"Last Man Standing" Walks

Many Downtown Eastsiders remember the night in 2005 when there was a shoot-out between drug dealers in the New Wings Hotel across from Oppenheimer Park. There were cops walking around with sub-machine guns. Of the three drug dealers involved, two died that night from gun shot wounds. The third, Dennis Knibbs, took off running but was later picked up by police.

Knibbs was acquitted yesterday in the shooting death of Trumaine "Ekoh" Habib, a 21-year old with dreadlocks who enjoyed smoking pot, and sold it too. Habib had ended up with a bullet hole the size of a "silver dollar" in the middle of his chest, according to a paramedic who had arrived at the scene.

Knibbs' supporters clapped loudly from the public gallery after the not guilty verdict was announced.

Some of those were the same supporters who had been in the gallery in 2007 when a a jury found Knibbs guilty of the second degree murder of Habib. The 31 year old Knibbs got an automatic 25 year sentence, but Judge Arne Silverman granted him eligibility for parole in 10 years.

Knibbs appealed.

The BC Court of Appeal, referring to Knibbs as "the last man standing", overturned his conviction. They determined that Judge Silverman had erred in his instructions to the jury on provocation.

The second time around, Knibbs didn't opt for a jury trial. Supreme Court Justice Ronald McKinnon decided his fate.

Habib's mother left comments on this blog during the first trial. She believed the second degree murder conviction by a jury advised by Judge Silverman to use their "common sense" was the right one, and left the following comment on May 16, 2007:

"Common Sence (sic), was used in the deciding factor in this case. They can appeal all they want and HOPEFULLY, the JUDGES USE THEIR COMMON SENCE and don't disregard the JURY'S DECISION... I already knew, that it wasn't completly OVER YET, but as I said, I HOPE that the appeal judges use "COMMON SENCE" AND DON'T RELEASE A BRUTLE MURDERER BACK OUT INTO SOCIETY,THAT WOULD BE "UNCONSCIONABLE"...

YES, Justice was DONE and I Thank GOD for that...

Lanre Habib & Family...

I HOPE THAT OTHER FAMILY'S RECIEVE THE JUSTICE THEIR LOVED ONES DESERVE..."

"Last Man Standing" After Shootout Over Drug Turf Granted New Trial

Photo: The former New Wings Hotel on Powell St. The entrance is at the side, on Dunlevy St. to the right of the photo. Photo taken Nov. 3/08

The “last man standing” after a shootout over drug turf at the New Wings Hotel on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside in 2005 has been granted a new trial by the BC Court of Appeals. Three judges unanimously agreed that Justice Arne Silverman erred in instructing the jury on the issue of self-defense during a 2007 trial which saw Dennis Knibbs Jr. convicted of second degree murder.

Knibbs, who was in his late twenties at the time, shot to death 21 year old Trumaine “Echo” Habib, just minutes after Habib shot Knibbs’ cousin 35 year old Ian Liscombe. Liscombe would die hours later in hospital.

Knibbs and Liscombe were a drug dealing duo at the New Wings Hotel at Powell & Dunlevy, across from Oppenheimer Park on the Downtown Eastside. Habib was also dealing drugs out of the New Wings. Liscombe believed Habib was infringing on his turf, “mowing his grass” as his former girlfriend Susan, a drug addict, put it at trial. Liscombe and Habib had already been a physical fight at the New Wings, a fight which the evidence suggests Knibbs helped break up.

After that fight, Habib sneaked a sawed off shotgun to the hotel, on the day he was killed actually. On that day Habib was laying low in the room of a friend when Liscombe began pushing on the door, attempting to force it open. Knibbs was standing behind Liscombe. That’s when Habib pulled the trigger. When the close range shotgun blast hit Liscombe, he stumbled into the room onto the bed where he lay groaning with his guts hanging out.

Knibbs whipped out a police-style baton and entered the room, whacking Habib a few times with it. He also pumped three bullets into Habib with a handgun. Then he used Habib’s own sawed off shot gun to finish him off, shooting Habib at a range close enough to leave a hole in his chest the size of a “silver dollar”, according to a paramedic.

