The widow of Const. David Wynn says the first day of a fatality inquiry into his death was a hard one.
Shelly MacInnis Wynn, widow of St. Albert RCMP Const. David Wynn who was killed in the line of duty, told reporters outside the St. Albert courthouse Wednesday afternoon it was difficult to hear the details of the night her husband died and relive the situation again more than four years after his death.
“Today it was very hard. Four years later to have to go back to all of those details was extremely hard,” MacInnis Wynn said.
On Wednesday, the fatality inquiry into the deaths of Wynn and the man who killed him before fatally shooting himself, Shawn Rehn, opened with an agreed statement of facts detailing the incidents that unfolded on Jan. 17, 2015.
In the afternoon, Eric Tolppanen, assistant deputy minister with the Alberta crown prosecution service, walked the court through the changes that have been made to the bail system since the incidents in 2015.
Rehn had 29 outstanding charges but was released without his criminal history being presented in court. A police officer conducted Rehn’s bail hearing.
Since the deaths of Wynn and Rehn, the province conducted a review of the situation titled Report on Shawn Rehn: A review of the involvement of the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service with Shawn Maxwell Rehn. The report recommended that a comprehensive review of how bail hearings are conducted be undertaken.
A second independent report on the bail process in Alberta, titled Alberta Bail Review: A Call for Change, by Nancy Irving, reviewed the judicial interim release system and made 31 recommendations to improve the provincial bail system.
The Irving review found police appear on behalf of the Crown at 60,000 arrests or 99 per cent of first-instance bail hearings.
The inquiry into the provincial bail system spurred by Wynn’s death raised questions of whether police officers have enough expertise to attend bail hearings on behalf of the Crown or if the hearings should be left to the more experienced Crown prosecutors.
In the end it was decided that police officers do not have the authority act on behalf of the Crown at bail hearings and that Crown prosecutors are the only ones who will conduct the bail hearings. Alberta’s 24-hour bail system was also changed and was reduced to operating between 8 a.m. and midnight.
Tolppanen walked the court through each of Irving's 31 recommendations and gave updates on the status of the items. The court heard that the Alberta court system has since dropped faxing as its primary means of communications for bail hearing and have switched to an electronic method of communications.
Tolppanen also weighed in on Wynn’s Law, a private members bill brought forward by St. Albert MP Michael Cooper, and said the bill was both unnecessary and could have unintended negative consequences.
Wynn’s Law, or Bill S-217, was named after Wynn, 42, who was shot and killed in January 2015 but the bill failed to pass in the house.
The law aimed to amend the Criminal Code to alter the bail process by “requiring the prosecution to lead evidence that the accused has previous conviction, has outstanding criminal charges, or has previously failed to appear in court when required to do so.”
Tolppanen said the law is unnecessary because during a bail hearing the criminal record will be available to the judge or justice of the peace through CPIC and in Alberta if bail is contested, Crown prosecutors must provide that information. Tolppanen said crown prosecutors cannot supress information from the court.
“In my view as laudable as it might have seemed … it’s unnecessary because it already happens,” Tolppanen said.
Tolppanen said the changes could have unintended negative consequences by eroding prosecutorial independence and discretion.
“There is no other provision in the Criminal Code that dictates how a prosecutor is to present their case,” Tolppanen said.
Tolppanen added that if the information was presented for each case, it would turn summary proceedings into “prolonged complicated process that would cause significant delay.”
MacInnis-Wynn said she could kind of see where Tolppanen was coming from and had heard those reasons many times before while trying to get Wynn’s Law passed, but said that if that information had been presented at the bail hearing it would have saved the life of her husband and the suffering of other families.
The fatality inquiry is slated to continue Thursday morning and testimony is anticipated to wrap up at noon.
