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A Windsor judge on Monday ordered news media not to report on evidence presented at a murder trial connected to the fatal street stabbing of a young Windsor man nearly four years ago.
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Superior Court Justice Kirk Munroe agreed with the lawyer of a co-accused that news coverage could “prejudice” jurors selected for a future trial.
Mustafa Al-Qaysi and a young man who cannot be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act were each charged with first-degree murder in the Oct. 19, 2019, stabbing death of Justin Greenwood, 20.
The judge-alone trial of Al-Qaysi, who was 19 at the time of the attack along a stretch of Tecumseh Road West just east of McKay Avenue, began Monday. His co-accused faces a jury trial on an unspecified future date, but likely not before late 2024.
A Toronto law firm acting for the youth filed a publication ban application with the Superior Court of Justice, asking that the judge presiding over the Al-Qaysi trial prohibit any reporting of the evidence presented in the current courtroom proceedings until after conclusion of the youth’s trial. It argued the restriction was necessary to protect the rights of the co-accused to a fair trial.
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The application went further, however, seeking to have the court bar any news stories on the case and even to prevent any reporting on the actual publication ban hearing that took place Monday morning ahead of the start of the Al-Qaysi trial.
The Windsor Star and CTV News Windsor made courtroom presentations against the proposed ban, including pointing out the youth’s name cannot be reported in any event due to existing provisions under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
In an email submitted ahead of Monday’s hearing and read out in court by the judge, the Star argued the newspaper was “obviously opposed to this application and any restrictions on reporting what takes place publicly in open court.”
Assistant Crown Attorney Jennifer Holmes advised the court that “roughly the same” evidence will be presented by the prosecution in both trials.
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Sean Biesbroek, a lawyer with Bains Partners LLP and representing the youth also charged with murder, argued that reporting the evidence presented in the current trial could “taint” the evidence to be presented to jurors in the future and lead to prejudice against his client.
In his decision, Munroe said it’s “highly valued” to have open courts dealing transparently with matters in the public interest, but he cited previous court decisions supporting partial and temporary publication bans in similar cases. Reporting publicly on evidence to be used in a future trial before jurors represented a “serious risk to the proper administration of justice,” he added.
The judge said he had to balance the public’s right to know and the work of “a free press in an open society” with the rights of an accused to a fair trial.
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But Munroe said information in previously reported news stories did not pose any undue risk and would be excluded from the ban.
As previously reported by the Star, Greenwood was walking along a sidewalk with another person in mid-afternoon when, according to police, two males attacked and the alleged assailants were then driven away by a third suspect.
Police reported Greenwood was discovered on the sidewalk next to a bicycle. A witness told the Star that a nurse in a passing vehicle had stopped to render assistance.
Greenwood, a father of two young daughters, one of them just seven months old, was rushed to hospital but succumbed to a stab wound.
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The Windsor Police Service’s major crimes branch described the incident at the time as “not random in nature.” Al-Qaysi was quickly apprehended, and two more arrests soon followed.
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Police charged three males. The alleged driver of the vehicle was criminally charged with being an accessory to murder after the fact, but a Crown source said that charge was eventually withdrawn.
The Al-Qaysi trial continues this week and remains open to the public.
In his ruling, Justice Munroe said that news media could report on the publication ban that was sought, the hearing held Monday and his decision on the matter.
In response to earlier questioning by the judge, Biesbroek said that was “a fair point” — because the public would have to be made aware of any publication ban.
dschmidt@postmedia.com
twitter.com/schmidtcity
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