THE
JORDAN
DECISION
CASE STUDY:
THE SLAYING OF
LUKAS STRASSER-HIRD
THE CASE THAT SHOOK CALGARY AND CHALLENGED THE JUSTICE SYSTEM
How the death of Lukas Strasser-Hird pushed against
R. v Jordan
On Nov. 23, 2013 at approximately 2:45 a.m., emergency services found Lukas Strasser-Hird in an alley outside of the Vinyl Nightclub in downtown Calgary.
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The 18-year-old man had been swarmed in a vicious beating. His attackers treated his face like a punching bag and multiple stab wounds littered his body.
While on the way to the hospital, Strasser-Hird's condition deteriorated. His parents were contacted and at around 10 a.m., he took his final breath.
His mother wrote in a Facebook post that she was 40 minutes too late but doctors allowed her to spend a few hours with her son, his hand in hers.
At 5:44 p.m. Audrey Strasser wrote, “May you rest in peace my darling son. Your love, your kind soul, your open heart, your smile, your beautiful big blue eyes...they will forever be imprinted on my soul. I will carry you in my heart forever and always."
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One week later, on Nov. 29, 2013, the Calgary Police Service announced that a third Calgary man had been taken into custody. Joch Pouk, 20, and Franz Emir Cabrera, 19, were both charged with second-degree murder. Nathan Paul Gervais, 18, was charged with first-degree murder.
Strasser-Hird was laid to rest the following day.
Lukas Strasser-Hird was killed outside of the Vinyl Nightclub on Nov. 23, 2013.
While family and friends grieved, the Calgary Police Service launched a full investigation and two more men were arrested. Assmar Shlah, 20, and Jordan Liao, 19, were both charged with second-degree murder, as reported by the Calgary Herald on Jan. 22, 2014.
Between March and December 2014, the five accused were all eventually freed on bail and released under stiff conditions that included house arrest. All evidence and arguments as to why the men were granted bail cannot be reported on due to a court-ordered publication ban.
As the months dragged on, a preliminary inquiry—the initial inquiry that occurs at the demand of an accused person, wherein the judge screens the proposed criminal charges against the available evidence—was scheduled to go from March 16 to April 2, 2015.
Near the middle of November 2014, the acting Crown prosecutor confirmed that instead of going ahead with the preliminary inquiry, a direct indictment would be preferred.
The following day, the accused appeared in court on the direct indictment and the preliminary inquiry was scrapped.
Audrey Strasser, the mother of Lukas Strasser-Hird, posted to Facebook this statement the night Strasser-Hird died.
Nearing the holiday season court records showed jury selection would be scheduled for April 28, 2016 and the trial would formally begin on May 2, 2016.
However, one of the accused would not face the jury along with his peers; instead, Gervais disappeared after a routine check-in by CPS revealed he was not at home, a violation of his bail conditions. Like a ghost, he had vanished but the trial would go ahead without him.
Reports from the court
For half of the summer of 2016, the story of the deadly November 2013 evening would be unravelled. Witnesses like Jarrad Taylor and Samantha Willick provided testimony as grim details began to emerge.
“He was crying ‘please stop, please help,’” Taylor said as he described the assault, as reported by the Calgary Herald on May 17, 2016.
“I’ve never seen so much blood … he was missing teeth and his face was all messed-up,” Taylor continued.
Willick described how she and a handful of other women attempted to help Strasser-Hird by applying pressure to a stab wound in his chest, while also trying to stop the attack from continuing.
The Calgary Police Service posted a Facebook statement on Nathan Paul Gervais being wanted in the murder of Lukas Strasser-Hird.
“I focused my attention on people who were still trying to attack him, mainly Franz (Cabrera),” she said to those gathered in the court.
Another witness and friend of Strasser-Hird, Bryce Sunberg, told the court how he tried to reason with Gervais to stop the violence from erupting but his attempts fell on deaf ears.
“They were kicking him non-stop in the face and body … (Gervais) was super-aggressive,” Sunberg told the court.
Slowly, the build-up to how the brawl began was presented to the court. Shlah was angry that he wasn’t able to get his coat from a coat check fast enough, according to witness testimony from Shlah’s friend, Gino Aiello.
Shlah began insulting a bouncer with a flurry of racially charged slurs and according to another witness — Troy Foster — Strasser-Hird stood-up to Shlah’s belligerence. According to a surveillance video played in court, Strasser-Hird was then shoved by a man who possibly could have been Shlah, as reported by the Calgary Herald.
