Aerial picture of Millhaven Establishment. Picture by way of Correctional Service of Canada.
A person charged with homicide after an assault at Millhaven Establishment that took the lifetime of one other inmate testified in his personal defence on Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024. Right here’s what we are able to inform readers regardless of a publication ban.
Justice Adriana Doyle from Ottawa oversaw the Napanee Courtroom of Justice on the Lennox and Addington County Courthouse on Thomas Avenue in Napanee on September 3. The accused, Imo Atiba Lewis, is being tried for homicide by a jury of 5 ladies and 7 males.
As beforehand reported, the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP)-led Joint Forces Penitentiary Squad, underneath the course of the OPP Felony Investigation Department, charged Lewis with homicide at roughly 3 a.m., Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2020, at Millhaven Establishment. The costs got here when members of the Penitentiary Squad responded to the establishment after inmate Dakota Laine Ryder, age 25, was assaulted and brought to hospital however died of his accidents.
On account of the investigation, the Penitentiary Squad, together with the Correctional Service of Canada, launched a press release saying they’d arrested and charged Lewis, then age 37, with first-degree homicide.
Safety for the court docket continuing was very tight. Now 41, Lewis, a black man, is round six ft (183 cm) tall and about 200 kilos (90 kilograms). It was exhausting to not word the truth that he was escorted to and from court docket by six or extra giant white male members of Correctional Service of Canada’s Emergency Response Staff (ERT), or the very fact these within the courtroom itself have been overwhelmingly light-skinned, together with these on the jury and the concerned attorneys. Lewis was shackled and had his fingers cuffed to a midriff restraint belt any time he was moved in or out of court docket by the staff of officers.
Outdoors the courtroom, members of the OPP instructed that no luggage have been allowed inside and used metallic detectors to comb everybody getting into. Kingstonist’s reporter was advised by the OPP she couldn’t use her cellular phone to file or her pc to take notes. When questioned on this, members have been advised by their superior officer to forbid the tools, which appears to contravene the Ontario Courtroom of Justice Protocol Relating to the Use of Digital Communication Gadgets in Courtroom Proceedings. Because of this, all notes on the proceedings have been taken by hand.
Lewis’s spouse and teenage youngsters have been current in court docket as he testified. For many of his testimony, Lewis spoke on to the jury, wanting them within the eyes. Due to a publication ban, Kingstonist can not share the main points of his emotional testimony till after the conclusion of the trial. Nonetheless, his testimony and cross-examination lasted all day on Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024.
On the finish of the day, Justice Doyle launched the jury members and instructed them to return to the Napanee court docket on Friday, Sept. 6, 2024, “with your toothbrushes and an overnight bag,” indicating that they are going to be sequestered someday that day to make their deliberations.
On the time of the Millhaven incident, Lewis was serving time for the second-degree homicide of Joines Connolly, 25, and the tried homicide of Andres Sotomayor, 24, on August 30, 2005, on the D Martini Lounge in Mississauga.
In line with information studies on the time, the shootings within the crowded bar throughout the road from Mississauga’s Sq. One Buying Centre concerned revenge and betrayal of longtime drug-dealing pals with Colombian cocaine connections and jealousy over a girl. As effectively, Lewis was beforehand convicted of manslaughter in a 1999 shotgun slaying.
Ryder, the sufferer of the Millhaven assault, had been serving an indeterminate sentence for second-degree homicide and aggravated assault since Might 28, 2015.
Kingstonist will present extra particulars on this case as soon as the jury commences its deliberations.
