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Thirty months after a choose discovered him responsible of murdering his girlfriend’s younger daughter, convicted assassin Justin Bennett will go on trial in September.
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Protection lawyer Gregory Lazin appeared Friday by way of video hyperlink in Calgary Courtroom of King’s Bench to schedule a five-day trial beginning Sept. 18.
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“This matter is right here to verify the date of September 18, for 5 days earlier than Choose (Blair) Nixon for a mistrial utility,” Lazin instructed Choose David Labrenz, who presided over the legal arraignment.
“A five-day mistrial utility?” requested Labrenz.
“How lengthy was the trial?”
Lazin mentioned the trial earlier than Nixon took about 3 1/2 weeks.
“Okay, I believe you are solely doing a couple of third for the mistrial utility,” Labrenz famous.
Nixon convicted Bennett, 29, of second-degree homicide in March 2021, within the Oct. 5, 2017, demise of three-year-old Ivy Wick, the daughter of his then-girlfriend, Helen Wordsworth.
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The trial choose dominated that Bennett’s confession to an undercover officer throughout a so-called Mr. Large sting operation was compelling.
Bennett admitted to assaulting Ivy whereas her mom showered of their northeast Calgary house.
The choose rejected protection arguments that Wordsworth could have been liable for the kid’s mind trauma that triggered her to be hospitalized on September 27, 2017, accidents from which she by no means recovered.
Bennett, who didn’t seem in court docket for the transient proceedings earlier than Labrenz, stays in custody on the Calgary Remand Centre.
He was arrested the day after his September 6, 2018, admission to the officer posing as against the law boss.
By the point his parole utility is heard, Bennett can have spent 5 years in custody, which is often thought of tougher than in a federal or provincial jail.
If his mistrial utility will not be profitable, he can be sentenced to an computerized life sentence with solely the difficulty of parole ineligibility to be determined.
If a mistrial is asserted, a second listening to will have to be scheduled.
KMartin@postmedia.com
On Twitter: @KMartinCourts
