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A 32-year-old woman awaiting her murder trial has been released from jail due to concerns of COVID-19 exposure.
Sheritta Kahpeaysewat has been charged with second-degree murder in relation to the death of 54-year old Colin Sutherland in 2018.
However, her lawyer, Brian Pfefferle, says citizens should not be concerned about the number of people being released from jails.
“Are people getting released that are otherwise dangerous? I think absolutely not. And is the community at higher risk because of the people that are being released, I don’t think so. Have more people gotten bail over the last couple of months? Absolutely they have,” he said.
“There is a big difference between releasing an individual who was accused of an offence and someone who has been convicted of an offence. So what we are seeing is a lot of people that have no criminal records getting released, we have a lot of people that have property-related allegations being released. People that are not a risk to public safety.”
According to Pfefferle, Kahpeaysewat was in a reverse onus situation which means she had to show the crown why she should be released instead of the usual situation where the crown would have to show why she should be in custody.
Add that to the fact she had never been denied bail in the first place, and it wasn’t unusual that she was released a week ago.
Releasing people awaiting trial is as much about protecting the inmates as it is the corrections workers, according to Pfefferle.
“The goal is always to make sure that when we are speaking to the release of individuals that the primary focus is public safety and the public includes inmates, of course. And particularly we need to be concerned with people that are remanded with the presumption of innocence still applying,” he said.
“If we can reduce the inmate numbers it’s going to assist the correctional staff and the community will be safer in the small jail.”
Kahpeaysewat has been placed under 24-hour house arrest in Moosomin First Nation. She also has a number of other conditions connected to her release such as not possessing or consuming alcohol and reporting to a probation officer by telephone.
Kahpeaysewat’s trial is scheduled for early December.