After the physical altercation, Strasser-Hird took refuge in the Vinyl Nightclub and 30-minutes later he was ushered out the back door by security.
Aiello told the court that he and the group he was with, which included some of the defendants, spotted Strasser-Hird outside of the club again and chased him and his friends into a nearby alley.
The court then heard how Strasser-Hird was heavily outnumbered and in the moments that followed, he was punched, stabbed and kicked repeatedly in the head.
“His face was so beaten it was completely swollen over,” Natasha Rogers, an emergency medical technician, told the court. “He was asking me if he was going to die.”
She also told the court that Strasser-Hird’s face was so badly bloodied and swollen, the responders couldn’t match his identity with his driver's licence.
Shlah, who was charged with second-degree murder, maintained his innocence through the trial, saying he had nothing to do with the beating and stabbing of Strasser-Hird.
“I never laid a hand on him … I never said anything to him. I never said anything to anyone … I was never part of what happened to him in the back alley,” Shlah told the court, as reported by the Calgary Herald.
All of the accused men maintained their innocence. Cabrera’s defence lawyer, Gavin Wolch, argued that no one saw his client stab or make stabbing motions toward the deceased man.
Wolch further argued that even though Cabrera said he’d stabbed Strasser-Hird, his client made the statements while heavily intoxicated and also said Gervais had admitted to the stabbing.
Pouk’s lawyer, David Chow, acknowledged that his client did fight, punch and kick Strasser-Hird but these acts were not the cause of death.
As for Liao, his lawyer Ryan Claxton said the scene was dark and chaotic and the lawyer challenged eyewitness accounts that identified his client. He also said none of Liao’s DNA was on Strasser-Hird and none of Strasser-Hird’s DNA was on Liao. Finally, he said there were videos putting Liao “somewhere else” than the alley where the beating happened.
Murder suspect Assmar Shlah being read his rights by a Calgary police officer after the beating death of Lukas Strasser-Hird.
Tying in Jordan
After weeks of testimony, examinations and deliberations, the jury delivered its verdicts on June 16, 2016.
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However, pre-sentence reports and psychological and psychiatric assessment reports were ordered at the request of Pouk and Shlah. These items were received between Oct. 13 and Nov. 25, 2016.
In the unrelated case of R. v Jordan, Canada’s highest court ruled that starting July 8, 2016, there would be a new rules for how long court cases could go: 18 months for provincial court cases and 30 months for cases before the higher court.
A headline from CBC details the jury verdict in the murder of Lukas Strasser-Hird.
While Pouk and Shlah’s requests were being processed, the three accused — Shlah, Pouk and Cabrera — jointly filed for a Notice of Charter Application, otherwise known as a Jordan Application.
Their lawyers argued that their clients’ charter right to be tried within a reasonable time was violated because the entire process to convict all three men individually took longer than 30 months.
Justice Glen Poelman of the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench acknowledged that the trial exceeded the ceiling outlined by the Jordan Decision.
However, he upheld the convictions saying that the Supreme Court ruling still allowed for exceptions for cases that were already in the system before the 30-month ceiling was implemented, as reported by the Globe and Mail.
Poelman said the exceptions existed for serious offences like murder and for moderately complex cases in areas with lacking court resources.
At the end of his remarks, Poelman formally dismissed the applications of the three men.
Cabrera was convicted of second-degree murder — a conviction that comes with an automatic life sentence — and will not be eligible for parole until serving a minimum of 15 years.
Shlah was also convicted of second-degree murder and will not be parole eligible for 12 years.
Pouk was convicted of manslaughter, a crime that carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. He must serve seven years before he can apply for parole.
Liao was found not guilty by the same jurors who found the other three men guilty and was acquitted.
Both of Strasser-Hird’s parents have been contacted by the Calgary Journal. Audrey Strasser declined to make public comments regarding the trial, and Dale Hird has not responded to Calgary Journal interview requests.
A member of the Shlah family has also been contacted by the Calgary Journal for comment but messages have not be returned.
However, in reports from the Calgary Herald, Balfour Der, Shlah's lawyer, took issue with the judge’s comments regarding exceptions for serious cases, saying, "we don't get to cut out somebody's rights because it is a murder charge as opposed to a speeding ticket. These rules apply to everybody."
