
A look at some of the cases involving new Supreme Court Justice Sheilah Martin
OTTAWA — Sheilah Martin of Calgary has been appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada. Here’s a look at some of the cases she has worked on since she was called to the bar in Alberta in 1989:
Thomas Sophonow Inquiry — After working as a professor and dean of the University of Calgary’s law school, Martin practiced criminal and constitutional law. In 2000, she testified as an expert witness in the Thomas Sophonow inquiry about the amount of compensation he should get for his wrongful murder conviction. Sophonow was tried three times and spent nearly four years in prison for the 1981 killing of 16-year-old Barbara Stoppel in Winnipeg. The Manitoba government awarded him $2.6 million.
Pro Bono Work — Martin also acted pro bono for the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) and the Alberta Association of Sexual Assault Centres in cases before the Supreme Court. In 2002, she represented LEAF as an intervener in the case of Ivon Shearing, the leader of a religious sect in British Columbia. He had been found guilty of sexually abusing several teenage girls. The high court upheld most of the convictions, but granted a retrial in the case of one girl.
Dustin Paxton Trial — In 2012, seven years after she was appointed to the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta, Martin convicted Dustin Paxton of torturing and starving his roommate before dropping him off near death at a hospital. She also declared Paxton a dangerous offender. “I simply cannot find on the evidence before me that there is a reasonable expectation, based on more than a hope, that the public will be protected by a long-term supervision order or by anything less than an indeterminate sentence,” she wrote in her decision. “An indeterminate sentence places the responsibility for an offender’s rehabilitation and future where it properly belongs: in Mr. Paxton’s own hands.”