Crown disputes testimony as defence seeks to toss jury in Skibicki murder trial

Crown prosecutors are pushing back on a motion from the defence to toss out the jury in the trial of a Winnipeg man accused of murdering four women.

The defence is asking that the case of Jeremy Skibicki be heard by a judge alone and not by a jury.

His lawyers are raising concerns about the possible effects of pre-trial publicity on the jury, which was selected last week.

They have brought in a U.S.-based psychologist Christine Ruva to hear her views about the possible effects of pre-trial publicity on juror biases.

She testified that a juror who has been exposed to media coverage before the trial, carries biases, consciously or unconsciously and could taint the rest of a jury pool, according to research.

She also said that it is “nearly impossible” for a juror that has been exposed to pre-trial media coverage to be completely unbiased, despite instruction from a judge on how a juror has to arrive at a verdict.

Some jurors selected for the Sckibicki case indicated during jury selection that they had either heard about the case or the landfill protests.

About 90 per cent of respondents to the poll the defence commissioned said that they heard about “the Winnipeg man charged with the deaths of four Indigenous women some whose remains are believed to be in a local landfill.”

The crown argued that Ruva’s expertise is on American jury trails and not Canadian, explaining that police provide less information such as mug shots or specific details about alleged crimes here in Canada compared to the United States.

The crown also pressed Ruva on her claim about the effect of significant media reporting on jurors, pointing to the case of Tina Fontane where the accused Raymond Cormier was acquitted by the jury, despite it being a high-profile case.

The crown also took issue with some of the questions in the poll the defence is using arguing, they themselves didn’t ask open-ended questions in it, such as the specific level of exposure to the case respondents had.

Skibicki has pleaded not guilty to four counts of first-degree murder.

He was arrested in the deaths of Morgan Harris, Marcedes Myran, Rebecca Contois and a fourth unidentified woman Indigenous leaders have named Buffalo Woman.