Lesann not criminally responsible

It was an emotional day at Yorkton's historic Court of Queen's Bench court house September 30 as family and friends of Tammy Kulaway gathered to hear a judge's decision in the three-and-half-year-old murder case.

Kulaway's sisters fought back sorrowful sobs as Madam Justice C.L. Dawson found Richard Lesann not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder in Kulaway's killing.

"As the sisters of the victim we're kind of speechless," said Mandy Kulaway. "After three and a half years, we've come here today to expect the worst-case scenario and hope for the best case and unfortunately it did not go in our favour.

"We were told at the beginning during the trial back in May that it's not as much a justice system as it is a legal system and that prevailed here today."

For his part, Lesann sat head down in the prisoner's box as Dawson recounted the facts of the case, that he did, on the 12th of March, 2011, brutally stab Kulaway four times in the chest and back with a kitchen knife. He then shot her dog Sammy and tried to cut off its head.

These facts were never in doubt. After committing the act, Lesann told friends, who testified to it, that he had killed her because he believed she was the devil. He told the same story spontaneously to police.

The judge quickly and graphically summarized Lesann's increasingly bizarre behaviour leading up to Kulaway's death including believing that angels were placing coins in his home, that he was receiving signs through the television and that texting had caused the Tsunami on March 11. After his arrest, she described him removing all his clothes, spreading feces and blood around his jail cell and screaming at police accusing them of being Satan's soldiers.

Three experts, including a forensic psychiatrist, testified that they believed Lesann had been delusional and suffering from mental disorder.

The family still does not buy it.

"I believe that Rick Lesann was not mentally ill," Mandy said. "I believe he knew at that time what he was doing on that day and the harm he was causing to my sister and I will stand behind that no matter what evidence proves, or anything, that my sister was a victim of murder."

The judge spent most of her time, nearly an hour in total, explaining the mental disorder defence from both philosophical and technical standpoints.

She said it is a principle of fundamental justice in a democratic society that people are not held responsible for acts that were not committed of their own free will.

She explained that the legal test requires the defence to prove on the balance of probabilities both that the defendant had suffered from a mental disease and that it rendered him incapable of either appreciating the nature and quality of the act or the wrongfulness of the act.

Citing the landmark case of R. v. Cooper (1980) and the testimony of the three medical witnesses, Dawson said she was satisfied, on the balance of probabilities, that Lesann was suffering from mental disease at the time of the killing.

Dawson also addressed the matter of whether his psychosis was self-induced or transitory, which the Supreme Court found in an appeal of R. v. Bouchard-Lebrun was not a foundation for a not criminally responsible verdict. She said she was satisfied Lesann's psychosis was not self-induced or transitory.

On the second test, Dawson found that she was not satisfied Lesann did not appreciate the nature and quality of his actions. That is, he knew what he was doing would or could cause Kulaway's death and that was his intention and that he may have even known it was illegal.

As to whether or not he appreciated that it wrong, however, the judge said she was satisfied on the balance of probabilities that Lesann's mental disorder had rendered him incapable of that distinction. In other words, she said, she was satisfied the accused "perceived [the act] was right or justifiable" and that "considerable evidence supports the finding." She said she believed that he truly believed he was acting in self defence.

Dawson then spent some time explaining that a finding of criminally not responsible does not mean Lesann has been acquitted. His fate is now in the hands of the Review Board. After reviewing the judge's decision, the Review Board will hold a hearing to determine the disposition of the case. Possible dispositions range from an absolute discharge to indefinite detention in a psychiatric institution.

Justice Dawson instructed the members of the Kulaway family that they can apply for standing at the Review Board hearing.

The judge imposed a DNA order, a lifetime weapons prohibition and ordered seizure of his existing weapons for disposal by the Crown.

Regardless of what the future holds in terms of the justice system, from Mandy Kulaway's perspective, one thing is certain.

"He has taken away so much from us that there will never be forgiveness towards this guy for what he's taken away from me, my sister, our mother, our children, our family, our friends," she said. "Rick Lesann will never be forgiven by the Kulaway family."