“He had to respond to what was going on before him. The issue will be, for you, not did he make the correct choice, but was the choice that he made reasonable in the circumstances?” he said. “You have to decide whether it was intentional or reflexive, the action. He did what was necessary in order to protect his friend.”

Dolcetti told the jury the Crown agrees the victim made a “bad decision” when he decided to fight his former friend, the 17-year-old whom he thought had stolen his girlfriend.

“We concede that Brett was the aggressor that day, that Brett should’ve just kept on riding his bike to Cabela’s on June the 2nd of 2015,” she said. “Brett may have deserved a criminal charge of assault for going on school property that day, but he did not deserve to die for that bad choice.”

The accused testified he went to a friend’s car to get a knife when he saw Bourne threatening the other 17-year-old. He said “everybody knew” Bourne carried weapons, so he offered the knife to his friend for his protection, but the other boy didn’t take it.

The accused said he pulled out the folding knife when he saw Bourne reaching into his pocket and trying to “smash” his friend’s head during the fight.

“The only person who sees Brett reach for something is the accused. The person who’s lied again and again to try and justify his actions. We say it was not reasonable for the accused to stab Brett because of a schoolyard fight,” Dolcetti said.

“There were so many other options.”

The jury is set to receive legal instructions from Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Brenda Keyser before it begins its deliberations on Thursday.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay