Defence calls no witnesses in Bishop murder trial

The defence lawyer in Chris Bishop’s triple-murder trial in Iqaluit rested his case this week without calling any witnesses.

On June 2, Bishop’s lawyer, Scott Cowan, told the court he had no witnesses to introduce after the Crown rested its case the previous day.

Crown witnesses included neighbours, police officers, forensic and firearm experts, as wells two wounded survivors of shooting spree in Cambridge Bay on Jan. 6, 2007 that killed three men.

Defence lawyers cross-examined all Crown witnesses, some at length. The defence also entered some evidence as exhibits during cross-examinations.

The Crown’s evidence included recordings of two calls Bishop made asking for police to come to his house, the second made only moments before the shooting began.

Speaking to reporters, Cowan said such evidence speaks for itself.

“It is a straightforward criminal case,” he said. “But the crime here is a home invasion.”

Crown and defence lawyers and Justice John Vertes agreed they needed to hash out some of the details of what the judge’s instructions to jurors would include as they enter deliberations.

Crown and defence lawyers will present their closing arguments June 7.

On June 8, Vertes will issue his final instructions to the jury and they will begin deliberations.

The jury requested some additional material from the court: a plain-language summary of the autopsy report and a clarification of some technical terms including a proper definition of “second-degree murder.”

Bishop is charged with three counts of second-degree murder in connection with the deaths of Dean Costa, Keith Atatahak and Kevin Komatsiut and two counts of attempted murder.

Unless the jury takes weeks to deliberate, Bishop’s trial will be considerably shorter than anticipated.

The trial began on May 26. The Nunavut Court of Justice had scheduled three weeks.