The province's highest court has ruled two Elgin Middlesex Detention Centre (EMDC) employees should stand trial for their alleged role in the beating death of an inmate in his cell in 2013.
In a decision released Monday, the Ontario Court of Appeal reversed a lower court ruling to stay the charges against EMDC operations manager Stephen Jurkus and correctional officer Leslie Lonsbary.
The two were charged in March of 2014 with failing to provide the necessaries of life in the death of Adam Kargus. The 29-year-old Sarnia man was murdered by his cellmate on October 31, 2013. His badly beaten body was found the next morning in the prison's showers. Jail surveillance video showed the deadly beating lasted over an hour with no guards responding to the repeated calls for help.
The lower court's decision to dismiss the charges against Jurkus and Lonsbary was made in February 2017 after it determined the case had surpassed the 30-month time limit to go to trial. The Crown appealed that decision and argued in February of this year that the original judge made errors in her analysis of the time frame, overlooking exceptional circumstances that accounted for the delay.
"When these errors are properly accounted for, there was no unreasonable delay. The trial must proceed," the court of appeal decision reads.
Kargus' cellmate Anthony George pleaded guilty last year to second-degree murder in the death. He is currently serving life in prison with no chance of parole for ten years.
Jurkus and Lonsbary can appeal Monday's decision to the Supreme Court of Canada.
