Sask. judge rejects Odelia Quewezance bail violation challenge

Odelia Quewezance has been sentenced to time served after the Saulteaux woman pleaded guilty to violating her bail last year. Her plea came after a Saskatchewan judge rejected her legal challenge. Yorkton provincial court Judge Derek Maher gave his verbal decision Thursday after hearing oral arguments in June. Defence lawyer James Lockyer said the plea and sentence won’t affect Quewezance’s bail. She and her sister, Nerissa Quewezance, were released on conditions in March 2023 to await a federal Department of Justice miscarriage of justice review of their 1994 second-degree murder convictions. The pair was convicted in the 1993 stabbing death of Joseph Dolff, a Kamsack-area farmer despite consistently professing their innocence. A youth pleaded guilty to the murder and has completed his sentence. The sisters were each sentenced to life in prison and served 24 years in custody and six years on parole. Lockyer, a Toronto-based lawyer with Innocence Canada, is now representing them. He filed a wrongful conviction application in December 2021. Saskatchewan Justice and its public prosecutions branch opposed the women’s release on bail. They also charged Odelia for being 50 minutes late for her 11 p.m. curfew on April 3, 2024, Maher heard. Lockyer argued his client shouldn’t have been charged at all under Bill 75, which was introduced by former Liberal Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould in 2018. He asked Maher to stay the charge. Maher did not provide written reasons for his decision Thursday. Lockyer said the bill gives police officers and prosecutors discretion when it comes to charging an Indigenous person with a bail violation. It is intended to reduce the number of Indigenous people in custody for petty crimes, he said in a telephone interview. “The judge rejecting (my) application is disappointing,” Lockyer told APTN News. “However, hopefully, it will persuade Saskatchewan prosecutors to make use of Section 523.1.” Indigenous people make up 77 per cent of people in Saskatchewan prisons, Lockyer told court, noting that section of the code was a way to address systemic racism in the criminal justice system. Meanwhile, Lockyer said he was told two weeks ago that the sister’s miscarriage of justice applications continues to be reviewed by the Criminal Conviction Review Group inside the Department of Justice. Continue Reading