Haiart killer appeals for new trial

A street gang member who shot and killed an innocent Winnipegteenager in the process of targeting rivals over the sale of crack cocaine is appealing for a new murder trial.

Jeff Cansanay, 24, has filed an appeal of his recent second-degree murder conviction saying that the judge who heard his case made a number of serious mistakes that ultimately should result in his case being heard again.

In June, Cansanay was handed a sentence of life in prison without the chance of parole for 15 years for fatally shooting Phil Haiart, 17, in October 2005.

Haiart was crossing the street near the corner of Sargent Avenue and Maryland Street in the city's West End when he was hit and killed by a single bullet meant for a gang member at war with Cansanay's own gang.

Cansanay and a co-accused, Corey Spence, emerged from a home on McGee Street to confront two members of the Mad Cowz street gang.

At Spence's urging, Canasanay lifted a rifle and began shooting at the gang members and Haiart was hit in the stomach.

'No air of reality'

The doctor's son died in hospital hours later. In documents filed with Manitoba's Court of Appeal, Cansanay and his lawyer, Greg Brodsky, said Justice Shawn Greenberg made nine separate errors during the trial, including not allowing Cansanay to claim he acted in self-defence.

The home on McGee had been the site of a number of violent altercations in the days prior to the shootings, due to the fact that Cansanay and Spence who were aligned with the African Mafia gang were selling crack cocaine on turf claimed by the Mad Cowz.

The subject of self-defence at the trial prompted Greenberg and the lawyers to enter into a long voir dire to consider whether it was proper for jurors to hear such a claim.

'There is no air of reality to the defence of self-defence.' Justice Shawn Greenberg

A voir dire is a court session where jurors are removed to allow the lawyers to argue and the judge to make rulings on evidence and procedure.

"There is no evidence that Cansanay believed that he had no alternative to shooting at Amyotte and Abdullah. The reasonable inference from the evidence is that he did have alternatives," Greenberg said in a written ruling on the issue.

"There is no air of reality to the defence of self-defence," Greenberg stated.

Mistrial denied

Appeal documents also said Greenberg's decision to keep the trial going after the Crown inadvertently mentioned Spence's own conviction for second-degree murder was a mistake.

The Crown mentioned Spence's murder conviction in a question he asked a witness during the trial's third week.

Brodsky immediately asked for a mistrial and arguedthat the Crown'sstatement tainted the jurors' ability to judge the evidence impartially.

However, Greenberg said the Crown'scomment "happened so fast" that she didn't even hear it. "It happened ... in a split second," she said.

A mistrial would only have been declared as a last resort, she said in a written ruling.

No date has been set to hear Cansanay's appeal.

He remains in custody at Stony Mountain Institution.