The Calgary jury which convicted a city man of first-degree murder in a revenge-motivated shooting wasn’t improperly instructed on the law, the province’s top court ruled Tuesday.
In a unanimous decision, a three-member Alberta Court of Appeal panel upheld the conviction of Devon Shedrick in the July 2, 2022, fatal shooting of Shawn McCormack.
The appeal judges disagreed with defence counsel Alias Sanders that Justice Keith Yamauchi’s final instruction to jurors in the trial of Shedrick and co-accused Laura Lavorato were “fatally flawed.”
Sanders submitted the Court of King’s Bench judge failed to instruct jurors on multiple crucial points, including on how to utilize the evidence of the prosecution’s star witness, a jailhouse informant referred to as X in the appeal court’s written decision.
One argument raised by the defence was that Yamauchi told jurors their first responsibility in the case was “to figure out what happened.”
“The appellant submits that instruction negates the option of not being able to figure out what happened,” the appeal judges said.
But the top court said Yamauchi’s explanation to jurors made it clear what their duties were.
“The trial judge gave appropriate instructions on the presumption of innocence, the onus on the Crown and reasonable doubt. These instructions made it clear that if the jury was not able to be entirely sure what happened, they must acquit.”
Jurors found Shedrick guilty of the planned and deliberate killing of McCormack, who had beaten him up six weeks earlier when both men were housed at the Calgary Remand Centre.
Before the killing, McCormack’s girlfriend, Lavorato, had sent a text to Shedrick asking him to help deal with her abusive partner.
Lavorato, who was convicted of manslaughter, wanted Shedrick to badly assault McCormack so he’d leave her Forest Lawn home and the killer took it a step further, shooting the victim once in the chest.