Photo: On the right is the former New Wings Hotel and on the left the Mar Hotel. The trees in the background are at Oppenheimer Park. A former heroin addict testified at Knibbs' trial that he bought heroin at Oppenheimer Park when he wasn't buying it from Liscombe at the New Wings Hotel. Photo taken Nov. 3/08.

After this evidence was heard, the deliberating jury returned to the judge with a question about whether Habib had a legal right to fire that first shot or was that first shot to be considered a “wrongful act”?

The jury’s question was pivotal. If Habib hadn’t needed to go to the extreme of shooting a gun to defend himself, he could be seen as having provoked Knibbs with a ‘wrongful act”. Knibbs' response could then be seen as manslaughter.

Judge Silverman responded to the jury’s question by telling them to use “common sense”. But common sense is a standard looser than the law. That’s what Knibbs’ lawyer Glen Orris argued to Silverman at the time – I was in the courtroom – and it’s basically the position that the Appeals Court has since taken:

“I am concerned that the lack of focus in the judge’s guidance may have allowed the jury to apply a law of the jungle to the consideration of the questioned act”, Appeals Court Judge Ian Donald stated in a written decision. “That in the drug milieu, lethal force in self defense is justifiable regardless of the immediate circumstances.”

The first thing that ran through my mind when I heard that the Appeals Court had ordered a new trial was, “Will some of those drug addicted witnesses even be alive for a new trial?” There’s always the possibility of a plea bargain with Knibbs, who is now a year and a half into a 25 year sentence with no parole eligibility for ten years, settling for manslaughter. The last man standing could soon be walking.

Black Mom gets White Justice

Dennis “Rocka” Knibbs was a black defendant facing a white jury – ten jurors were white and two were of Asian ancestry – in his murder trial in Vancouver. When this fact was mentioned early in the trial on the Downtown Eastside Enquirer blog, it drew a response from Lanre Aba Habib, mother of 21 yr. old Trumaine “Ekoh” Habib whom Knibbs, now 31, was accused of shooting multiple times in the New Wings Hotel. Habib wrote: “And as my son was half white, all I ask the court is that they would give his white side some form of JUSTICE”.

She got justice.

But questions linger about whether justice was stretched a little thin in places during the trial which saw Knibbs, the Montreal born son of Jamaican immigrants, convicted of second degree murder and sentenced last Thursday to 25 years in prison, with a mandatory ten years before being eligible for parole. Defense lawyer, Glen Orris, had argued in the hours before the verdict that Knibbs was being denied his right to fully defend himself.

Orris had felt ambushed when the jury was told at the last minute that they could consider whether the victim, Habib, had acted in self-defense when firing the first shot. Orris said he would have defended his client from this angle had he learned of it before the jury was heading off to deliberations.

“Who goes into a hotel they were just banned from toting a SHOTGUN?!!…he intended to what? Use it as a coat hanger?”

Even laypersons discussing this murder case instinctively gravitate toward the issue of whether Habib was defending himself or provoking Knibbs when he fired that first shot. Early in the case, Habib’s mother wrote to the Enquirer,

“…all I want to say is that my son was defendeding (sic) himself from two thugs that had nothing but bad blood towards him and he defended himself as he knew how to…”

After the verdict, a Knibbs supporter who wished to remain anonymous, argued that Habib’s conduct was more provocation than self defense:

“Who goes into a hotel they were just banned from toting a SHOTGUN?!! … Its obvious why this guy went back with a deadly weapon.. to use deadly force. I'm sure if he took it, he intended to what? use it as a coat hanger?”

The fact that the victim, Habib, had brought a shot gun to the New Wings Hotel in the hours before the shooting is a fact that was agreed upon by both the prosecution and the defense in this trial. Leroy Charlie, a 19 yr. old New Wings resident, had allowed Habib to stay in his room and later testified that Habib had walked in, pulled a shotgun out of his pants, and showed it to him.

Other facts too were agreed upon by both sides: Later in the day on which Habib had brought the shotgun into the hotel, Liscombe and Knibbs had been looking for Habib; Liscombe pushed on the door of Charlie’s room and as the door opened partially and then slammed shut again, Knibbs joined Liscombe in pushing on it – that’s when Habib fired the first shot from his shotgun. That first and only shot fired by Habib hit Liscombe in the gut, a wound from which he would die a few hours later in St. Paul’s hospital. A few days before Habib brought the shotgun into the hotel, he and Liscombe had gotten into a fist fight in the hallway of the hotel and Habib, the smaller of the two, had grabbed a baseball bat and whacked Liscombe across the head, leaving a cut that required a hospital visit and stitches. After that fight, Habib had been barred from the hotel by the manager but had returned to Charlie’s room with a concealed shotgun and an intent, he told Charlie, to “lay low” for awhile.

