Judge pressures jury for quick verdict in child sexual assault case

A Nunavut judge wrongfully put “pressure” on a Rankin Inlet jury to come to a quick verdict in a sexual assault trial, the territory’s Court of Appeal found.

“If you can’t reach a decision tonight, you can’t reach a decision; this will be the end of it,” Justice Christian Lyons told the jury on Oct. 3, 2024, during Arsene Kaput’s trial. “Knuckle under a little and go back to it and really see if you can come to a verdict.”

On Monday, the appeal court released its decision to overturn the jury’s conviction of Kaput, who was accused of sexually assaulting a child over a five-year period in Taloyoak. The complainant was two to four years old at the time of the alleged incidents. Kaput later faced two more charges for alleged assaults in Rankin Inlet when the complainant was around seven years old.

Kaput faced a jury trial in October 2024 in a Rankin Inlet community hall. The jury was selected on Oct. 1, and the court was set to leave Rankin Inlet by airplane at 4 p.m. on Oct. 4. There was no option to reschedule the flight and no extra hotel rooms at that time, the decision reads.

Jurors can legally take as long as they need to come to a verdict, but they are unable to go home until that decision is made. So normally, if deliberations take longer than one day, jurors are given hotel rooms to stay overnight.

But on Oct. 3 at around 2 p.m., Lyons informed the jury there were no hotel rooms available, so they would need to come to a decision by the end of the day.

At around 8 p.m., the jury asked to stop the deliberations and carry on the next day, but Lyons didn’t allow it, saying “at a certain point, you know, if you can’t come to a verdict I will put an end to it.”

Two hours later, the jury came back with a guilty verdict on the charges that stemmed from Kaput’s time in Taloyoak.

The court of appeal deemed the jury’s decision “unsafe,” as the deliberations were not free of “extraneous pressure,” justices Karen Wenckebach, April Grosse and Tamara Friesen wrote in their decision.

Kaput has been released and is set to appear in the Nunavut Court of Justice on June 8 to schedule a new trial.