WARNING: This story contains distressing details.
Next week will mark the 11th anniversary of Cindy Gladue’s death. Now the man convicted of causing his death wants the highest court in Alberta to overturn his sentence and order a new trial.
A jury found Bradley Barton guilty of manslaughter in February 2021. He was sentenced to 12 1/2 years in prison.
It was the second test for the former Ontario long-distance truck driver.
He was acquitted of first-degree homicide and manslaughter after a jury trial in 2015.
The acquittal sparked protests across the country, called for a change in the justice system and raised questions about how it treats indigenous women.
In 2017, the Alberta Court of Appeals overturned the decision and ordered a new murder trial.
In 2019, the Supreme Court of Canada partially overturned that decision, ordering a new trial only on the charge of manslaughter.
The Crown has already filed an appeal against Barton’s sentence, arguing that it is unfit and does not reflect the seriousness of the crime.
Gladue was a 36-year-old half-breed mother of three.
Cindy Gladue, cooking in the kitchen. Her family says Gladue always made breakfast for her mother, Donna McLeod. (Submitted by Donna McLeod)
She accepted sexual transactions for money with Barton two nights in June 2011. The second night, she was very intoxicated when she had sex with Barton in her hotel room.
His body was found in a bathtub at the Yellowhead Inn. Gladue died of a fatal internal injury that, according to the Crown, was caused by hard sex.
Barton called 911 to report the death.
His lawyers argue that what happened next violated the rights of Barton’s letter.
Allegedly illegal detention
Police asked Barton to accompany them to the center’s headquarters to make a statement.
A document filed by appellate attorney Peter Sankoff alleges that police never told Barton he was a potential suspect, but urged him to explain his involvement in Gladue’s death. Barton was detained for six and a half hours.
During the trial, Queen’s Bank Court Judge Stephen Hillier found that the first three hours of detention could be justified, but would not admit any of Barton’s statements after that point.
There are virtually no precedents for the length of the detention that took place here.- Lawyer Peter Sankoff
“For a detention to be lawful, it must be short-lived and not force the detainee to answer police questions,” Sankoff argues. “There are virtually no precedents for the length of the detention that took place here.”
He points to other cases that showed that an 11-minute detention was too long, while the permitted arrests ranged from a few minutes to less than an hour.
“While the police may have wanted to obtain a tax return, the appellant had no legal obligation to provide one and could not be arrested for that purpose,” the court document states.
Sankoff also alleges that police dismissed his question as to whether he should seek legal advice.
“The appellant’s statements were inherently unreliable because the police obtained them in violation of their right to a lawyer,” the court document states.
Computer proof should have been excluded: lawyer
Barton’s lawyer argues that his client’s constitutional rights were also violated when police confiscated Barton’s canvas bag. It contained his laptop, which revealed evidence of searches for pornographic websites that were presented to the jury.
Police said they confiscated the bag to keep the evidence in order to obtain a search warrant. At trial, the judge found that the confiscation did not violate the rights of Barton’s letter.
Sankoff disagrees and argues that the police had no reasonable grounds to seize and detain the bag. For this reason, he believes that the evidence on the website should have been excluded from the trial.
“All the evidence was obtained in a manner that violated the rights of the appellant’s letter,” Sankoff said.
Sankoff told CBC News he expects the Crown to file a response by the end of the summer.
Barton remains in custody.