In closing statements, prosecutor Michael Luchencko told the jury that it was likely that Habib had brought the shotgun into the hotel simply because of the nature of the business he was in – Habib, Knibbs, and Liscombe were drug trafficking in the New Wings -- and not specifically to harm Liscombe or Knibbs.

Judge Silverman instructs the jury: first he says they could, then he says they couldn’t, then he says they could

After the verdict, a supporter of Knibbs commenting on the Downtown Eastside Enquirer blog, accused the jury of letting race influence their decision.

"Let me ask the jury this , 'How could you say that Ecko acted on self defense if he was barred from the New Wings . Means he isnt allowed in . How do you know defendent (sic) wasn't tryin to escort him out of there'. . . . You have it out for black people and I really think that it's a nasty attitude."

But if the jury's decision was colored by anything, it may have been Justice Silverman's instructions about whether they could consider if Habib had acted in self-defense when firing the first shot. First he said they could, then he said they couldn’t, then he said they could.

Trouble started when Justice Silverman, before sending the jury out to deliberate, instructed them that they could consider the issue of whether Habib had been acting in self-defense. The minute the jury left the room, Orris stood up and objected, telling the judge that it was unfair to put this issue to jurors for the first time as they were heading out to deliberate. Orris argued that the prosecution had not raised this issue during the trial, denying Knibbs an opportunity to defend himself in relation to it.

Orris -- who had told the jury the day before in closing statements that this case “screams out” for an acquittal based on the fact that Knibbs had been the one acting in self defense – now gave the judge an idea of how he would have defended his client if he had known that the jury would be asked to consider whether Habib had been acting in self-defense. Orris said he would have gotten the jury to distinguish between whether it was Knibbs or Liscombe that Habib may have felt the need to defend against.

Orris won over the judge. Justice Silverman recalled the jury and gave them strict instructions not to consider whether Habib had been acting in self-defense: “Take that off your radar.”

The jury didn’t take it off their radar. The next day, after deliberating until almost dinner time, the jury sent the judge questions. They asked: “When Liscombe and Nabib forced entry, did Nabib have the right to fire the shotgun? Was that an unlawful act?” And they asked for a brush-up on the “provocation” defense, specifically the part that states that some “unlawful act” must have suddenly been committed to provoke a person into committing murder. Even Orris’ receptionist smelled trouble here; she had dropped into the courtroom with an armful of papers and said in worried tone, “They’re talking about provocation.” Orris, a 30 year veteran of court rooms, responded, "Who knows why." He did not sound happy.

Even a layperson sitting in the gallery could see that the jury’s questions hinted at trouble for Knibbs. The jury appearing to be reviewing the defense of “provocation”, a place where the judge told them to go only if they had already found Knibbs guilty of murder. The provocation defense would allow the jury to drop a murder conviction down to the lesser conviction manslaughter. The provocation defense works like this: If Habib’s firing of the shotgun into Liscombe’s belly could be viewed as an unlawful act that had “provoked” Knibbs into a violent response, then Knibbs could be convicted on the lesser crime of manslaughter and be out on parole in 4 years. But if Habib had a right to fire that shotgun – i.e. if he had been exercising his right to self-defense -- he was not committing an unlawful act and the jury’s option of dropping a murder conviction to manslaughter was dead.

Orris put up a fight. It was getting late, about 8:30 p.m.; the lights were out in the halls of the cavernous court building, the sheriffs were on overtime, and the Canucks were in overtime a few blocks away, playing what would be their final playoff game.

Orris argued to the judge that prosecutors had “never taken the position in opening or closing statements that Habib was acting in self-defense in acquiring the gun.” And there had been “no suggestion” by the prosecution during the trial that Habib had acted in self-defense. Orris further pointed out that raising this issue was unfairly “putting the onus on Mr. Knibbs to prove that Mr. Habib was not acting in self-defense”. It was too late for Knibbs to mount a defense now, Orris said.

