Lawyers for Coutts border blockade defendants say Crown overreached with conspiracy to murder charges

Both defence lawyers in the Coutts border blockade trial said they believe the Crown overcharged their clients and a legal expert agrees with them.

Following the late-night Friday acquittal of her client Chris Carbert, on charges of conspiracy to murder RCMP officers, counsel Katherin Beyak said the jury got it right.

"The jury put in a lot of hard work and came to the right decision on the (conspiracy to commit) murder charge," said Beyak. "I think it was an overcharge to begin with and I'm glad they came back with the verdict they did."

Marilyn Burns, who represented defendant Anthony Olienick, agreed: "I've never believed since I took on this file that were was evidence that would support a finding of guilt in that (conspiracy to commit murder), so it's always a tremendous relief of course. But it's not surprising: we had a very thoughtful jury that took plenty of time to think it over."

Both men were convicted on lesser charges of mischief and possession of weapons for a dangerous purpose. Olienick was also convicted of possessing a pipe bomb.

A plea deal that never materialized

Mount Royal University criminal justice professor Doug King said he believed the Crown overplayed its hand in anticipation of a plea deal that never materialized.

“It’s a hard conviction to begin with,” King said, “because a conspiracy involves a plan. A threat is not a plan. An idle threat is not a plan.

“You can maybe charge them with uttering a threat," he continued, "but you had to show some pretty concrete evidence that they were prepared to take the threat beyond just a statement to something really much more concrete.”

King said the typical conspiracy to murder charge comes when someone hires a hitman to kill someone and hatches a plan to do it.

“Did the Crown have sufficient evidence walking in to have a reasonable likelihood of a conviction?” he asked.

“And do Crown prosecutors (ever) overcharge in order to squeeze plea deals? Sure they do.

“That’s what’s in my mind right now: did they overcharge to try and squeeze plea deals on the other charges?

“The two guys said, 'No. We’re going to trial.'"

Not surprised by convictions

King said he wasn’t surprised at the convictions either.

"Those are fairly simple charges to secure a conviction on," he said.

"Obviously they had weapons,. (and) they had them there for a purpose," he added. "They even said themselves in their evidence to police they were going to be used as defensive weapons if the government came after them.

"Well they just sealed their fate there,."

Beyak said she wasn’t surprised by those convictions either.

“We invited the jury to find him (Carbert) guilty on the mischief  (charge) because of the very active role he took on the blockade," she said Friday night,  "and the second one, for possession of weapons for a dangerous purpose, I’m still processing – I can see how the jury got there, but I’m still processing.”

King speculated that the acquittal of the conspiracy to murder charges might fuel the protesters who believe the government was conspiring against them.

“Given all that we went through with the pandemic, with the blockades, and how people really became very, very segmented – a group of people believed government was really doing a disservice and was out in a conspiratorial way to do harm," he said.

“A group of those people will be able to point to the prosecution of this case and say, 'See? We told you. The Crown and police and government set these guys up by overcharging them."

What's next

The men will next appear in court Aug. 12 to deal with the convictions on the lesser charges, but King said those convictions still have the potential to be significant.

"These are indictable offences that can lead to a punishment of up to 10 years," he said, "so I fully expect we’ll see some prison time coming out of these cases.”

Both men have already spent more than 800 days in prison and their lawyers said it’s possible they may have already served more time than they get sentenced for.

With files from The Canadian Press and Karsen Marczuk and Tyler Barrow