Distinguished Visitors Lecture Series: Kent Roach - Canadian Justice, Indigenous Injustice

Moot Courtroom - Robson Hall Faculty of Law, University of Manitoba, Dysart Road, Winnipeg, MB
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Kent Roach will be speaking as part of the Distingished Visitors Lecture Series on his new book, Canadian Justice, Indigenous Injustice: The Gerald Stanley and Colten Boushie Case. The Distinguished Visitors Lecture Series is sponsored by the Manitoba Law Students' Association and the Faculty of Law, University of Manitoba.

ABOUT THE BOOK

In Canadian Justice, Indigenous Injustice Kent Roach critically reconstructs the Gerald Stanley/Colten Boushie case to examine how it may be a miscarriage of justice. Roach provides historical, legal, political, and sociological background to the case. Drawing on both trial transcripts and research on miscarriages of justice, Roach looks at jury selection, the controversial “hang fire” defence, how the credibility and beliefs of Indigenous witnesses were challenged on the stand, and Gerald Stanley's implicit appeals to self-defence and defence of property, as well as the decision not to appeal the acquittal. Concluding his study, Roach asks whether Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's controversial call to “do better” is possible, given similar cases since Stanley's, the difficulty of reforming the jury or the RCMP, and the combination of Indigenous underrepresentation on juries and overrepresentation among those victimized and accused of crimes.

Kent Roach, CM, FRSC, is the Prichard-Wilson Chair in Law and Public Policy at the University of Toronto and the author of numerous books on Canadian criminal justice.