“I didn’t get a chance to say to this jury,” Orris argued, “‘Nobody saw guns in the hands of either of these men’”, either Knibbs or Liscombe, as they entered the room where Habib was staying. And Knibbs took out a baton only after Habib fired the first shot. And Knibbs had intervened in a fight a few days earlier between Liscombe and Habib, punching Habib once, just enough to put an end to the fight. “So what are the chances he wanted to blow this guy away from 30 centimeters with a shotgun?,” Orris told the judge. “I didn’t get a chance to argue that. Don’t go there.”

The judge went there. Justice Silverman told Orris that he intended to rule against him. He intended, he said, to instruct the jury to use a “common sense” standard for whether Habib had been acting in self-defense. Orris protested: You’re going to say to the jury that the criteria for self-defense that you instructed them to apply to Mr. Knibbs, don’t apply to Mr. Habib, and that for Habib the standard to be applied is “common sense which is much wider”.

“Give me ten minutes”, the judge said, as he ducked out to prepare the tricky wording of his instructions to the jury. Orris turned to a sheriff: How are the Canucks doing?

Justice Silverman recalled the jury and instructed them to decide whether Habib had a “perceived need to defend himself” – that’s the key phrase to remember, he told them -- when he fired that first shot. In a general sense, the judge explained, “a person has a legal right to defend himself from danger or threat of danger.” You will have to be satisfied that Habib did have that “need”, before you can decide that he had the “right” to fire the first shot. “There are clearly some common sense limitations that you’re going to have to consider”, he further explained. You will have to determine that:

1. Mr. Habib “honestly and reasonably perceived serious danger and threat to himself”,
2. Mr. Habib fired the shotgun “in response” to the perceived danger,
3. Mr. Habib’s “reaction in firing the shotgun was not excessive” in those circumstances.

The judge emphasized, "Apply common sense."

Common sense was exactly the standard that Habib’s mother wanted applied in this case. In a comment left at the Downtown Eastside Enquirer near the start of the trial, the Surrey mother referred to the judge’s opening comments, “COMMON SENCE (sic) IS WHAT THE JUDGE KEPT SAYING TO THE JURY I TRULY HOPE THAT HE USES SOME."

Anyone with an ounce of common sense can see that this case isn’t over yet. As Knibbs sat in the prisoner’s box for the first time after the verdict was read, his tie now missing, a tall, young, Mulatto guy who had arrived with his Asian girlfriend, spoke with him through the glass. He encouraged Knibbs to hold out hope for his appeal. “Now three judges get to deal with it,” his pal reminded him. "And when they see what’s up, they’ll see what’s up.”

Vancouver Police hold M16 assault rifle to head of innocent man

Vancouver Police got a neighbour of Nigel Roberts at Nanaimo St. and McGill to bang on his door in the middle of the night to tell him that his truck was being towed. Roberts recalls racing out his backdoor with no shirt or shoes and seeing “cops everywhere with assault rifles”. An M16 assault rifle was pointed at his head. “They slammed me down on the ground”, he says, and told me to shut up, that I was under arrest and investigation for double homicide. There were even police with rifles on tripods, he said, pointed at his windows. Roberts was handcuffed “behind my back”, and his ankles were shackled.

The 26 yr. old Roberts was delivered to the Vancouver Police Station near Main & Hastings. He was put in a small room to wait for Detectives Dale Weidman and Rob Faoro who would question him about the murders.

Nigel Roberts has since been cleared. Detective Weidman testified in B.C. Supreme Court earlier this month that at the time of Roberts’ arrest, the VPD had “no direct evidence against him.”

Weidman has been testifying – he finished last Wednesday -- at the murder trial of Dennis Knibbs, who is charged with one of the murders which had taken place inside the New Wings Hotel on the Downtown Eastside on Apr. 4/05, the night before Roberts’ arrest. Knibbs is accused of using both a shotgun and a revolver to shoot Trumaine “Ekoh” Habib, who had just shot Knibbs’ cousin Ian Liscombe with the same shotgun.

