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Numerous criticisms have been levied at the all-white jury verdict in the Stanley case. Some have advocated limiting an accused’s right to peremptory challenges in jury selection. These objections are short-sighted. All accused have a limited right to dismiss potential jurors. As criminal defence lawyer Sean Robichaud explained to Canadian Lawyer magazine after the verdict, Indigenous people are over-represented as accused persons in the criminal justice system, and curbing peremptory challenges to ensure that juries represent victims would prejudice their interests.

There is an old saying that at any trial there are four versions of the truth: what the prosecution says, what the accused says, what the jury finds, and what actually happened. I have no idea what transpired at that farm in Saskatchewan. But Windsor’s law professors seem to know — an impressive feat, since they were neither at the scene nor in the courtroom to hear the evidence. Due process exists, in part, to protect us all from the self-righteousness of mobs.

One might expect Justin Trudeau and his ministers to jump on ideological bandwagons, but it is telling when law schools want to ride along too. Windsor’s says that “the law’s response to Coulton Boushie’s death is tragic, unnecessary and unacceptable.” Boushie’s death was indeed tragic and unnecessary, but the law’s response was not. Even the lawyer for Boushie’s family, Chris Murphy, said that “based on the evidence, the submissions made and the charges that the judge gave to the jury, a route of acquittal was a possibility.”