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All three men have appealed their convictions. The Alberta Court of Appeal has released Shlah on bail pending the appeal. In an interview with the Calgary Journal on March 15, one day after Der and his client appeared before the appeal court to make their case, the defence lawyer said there are four potential outcomes for his client.
The first option is the second-degree murder conviction is found unreasonable and is overturned, meaning Shlah would be acquitted outright.
“The alternate ground of appeal that I raised had to do with the way the jury was instructed by the trial judge,” Der said. “If I’m successful on that ground, in other words I fail on the unreasonable verdict but I’m successful on the second ground, then that would result in a new trial and he’d be tried all over again”
The third option would uphold the second-degree murder conviction, and the last option would mean the Court of Appeal could find Shlah not guilty of second-degree murder but guilty of manslaughter.
“Of course, my position is that he should be found not guilty, that the quality of the evidence was so brutally poor that no reasonable jury should ever have come to that verdict,” Der said.
When asked to elaborate on the “brutally poor” quality of the evidence, Der said there were inconsistencies among the witnesses who testified in court as well as picture evidence that exonerates his client.
“The case against Mr. Shlah really came down to four witnesses,” Der said.
Der outlined that two of the witnesses were complete strangers to Shlah and both pointed the finger at him, but there were discrepancies between what the witnesses reported to police and what was said in court.
Defence lawyer Balfour Der in his office in downtown Calgary.
“Both of these two people came upon the scene and said there were three Asians who were involved and at trial they both come and say, ‘Well actually it wasn’t three Asians,’” Der says. “One of them actually said there was an Asian, a Middle Eastern Man and a red-headed Caucasian.”
“How can you possibly call someone an Asian to the police and then come to court and say that actually, it was a red-headed Caucasian? You don’t mix up those two.”
Another witness who Der says gave a 100-page statement to police only mentioned a single attacker.
“And then curiously, [the witness] comes to do a photo lineup for the police [...] and before getting to the police station, people send him pictures on Facebook of who they say are involved,” said Der. “Lo and behold, he picks out Assmar Shlah and says, ‘Yeah this is the Middle Eastern guy, the second aggressor’ [but] he never mentioned a second aggressor before.”
“So that type of evidence is so fraught with difficulties that any judge listening to that would be going, ‘I can’t put stock in that, you don't make mistakes like calling someone an Asian and then turn it around and call him a red-headed Caucasian.’”
Der was also asked about whether or not the witness receiving Facebook photos prior to the picture line-up would have tainted the witnesses ability to make a fair and impartial decision.
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Der said. “You’d think if a witness were shown photographs before he supposedly independently and impartially picks out a photograph of accused persons, that he would be tainted by what he was shown.”
Der also takes issue with how CPS handled this information especially after the witness informed CPS that they photos shared with them that showed people who were supposedly involved in the swarming. However, Der says CPS still allowed the witness to participate in the photo line-up, even though the veracity and impartiality of the witness was questionable.
“The police work wasn’t good when it came to all of these photo lineups,” Der said.
In response to Der’s comments, The Calgary Journal reached out to CPS. However, in an email exchange a representative with the police service told the Journal that they were not able to speak publicly about the investigation or the evidence as the case is still before the courts.
Another issue that Der brings up is the lack of physical evidence found on Shlah — such as no blood spatter — even though witnesses allege that Shlah punched and kicked Strasser-Hird 10 to 20 times.
“There was some blood from the deceased on my clients shoes. My client says he walked right up and [Strasser-Hird] was in a pool of blood. Curiously, if my client was supposed to have kicked him so many times, there’s no blood on my clients pants. There’s no blood on the toes of his shoes if he’s kicking him,” Der said.
“No blood on his hands if he was supposedly punching him,” Der explained. “The police had him in custody right away. They checked his hands, we have photographs, there’s nothing on his hands. No staining, no red marks, no nothing.”
“If you’re supposed to be punching this guy who’s already bloody, there’s got to be blood somewhere on you,” Der concludes, reiterating his stance that his client stepped into the blood pool but did not beat Strasser-Hird.
As of March 2018, Der and Shlah are waiting for the Alberta Court of Appeal to make its decision, and that decision may not come until later in 2018. If the appeal court upholds the murder conviction, the only remaining option is to take the case to the Supreme Court of Canada.
As for Gervais, he is no longer on the run. He was apprehended in Vietnam in February 2018 and has been brought back to Canada to stand trial.
He has been denied bail and will face additional charges after he evaded police for almost two years.