Family of Baeleigh Maurice feel the victim was lost in appeal court decision

The family of Baeleigh Maurice says legal arguments surrounding the Charter of Rights and Freedoms robbed them of justice. Keenan Sorokan explains.

The family of Baeleigh Maurice, a 9-year-old girl who was struck and killed while on her way to school, says legal arguments surrounding the Charter of Rights and Freedoms robbed them of justice.

“It never really got to a stage where we feel like there was representation of a victim,” Sarah Smokeyday, a spokesperson for the family, said.

“It’s horribly disappointing and heartbreaking, but it also wasn’t a huge surprise because of the way everything went from start to finish.”

On Friday, Saskatchewan’s appeal court upheld a stay of proceedings in the case of Taylor Kennedy, whose trial was ended in December 2024 when a judge determined the woman’s rights were breached because she was not tried within a reasonable time.

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees every person charged with an offence the right “to be tried within a reasonable time,” which the Supreme Court of Canada has interpreted to mean a trial should conclude no later than 18 months after the day charges are laid — referred to as the “Jordan limit.”

Smokeyday says delays plagued the trial from its onset and gave every indication the trial wasn’t going to be a straightforward process.

“It was never Taylor Kennedy versus a victim; it was Taylor Kennedy versus the law,” Smokeyday said. “We never got to a point where the judge was even going to be close to having a verdict on the actual charge because of these Charter rights violations that the defence kept bringing forward.”

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Smokeyday says going into the case, the family believed in the justice system, but that sentiment is long gone after what they’ve experienced since Maurice was killed on Sept. 9, 2021, while pushing her scooter at a crosswalk on 33rd Street West.

Central to the case were a number of unique circumstances surrounding Kennedy’s charge of impaired driving. She was the first person in Saskatchewan charged with causing a death while driving under the influence of THC. She admitted to officers responding to the crash had vaped marijuana and microdosed mushrooms the day prior.

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The trial was delayed numerous times because of COVID-19 backlogs, lawyer availability and a number of Charter rights arguments from the defence — firstly, about whether Kennedy’s roadside admission could be used as evidence, then later about the long delays throughout.

On top of that, Smokeyday and other family members watched on as the judge, the Crown and defence navigated the first trial of its kind in Saskatchewan.

“The justice system is working how the justice system is supposed to work,” Smokeyday said. “Once in a while, there’s an extraordinary case like this that everybody’s watching and paying attention to. And the general public all of a sudden is like, ‘Oh, wow. This is what’s happening in the courtrooms.’”

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In 2016, Jordan limit became law and introduced fixed ceiling for trials across the country. The only remedy for trials exceeding that ceiling is to stay proceedings. No verdict, no conviction.

Colton Fehr, an assistant professor with the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Law, says it’s time other remedies be considered.

“It has kind of crowded out a lot of the societal considerations that we might think ought to be relevant to whether that’s a reasonable remedy or not,” Fehr said.

The Supreme Court of Canada is currently reviewing one case studying Jordan ceiling that could potentially look at alternative remedies such as resuming a trial with the understanding of a lighter sentence if trials exceed the 18-month ceiling to avoid what Smokeyday and the rest of Maurice’s family are experiencing.

“No one wants to have the state charging them with an offence for two years,” Fehr said. “But is that a good enough reason to say we’re going to just dismiss the charge? In many cases, I think that that’s overkill.”

The Public Prosecutions Office maintains it has enough staff to resolve most cases in a timely fashion, and that “the vast majority of cases in Saskatchewan are resolved within the time limit.”

“In the small number of cases where that has not happened, it has been a result of unique circumstances,” a spokesperson told CTV News.

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Relative to other provinces, Saskatchewan has a relatively low rate of cases that exceed the Jordan limit, based on Statistics Canada’s Integrated Criminal Court Survey.

Year-over-year, Saskatchewan is among the lowest in the country at 2.7 per cent, with a nationwide average of 9.4. Nova Scotia leads the country with 16.6 per cent of cases exceeding the Jordan limit in the last fiscal year.

The Ministry of Justice says it is reviewing the Saskatchewan appeals court’s decision to determine whether it will appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Smokeyday feels the unique circumstances that eventually led to charges being stayed will prevent any meaningful changes with Canada’s top court reviewing the legal arguments, and not the 9-year-old victim who was killed on her way to school.

“They’re going to look at the time -- and it went over,” Smokeyday said. “There’s not a lot to say or do around that.”