The lawyer for a person accused of murdering a preferred Vancouver park caretaker says the Crown has didn’t show his shopper supposed to kill the senior.
Brent White, 54, has pleaded not responsible to the second-degree homicide of Justis Daniel. The 77-year-old was discovered useless with greater than 40 stab wounds in his caretaker residence in Tatlow Park on Dec. 10, 2021.
The case hinges on the query of whether or not the killing was self-defence or homicide.
Making his closing arguments on Monday, defence lawyer Brent Anderson mentioned the courtroom has heard no motive nor any proof about what triggered the lethal altercation, and that this shopper had no motive to hurt Daniel.
White took the stand in his personal defence earlier within the trial, testifying that Daniel had bitten him on the neck like a vampire and certain consumed his blood. He additionally testified that Daniel threw a knife in his face and referred to as him the equal of Devil.
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He instructed the courtroom he had feared for his life and defended himself.
On Monday, Anderson mentioned his shopper had made no effort to cowl his tracks. White was arrested three months after the killing, and police discovered a knife and sneakers with Daniel’s blood on them in his van.
“There isn’t any rational foundation, by any means, for Mr. White to lie about his perception in any respect. I might submit that no sane individual would fabricate an account as weird as this and count on it to be believed,” Anderson instructed the courtroom.
“The one cheap conclusion is that Mr. White genuinely believed that’s precisely what occurred.”
B.C. Supreme Court docket Justice Miriam Maisonville has not ordered a psychological evaluation to find out whether or not White is just not criminally accountable by the use of a psychological dysfunction.
Neither the Crown nor defence has referred to as any psychiatric proof both, and White has explicitly opted to not pursue a psychological sickness defence.
Regardless of this, his lawyer instructed the courtroom there was “a big and compelling physique of proof which factors to Mr. White having an impaired psychological state at time,” together with paranoid beliefs and delusional considering.
Buddies of Daniel who attended the trial have described the caretaker as loving, sort and outgoing and have described the claims he attacked White as outlandish and out of character.
The Crown is scheduled to make its closing statements on Tuesday.
— with recordsdata from Rumina Daya
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