Canadian Lawyer

12 A P R I L 2 0 1 7 w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m \ AT L A N T I C \ C E N T R A L \ P R A I R I E S \ W E S T REGIONAL WRAP-UP C riminal lawyers across Canada on April 13 will be eyeing with interest the sentence handed down in Cranbrook Supreme Court of B.C. to the Bountiful, B.C. couple found guilty of transporting a 13-year-old female across the Cana- da-U.S. border to wed into a religious polygamy sect as it is the first convic- tion of its kind in Canada. On Feb. 3, Justice Paul Pearlman found that Brandon James Blackmore and his former wife Emily Ruth Gail Blackmore, members of the Funda- mentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, had taken the girl in 2004 from B.C. into the U.S. for sexual purposes in contravention of s. 273.3 of the Canadian Criminal Code. The 13-year-old was the intended child bride of Warren Jeffs, then 48, the president and prophet of the FLDS. Jeffs was arrested and convicted in 2011 for sexual assault on child brides as young as 12 and is currently serving life and 20 years in a U.S. jail. Brandon Blackmore is one of the sons of Winston Blackmore, a prominent leader in Bountiful's polyga- mous community with 24 wives and 132 children, until he was excommunicated from the FLDS and started his own reli- gious sect. Brandon Blackmore remained with the Bountiful FLDS group still headed by Jeffs. Under that section of the Criminal Code, the Crown has the option of pro- ceeding via a summary or indictable offence. "The Crown is proceeding by way of indictable offence," says Dan McLaugh- lin, communications counsel for the B.C. criminal justice branch. The maximum penalty is a five-year jail term, he says, adding that Peter Wilson is the Crown's special prosecutor assigned to the case. Wilson, who assembled the case and won a conviction using FLDS wedding records seized by Texas Rangers when they raided Jeffs's ranch, confirmed that he would speak to sentencing in Cranbrook. Wilson says he could not comment further other than to say that Micah Rankin, who will be assisting Wilson during the trial, would also be present in court at sentencing. Wilson is no stranger to high-profile or tough cases; he is a veteran Vancou- ver criminal lawyer who defended Kelly Ellard at her last trial in the drowning death of Reena Virk, Allan Schoenborn, who killed his three children, and RCMP Const. Bill Bentley, who was found not guilty of perjury at the inquiry into Rob- ert Dziekański's taser death at the Van- couver International Airport. Rankin practises in Kamloops, B.C., but he is also a founding law faculty member at Thompson Rivers University where he teaches criminal law. He was in the Supreme Court of Canada in 2015 arguing whether judges had to accept plea bargains. Rankin is the grandson of late Vancouver criminal lawyer Harry Rankin, who helped forge B.C.'s legal aid system, and son of trial lawyer Phil Rankin, who has been an outspoken advocate against legal aid cuts in B.C. Victoria, B.C. criminal lawyer John Gustafson defended Brandon Blackmore, while Gail Blackmore and a third person, James Marion Oler, who was acquitted, were both self-represented at trial. They had the services of amicus curiae Joseph Doyle. A Vancouver lawyer, Doyle has served as special prosecutor in the past and handled high-profile cases such as representing one of the individuals charged and implicated in the B.C. Rail sale scandal ensuing from a raid on the B.C. Legislature by the RCMP. Both Gustafson, as defence, and the Wilson-Rankin team, as prosecution, faced unchartered terrain in putting together their case as no previous case law or precedents existed under s. 273.3 of the Criminal Code. Gustafson, who will be in Cranbrook to speak for Brandon Blackmore on sentencing, says he realized going into the defence that this was a first-time case and there would be difficulties. But that didn't give him pause in taking the case. "You just do what you can and work with what you have got," he says, adding that legal research and thinking outside the box played a strong role in forging a defence. "It was a challenge," he concedes. Kevin Marks, president of the B.C. B.C. bar awaiting sentencing of Bountiful couple in religious polygamy sect Winston Blackmore in Bountiful, B.C. in 2009. His son Brandon Blackmore was found guilty of transporting a girl to be wed into a religious polygamy sect and will be sentenced in April.

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