Weidman was first called to the witness stand at Knibbs’ trial on Apr. 5th, 2007, almost two years to the day since he interviewed Nigel Roberts at 2:55 a.m. on Apr. 5, 2005. Defense lawyer Glen Orris asked Weidman to recall interviewing Roberts just hours after police had discovered two murder victims at the New Wings Hotel: "Obviously , you’re dealing with somebody who might be considered a suspect, is that correct?” Weidman responded, “No.... I certainly don’t have reasonable grounds to think he’s involved or responsible for it….Certainly I don’t have grounds.”

Weidman told the court twice that he had not played a role in the actual arrest of Roberts at his home at 330 Nanaimo St. Roberts, he said, had come to police attention a few hours earlier when he and a passenger in his vehicle were seen “driving through the crime scene”. A patrol officer had noted that Roberts fit the description of the suspect. “Loosely”, Weidman noted. Roberts is an extremely light skinned Black man, what some American Blacks call, “light, bright, and almost white”. Knibbs on the other hand is, as Roberts told detectives, “Jamaican dark.”

Roberts testified that he had driven to the New Wings Hotel in his truck, a Ford Explorer with Florida plates, the night before his arrest, to buy heroin. It was a trip Roberts – who testified that he has been clean for a year now -- made up to 5 times a day at the height of his three year heroin addiction. Roberts, who described his passenger Ryan Watson as also involved in heroin and being of the “same ethnic” as himself, told the court that they “didn’t even get near the New Wings that night”. “It was blocked off.” So Roberts pulled into a gas station, made a U-turn, and headed up to Main & Hastings where he purchased heroin.

It was several hours later, shortly after Roberts had taken a quarter gram of heroin at his home that he was lured out of the house by a ruse about his truck. He recalls being “pretty high, which is why I was up at 2:30 in the morning”. When he raced out his back door and encountered police with assault weapons, “They told me I was being charged with the murders” – a fact he repeated a number of times over the course of his four days on the witness stand. Under usual circumstances, Roberts explained, he would have been nodding out after taking “a smash of heroin” – but he was so “traumatized” by having an M16 pointed at his head and being told he was being charged with double homicide that he was not even close to nodding out at the police station.

One of the detectives can be heard during the videotaped interview telling Roberts, “Calm down, calm down.” This was after Detective Faoro made an accusation: “You fucked off”. Faoro was referring to the police claim that Roberts had been followed after being spotted near the crime scene. Roberts defended himself: “You put the lights on when you’re trying to stop somebody.” The police vehicle, he insisted, had “no lights on or nothing.” One of the detectives reassured Roberts, “You’re not going to jail for not stopping.”

When questioning Weidman, defense lawyer Glen Orris pointed out that his partner, Detective Faoro, had “used the fuck-word quite often during the interview” with Roberts. Weidman acknowledged that Faoro was not in the habit of using this word in his daily life. Certainly Detectives Weidman and Faoro have some of the characteristics of a ‘good cop-bad cop’ team. In court testimony last week, Constable Faoro spoke in an armoured, ‘nobody’s-going-to- put-one-over-on-me’ tone of voice. Weidman spoke in the relaxed style of an approachable person. One tactic of this detective duo that Roberts testified had unnerved him, was that while he was being questioned, one of the detectives kept leaving the room. Just like in NYPD Blue.

At the beginning of the interview, Detective Faoro listed three alternatives and told Roberts to pick one:

“1. You guys had fuck all to do with this

2. Those are your buddies in that place right there [the New Wings Hotel], lying there dead.

3. You guys did it.

Which one of those three is it?”

Roberts responded, “We had fuck all to do with it.”

Roberts did not speak in such a coarse style when he testified in court last week; he did not have a street-tough persona. And despite a large diamond stud earring in his ear, his style was more classy than flashy. The roughly 5’9” Roberts wore a finely tailored black suit during the entire four days of his testimony, beginning on his first day with a white shirt and a tie with chunky horizontal stripes of black and white, and ending on his last day with a pale yellow shirt with a yellow-grey tie. His dark curly hair with a receding hairline was cropped close to his head.

After interviewing Roberts, Detectives Weidman and Faoro released him later the same morning. But they took a second statement from him the following day, Apr. 6/05, a statement of which Roberts has no memory as he was “out of it” from his heroin addiction throughout this period. Roberts does recall a telephone conversation with Weidman on Apr. 6/05 though. Roberts claims to have called Weidman about his truck and his mother.

