Convicted Nunavut killer mounts second appeal for third trial

Adrian Van Eindhoven on Oct. 15, 2013 after an Iqaluit jury convicted him for the 2004 murder of his spouse in Rankin Inlet. He was sentenced Dec. 9 to life in prison with no chance of parole for at least 13 years. He is no appealing that 2013 conviction. (FILE PHOTO)

Adrian Van Eindhoven will try to convince a panel of judges sitting May 10 on the Nunavut Court of Appeal in Iqaluit of his right to a third trial in the 2004 death of his common-law partner, Leanne Irkootee.

Nunavut juries have twice convicted Van Eindhoven, who appeared before Justice Neil Sharkey at the Nunavut Court of Justice March 9 via video-conference, of second-degree murder in Irkootee’s stabbing death in Rankin Inlet.

At his first trial, held in Rankin Inlet in 2007, Van Eindhoven was convicted of second degree murder, but the conviction was overturned on appeal.

After a second trial, a jury of 12 Iqaluit residents found him guilty again of second degree murder.

But in March 2014, Van Eindhoven filed court documents that appealed that second conviction.

In those court documents, Van Eindhoven argues that the presiding judge in the 2013 trial, Justice Earl Johnson, “erred by not telling the jurors immediately and forcefully… to ignore the majority of the Crown [prosecutor’s] closing argument, which were chock-full of the Crown’s own opinions and interpretations of the evidence.”

Johnson did instruct the jury to ignore parts of the Crown’s final argument, which Johnson said was, in part, based on opinion and not on fact, but did so after the jury took a break over a long weekend in 2013.

The delay in instructing the jury, and not giving those instructions forcefully enough after the long weekend, forms the basis of Van Eindhoven’s current appeal.

At both previous trials, the court heard that Van Eindhoven savagely beat Irkootee leading up to her death by inflicting numerous punches, bites and kicks with a steel-toed boot all over Irkootee’s body.

Van Eindhoven’s defence lawyer argued at both trials, however, that the fatal wound — inflicted by a steak knife to the heart — was accidental, and therefore not an act of murder.

Sharkey said in an Iqaluit courtroom March 9 that two of the three judges required to hear the appeal have been confirmed.

“I’m fairly confident we’ll get a third judge by the May sitting,” Sharkey said.

After Nunavut legal aid denied Van Eindhoven legal representation, the Nunavut court granted his request for court-appointed lawyers: Rob Nuttall and Daniel Santoro will argue Van Eindhoven’s appeal in Iqaluit May 10.

The one-day hearing will begin May 10 at 9:30 a.m at the Nunavut Court of Justice.

Van Eindhoven, currently at Beaver Creek Institution in Gravenhurst, Ont., appeared briefly, via videolink, before Justice Sharkey March 9, sitting at a long table with his hands folded in front of him and wearing a blue t-shirt and glasses.