Crown files appeal in THC case involving death of Baeleigh Maurice

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Saskatchewan public prosecutions has filed an appeal to a judge’s decision in a court case involving the 2021 death of a young Saskatoon girl.

The case involves nine-year-old Baeleigh Maurice, who died after being hit by a truck while walking her scooter along a crosswalk.

The province’s justice ministry says there are grounds to file, but there is no further information to provide as the matter is before the courts.

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Taylor Kennedy of Saskatoon was charged with impaired driving exceeding the prescribed blood-drug concentration of THC, as well as causing death.

In December, Justice Jane Wootten stayed the charges and ruled the woman was not tried within a reasonable time as required by Canadian law.

Matters at Canadian provincial courts must conclude within 18 months, but Wootten determined Kennedy’s matter took about 24 months.

Maurice’s mother Rochelle Cook, last month in a statement, said “every day has been a roller coaster of emotions since Taylor Kennedy took my baby’s life. I miss her terribly. Her friends and family miss her terribly.”

Kennedy was driving a truck when she struck Maurice while the girl was in a crosswalk on her scooter at the intersection of 33rd Street and Avenue G around 9 a.m. on Sept. 9, 2021.

She was charged in March 2022. Her trial began in October 2023. Most of the trial was in a voir dire to determine the admissibility of evidence, and to hear several charter applications from the defence.

Sarah Smokeyday, a friend who spoke on behalf of Rochelle Cook at a press conference last month, said supporters “believed that they would get to feel some sort of justice served” but following the judge’s decision “our hearts were ripped out because, once again, we watch the justice system fail.”

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Defence lawyer Thomas Hynes argued that Kennedy was denied a trial within a reasonable time due to a net delay of 23 months — attributed to the Crown — between the time charges were laid and when delay arguments were made in August.

The Supreme Court’s R. v. Jordan decision requires provincial court trials to conclude within 18 months of charges being laid, unless the Crown can justify “exceptional circumstances” for its role in the delay.

“The Crown could not point to any exceptional circumstances that otherwise justified how long the case took. In those circumstances, the judge’s only option under the law was to stay the proceeding,” Hynes said.

Officers at the crash scene administered an oral fluid test followed by a blood test after Kennedy told a Saskatoon police officer she used cannabis and micro-dosed psilocybin the night before the crash.

RCMP said charges weren’t laid until 2022 because of pandemic-related toxicology result delays at the RCMP lab. It was the first time anyone had been charged with driving with a blood-THC level higher than the legal limit causing death in Saskatchewan.

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Hynes argued that a series of breaches — including not providing Kennedy the right to speak with a lawyer in a timely manner and the delayed collection of her saliva sample — led to the roadside blood test being unconstitutional, and the results inadmissible.

In a prior decision during the trial, Wootten ruled that officers did not force Kennedy to disclose her drug use.

— With Saskatoon StarPhoenix files from Bre McAdam and Michelle Berg

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