First his mother. Roberts stated in court that he had called Detective Weidman to ask, “Why did you call my mother and tell her I’m a heroin addict?” Roberts’ mother had telephoned him, after Detective Weidman had contacted her, and asked, “What’s this about you being a heroin addict?”

Now his truck. Roberts says he also called Detective Weidman about the fact that the VPD had not released his truck which had been impounded. He didn’t understand, he testified, why the detectives “release me” but “have my truck for a whole week.”

Roberts confirmed that his impounded truck is registered in Florida in his mother’s name, but added that the insurance was in his name. Roberts lived in Florida but moved to Vancouver in 2002 where he has an uncle and a cousin – “My mother’s from here”, he told the court -- after being released from prison. He had gone to prison in Florida “at a young age” which, he says, is partially what screwed him up: “The things I seen…” Prosecutor Michael Luchencko read Roberts’ criminal record aloud in court, a record which seems to have ended in 1999 when Roberts was convicted of an array of offences in Florida including: robbery, burglary, grand theft, and aggravated assault of a law enforcement officer with intent to kill. Roberts was sentenced to five years and served three. Then he came to Canada.

Blame Canada. It was in Vancouver that Roberts developed a heroin habit. When he arrived from Florida, his drug use amounted to using marijuana “every day” and drinking on the weekends and occasionally during the week. But he began snorting heroin in Vancouver and eventually was using that “every day”.

How could you afford to purchase heroin?, Luchencko asked, “I was doing real good,” Roberts replied, “I was living in Coal Harbour in a high rise and I was selling marijuana.”

In 2003 or 2004, Roberts began injecting heroin. He would sometimes “fall asleep at the wheel of my vehicle” while on heroin. “But it took away all my problems.”

One of Roberts’ problems was a bi-polar/manic depressive disorder. “At the time I hadn’t been taking my medication at all.” He recalled having highs and lows, real lows. “Sometimes I didn’t know what I was doing.” One of the reasons Roberts says he was opting for heroin was that he didn’t like the way the medication he had been prescribed for his bi-polar disorder made him feel.

Roberts speaks freely to police about people he knew at the New Wings

Roberts was a rich vein of information for detectives. He was familiar with the world inside the New Wings as he was there purchasing heroin several times a day. “If I could’ve, I would’ve lived there at that time,” Roberts testified. “I was really messed up.” He was well acquainted with both the dead and the living in this murder saga.

When Roberts was shown a photograph of 21 yr. old Trumaine “Ekoh” Habib by the prosecutor – Habib had absorbed several handgun bullets and a shotgun blast to the chest -- his voice took on a note sadness and fondness, “Yeeaah, that’s Ekoh.”

Roberts recalled Ekoh (pronounced Echo) Nabib as being young, about 5’8” or 5’9” and 160 lbs. “He usually kept his hair in corn rows”. When asked Nabib’s race, Roberts replied, “Mulatto, I think, Black and White”. Roberts noted, “He was ok with me,” alluding to reports of tensions between Nabib and some other players in this case. “I would call him a homeboy”, Roberts added. Excuse me?, the prosecutor said. “I was cool with him,” Roberts elaborated. “I would stop by his room, to talk, listen to music, smoke some weed.” Sometimes the two would “smoke some herb” in Roberts truck. “I remember him ‘cause I had a better relationship with him than Ian.”

Roberts relationship with Ian Liscombe had involved purchasing heroin. Roberts identified both Ian Liscombe and his cousin, defendant Dennis “Rocka” Knibbs, as dealers in the New Wings. He never purchased drugs from these dealers directly though. When a user arrived to purchase heroin, the dealer would have “a separate person hook ‘em up.” Roberts explained: “I would go to Ian and I would know who he had working for him.” Liscombe would point to someone. “I’d purchase my heroin from a crack head, another user.”

Roberts would then inject the heroin, “chill out” at home, and return to the hotel to purchase more.

Although Roberts’ heroin habit made him a New Wings insider who had valuable information for Detectives Weidman and Faoro, Roberts says his heroin habit made much of the information he gave these detectives inaccurate. He retracted much of it in court last week.

