Nunavut man could not form intent to kill: defence lawyer

Lawyers presented final arguments Dec. 7 in Peter Kingwatsiak’s homicide case. Justice Bonnie Tulloch said she would try to deliver an oral verdict on Feb. 5, 2016. (FILE PHOTO)

The case of Peter Kingwatsiak, the Cape Dorset man who admitted to shooting and killing his step-brother with a single shot to the forehead in 2010, turns on the question of intent.

That’s according to Kingwatsiak’s defence lawyer James Morton, who submitted his final arguments before Justice Bonnie Tulloch in an Iqaluit courtroom Dec. 7.

“This is a situation where you have an individual who was completely out of control… He didn’t know what he was really doing. That does not excuse his actions, but we say it means his actions are manslaughter and not murder,” Morton said.

Manslaughter is a killing without intent, while murder is killing with intent. First degree murder is a premeditated murder, while second degree murder is not planned.

Crown prosecutor Amy Porteous’s final submissions painted a different picture for Tulloch, though.

“Mr. Kingwatsiak was planning on killing Mappaluk Adla and in fact he did kill Mr. Adla, as we know, and I submit he meant to kill Mr. Adla. The accused’s evidence doesn’t raise a reasonable doubt on that point… You should convict him of the first degree murder of Mappaluk Adla,” Porteous said.

Tulloch presided over Kingwatsiak’s one-week judge-alone trial in June where Kingwatsiak, now 23, faced three charges relating to an incident which occurred on Sept. 20, 2010 in Cape Dorset: first degree murder of his step-brother, Mappaluk Adla; one count of breaking and entering into his uncle’s home shortly before killing Adla; and one count of aggravated assault on his uncle, Manu Kingwatsiak.

Peter Kingwatsiak has already admitted to shooting his step-brother at close range with a .22-calibre rifle in 2010, and to slashing his uncle across the face with a knife just minutes beforehand.

At his trial, the court heard evidence that Kingwatsiak fostered jealousy and anger for his step-brother over a perceived romantic interest Adla had for Kingwatsiak’s ex-girlfriend, Gena Rose Lampron.

The court also heard other damning evidence including that Lampron rejected Kingwatsiak twice in the day leading up to Adla’s death and that before the shooting, Kingwatsiak had told numerous people that he intended to kill Adla.

But Kingwatsiak testified in his own defence that he sniffed so much gasoline the night he killed his step-brother that he experienced periods of black-out.

From the Crown’s perspective, however, what Kingwatsiak said in his own defence shouldn’t be believed.

Four separate psychiatric doctors assessed Kingwatsiak in the years between the shooting and the trial and four “wildly different” accounts emerged, Porteous argued.

And only one witness’s testimony at trial identified the smell of gasoline on Kingwatsiak in the moments before or after the shooting, she added.

Not even his uncle, who hugged Kingwatsiak after being stabbed in the face, could smell gasoline on the accused, Porteous pointed out.

But Morton’s defence rests largely on Kingwatsiak’s behaviour at his uncle’s house.

That’s because Kingwatsiak had no reason to hurt his uncle, and had a loving relationship with Manu Kingwatsiak before the attack, Morton pointed out.

“Manu testified that it was as if Mr. Kingwatsiak had an evil spirit in him and that the spirit had taken control of Peter,” Morton said, adding that this testimony shows the accused was not himself that night.

The Crown failed to establish any reasonable motive for this “bizarre” attack on Manu Kingwatsiak, Morton said.

Shortly after leaving his uncle’s house, the accused testified at trial that he sniffed gas one last time and then went to Adla’s house and shot him.

But even if Kingwatsiak didn’t sniff as much gas as he says he did, Morton pointed out that expert witnesses at trial said a mind filled with extreme emotions could render someone incapable of forming the intent necessary to commit murder.

Kingwatsiak’s extreme emotional state on the night he killed Adla is an agreed fact between both sides.

In addition to feelings of jealousy and rage surrounding his ex-girlfriend, Kingwatsiak testified to being heavily affected by the anniversary of his sister’s death, who had died by suicide that month a few years prior.

After his arrest, police found a picture of Kingwatsiak’s sister on the accused’s bed, as well as what might have amounted to a suicide note, the court heard.

“There’s no tomorrow. It’s too late now. Gena doesn’t want to see me. It’s too late to fix. Please don’t do anything to Gena if something happens to me. I love you all,” said an excerpt from that letter, read in court Dec. 7.

But Porteous read excerpts of Kingwatsiak’s testimony at trial in which the accused admitted to remembering many details of killing his step-brother.

In cross-examination Kingwatsiak told prosecutors he remembered entering Adla’s home, seeing Adla lying on the couch, pulling the trigger and rushing back out of Adla’s home.

During his testimony in chief, however, Kingwatsiak told Morton that he didn’t remember pulling the trigger or shooting Adla, but that he heard a shot while in Adla’s home.

Morton said the difference in memory can be explained by what an expert at trial called “confabulation” — an unconscious process where the mind fills in memory gaps in order to understand an event.

“Mr. Kingwatsiak gave a relatively consistent story, but we suggest that some of that story was in fact the result of confabulation — which is not lying. It’s filling in gaps. Figuring what must have happened… as opposed to knowing what actually happened,” Morton said.

Kingwatsiak, dressed in a slightly wrinkled black suit jacket, light blue, collared shirt, prison-issued navy blue sweatpants and black running shoes, did address the judge once, towards the end of the proceedings.

Tulloch was contemplating a date in June to render her oral judgement in Cape Dorset court when Kingwatsiak stood up and spoke.

“I’ve been held for 63 months in custody and I would like a date sooner than June, please, if you have time,” said Kingwatsiak, who had turned 18 years old just two weeks before the shooting.

After Crown prosecutors consulted with Adla’s family sitting in the court gallery, Tulloch set Feb. 5, 2016 as the date she will deliver her oral verdict.