B.C. court denies murderer access to names of jurors who convicted him

The Law Courts building, which is home to B.C. Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal, is seen in Vancouver, on November 23, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

A British Columbia Supreme Court judge has blocked a murderer from accessing the names of the 12 jurors who convicted him of the crime more than half a century ago, ruling that revealing the identity of the jury would violate their privacy and undermine the broader public interest.

Roland Henry Bird is serving a life-sentence for the shotgun murder of his 31-year-old common-law partner Marlene Hutcheon in September 1974.

The killing was a failed murder-suicide attempt, in which Bird, now 85 years old, sustained a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his chest. He was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced in January 1975 to life in prison with no chance of parole for 10 years.

Parole history

Bird was granted day parole in March 1988, but the privilege was revoked later that year. He was granted full parole in 1989, which would be rescinded and restored multiple times in the years to come.

Bird’s parole was revoked for the last time in 1995, after an off-duty Abbotsford police officer complained that he was stalking her while she was out jogging. It would be the third time Bird would face accusations of making aggressive sexual advances towards women over a two-year period.

“This incident occurred at noon hour and was in the vicinity of a school zone and there were many young girls in the area,” reads the June 1995 Parole Board of Canada decision ending his parole. “Because this was the third incident of inappropriate behaviour towards females, you were arrested and placed at Mountain Institution.”

Parole would be denied to Bird at least five more times in the decade that followed, according to a 2007 court decision from New Brunswick in which Bird unsuccessfully challenged his continued detention and sought millions of dollars in restitution from the parole board.

Jury tampering

In February 2022, more than 47 years after the guilty verdict was rendered in his case, Bird began the process of appealing his conviction.

One of the grounds on which he planned to base his appeal was an allegation of “jury tampering” during his trial.

Bird alleges that one of the sheriffs who had custody of him during the court proceedings told him that one of the jury members “did not belong” on the jury and was a “redneck Christian,” according to Bird’s claim before the court.

“The sheriff also told Mr. Bird that the juror was a member of the Victoria Shamrocks, a lacrosse team,” Justice Heather Holmes summarized in her Jan. 30 decision to ultimately deny Bird access to the jury list.

“Six months later, it dawned on Mr. Bird that Norm Baker, a member of the Saanich Police Department, which had conducted the investigation in his case, had also played for the Victoria Shamrocks.”

Bird therefore believed that Baker may have influenced the deliberations of a jury member who played on the same lacrosse team as the investigator.

Jury list denied

The Saanich Police Department provided submissions to the court that “included no mention” of Baker being involved in the murder investigation, nor was he a witness at trial, according to the court.

“Further, there is no information in the application about when Mr. Baker worked for the Saanich Police Department, or about when he played for the Victoria Shamrocks,” Holmes wrote in her decision. “One can therefore only speculate about whether he held those roles at or around the same time, and also at or around the time of the investigation into Mr. Bird’s case or his trial.”

Bird, who continues to serve his sentence in New Brunswick’s Dorchester Penitentiary, sought to obtain the jury list so that he could determine whether or not his concerns about jury tampering were founded, he told the court.

If his concerns were validated through his inquiries, he intended to use that information in his application to appeal his conviction “on the basis that the jury verdict resulted from interference, or reasonably appears to have been tainted by bias,” the judge wrote.

“Mr. Bird assures the court that if his inquiries do not bear fruit for his appeal, he will drop them,” Holmes wrote. “He also assures the court that he has no intention of publishing juror names.”

“I accept Mr. Bird’s assurances, but cannot agree that he should have access to the list of juror names,” the judge ruled.

“For Mr. Bird to have access to the names of the jurors in his trial would violate their privacy, an important public interest,” Holmes continued, adding there was no legitimate possibility that obtaining the jury names would help Bird in appealing his conviction.