Roberts retracts statements he made to VPD detectives

Just minutes before he was to begin testifying at the Knibbs’ murder trial, Roberts button-holed prosecutor Michael Luchencko outside the courthouse and told him he would not stand by incriminating statements he had made in 2005 about the defendant, Knibbs, to detectives. Roberts has given two reasons for his retractions:

1) Roberts claims he was scared when being interviewed by detectives after police had pointed an M16 at his head and told him he was being charged with double homicide. Roberts had exaggerated claims about people at the New Wings such as Knibbs, he testified, in his desperation to convince detectives to shift their focus from him. He was scared that police were “trying to frame me or something, ‘cause it happens everyday.”

2) Roberts claims his heavy use of heroin while interacting with residents of the New Wings coupled with the heavy dose of heroin he had taken before questioning by detectives, resulted in his statement to police being rife with inaccuracies. “At the time I gave that statement, I was high as a kite, and I didn’t know who was who or what was what.” Roberts explained that now that he had been straight for a year, he was able to think straight again, to think more clearly.

Defense lawyer embarrasses Vancouver Police detectives

It was the job of defense lawyer Orris to convince the jury that statements Roberts made to police about his client were unreliable. Orris impressed upon the jury that Detectives Weidman and Faoro had extracted this statement from 1) a scared man without making him aware of his rights, 2) a track-marked, admitted heroin addict, without asking him if he was currently under the influence of drugs.

Orris began his attack by asking Weidman whether Roberts had been “chartered and warned” before detectives took his statement. Weidman gave three answers to this question during the trial. When first asked this question by Orris on Apr. 5/07, Weidman responded, “No.” When Orris posed the same question again on April 25/07, Weidman seemed prepared and replied, “I’ve since reviewed…” Orris cut him off, insisting that he wanted to know what Weidman knew at the time he took Roberts’ statement. Had Weidman been aware of whether Roberts had been “chartered and warned”? “No, I wasn’t”, Weidman responded in a low, almost inaudible voice. Then Weidman suddenly piped up with a revised answer, “I don’t remember that day.”

Orris then got detectives to admit that they had not asked Roberts about any medication or illicit drugs of which he was under the influence when his statement was being taken. “Did you ask him if he was under the influence of drugs at any time,” Orris asked. Weidman responded, “No.”

Orris asked if Weidman or his partner had asked Roberts about any other disorders. He has a bi-polar disorder, Orris said. “Does that ring a bell?” Weidman replied “No”, but at that point volunteered, “I remember him telling us about his heroin addiction.” When questioned further, Weidman confirmed that his partner, Detective Faoro, also had never asked Roberts if he was under the influence of drugs.

Orris then turned his attention to the second statement the detectives had taken from Roberts: Did you or your partner ask Mr. Roberts if he was under the influence of drugs? “No,” Weidman responded. Did you ask him if he was on “any other medication for anything at any time?”, Orris asked. “No,” Weidman responded.

Orris: But you knew he was into the heroin?
Weidmman: Yes, he told us.

Luchencko attempted a little damage control: Did you have any reason "to believe it was necessary" to ask the questions Orris had been suggesting? "No," Weidman said, explaining that he'd had consider experience working "in the skids" with addicts.

Orris continued this line of questioning when Detective Faoro took the witness stand: Wouldn’t it have been “fair” to ask Mr. Roberts, “Are you under the influence of drugs?” At one point Faoro said he had considerable experience with heroin addicts and that Roberts did not exhibit the signs, such as nodding out.

Orris raised his voice to a booming level: “Why not simply ask? He told you he was a heroin addict; he showed you his arm and his track marks.”
Faoro: "I didn’t think it was necessary."
Orris: "Asking him if he was under the influence of drugs would not have taken much time?"
Faoro: “No.”

Weidman and Faoro seemed to have rehearsed for Orris’ line of questioning; at times their testimony was so similar in words and phrases that it seemed scripted. They both used the term "lucid" to describe Roberts, for example.

Judge and prosecutor weren't buying Roberts' story

The judge reviewed Roberts statement to police and said it was "not incoherent".

Luchencko noted that he had spoken with Roberts earlier in his office and "at no time did he suggest there was a possibility of such a problem."

Upon first hearing of Roberts' retractions, Luchenko had told the judge: "I think this is a witness under some pressure." I think I know what you're getting at, the judge, told him. But nobody said it out loud.