To listen to the full interview, please visit CBC Manitoba. 

“This case is unlike so many others,” he said, pointing to one unidentified and unlocated victim, multiple requests for a judge-alone trial and the question of criminal responsibility.

“From essentially every step of the way, this case should be seen as unique.”

To read the full story, please visit the Winnipeg Free Press. 

Brandon Trask also spoke with Marcy Markusa with CBC Manitoba about what a life sentence means in Canada and how the parole board determines whether someone is eligible after 25 years in prison. Listen here. 

Brandon also did a follow-up interview with the Winnipeg Free Press regarding Jeremy Skibicki’s sentencing. Skibicki received concurrent life sentences with no chance of parole for 25 years for the racially-motivated killings of four Indigenous women in Winnipeg — the same period of parole ineligibility that is given to an adult convicted of one first-degree murder. You can read the full article: Legislated sentence for serial killer reignites concurrent vs. consecutive debate

A Manitoba judge has found serial killer Jeremy Skibicki guilty of four counts of first-degree murder, ruling he was not suffering from schizophrenia when he ‘mercilessly’ killed four Indigenous women.

A cheer erupted from the gallery of the courtroom in Winnipeg when Manitoba’s Court of King’s Bench Chief Justice Glenn Joyal delivered a summary of his decision Thursday morning.

It was words the friends and families of Morgan Harris, Marcedes Myran, Rebecca Contois and an unidentified victim given the name Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe or Buffalo Woman have been waiting more than two years to hear.

Assistant professor, Brandon Trask from the Faculty of Law spoke with CTV’s Daniel Halmarson with reaction to Jeremy Skibicki’s guilty verdict. Here is the full story. 

“The first step is they have to be found as suffering from a disease of the mind,” Trask said. “Usually you can get over that hurdle.

To read the full story, please visit the Winnipeg Free Press.

Jeremy Skibicki has pleaded not guilty to four first-degree murder charges.

“This case is about a man’s hate filled and cruel acts perpetrated against four vulnerable indigenous women,” prosecutor Renee Lagimodiere told court Wednesday on the opening day of the trial of Jeremy Skibicki.

To read the full article, please visit The National Post.

Skibicki’s lawyers will likely be facing an uphill battle, said one law professor.

“This is not a case where there’s a single victim, a single moment in time. This is a situation involving four victims across presumably a lengthier period of time,” said Brandon Trask, an assistant professor of law at the University of Manitoba. 

“I expect we’ll see a number of experts called.”

To read the full article, please visit CP24.

“Colonialism, both of the past and of the present, racism, patriarchy, (and) sexism have come together to produce a context where Indigenous women, girls and two-spirited people, have found themselves disproportionately coming to harm,” Perry said.

“We, as a society, have repeatedly shown ourselves kind of unable and unwilling, and often kind of a combination of both, to address those circumstances and to honour to those women and girls and two-spirited people, and their families,” she added.

To read the full story about the Red Dress Event, please visit Global News Winnipeg.

A few blocks away, the city presents a different face. The area around Main and Henry, where Morgan Harris was last seen, is in many ways a city apart, full of blank-faced warehouses and a dense concentration of shelters and social services. Nearly half of residents live below the poverty line and nearly half are Indigenous, many drawn to the city from rural and northern communities. Life expectancy in South Point Douglas, as of the 2016 census, was only 69 for men, compared to 79 citywide, and 80 nationally.

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Skibicki’s defence lawyers had argued for a judge-alone trial, but that application was denied.

“This is just, I think, a way for the defence to sort of build that record, essentially, to potentially try for an appeal,” Trask said.

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