UCLA Criminal Justice Law Review

In 2016, Colten Boushie, a 22-year-old Indigenous man, was fatally shot by Gerald Stanley, a white farmer. Stanley was later acquitted of second-degree murder and manslaughter by an all-white jury. Peremptory challenges became the major legal focus, with the all-white jury attributed to the defense attorney’s peremptory dismissal of five Indigenous individuals from the final jury panel. Following a raucous public debate, just two months after Stanley’s acquittal, Canada’s Government quickly introduced Bill C-75, eliminating peremptory challenges. While some legal actors view the ban on peremptory challenges as a step toward improving Indigenous juror participation, others argue that this elimination decreases Indigenous representation. As the insular debate endures, it continues to distract from numerous substantial issues with more profound implications on Indigenous juror representation. Through an analysis of the Jury Acts of Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, this Article highlights how provincial jury pool selection and summoning policies continue to encourage Indigenous exclusion. For more representative juries, Canada must move past peremptory challenges and acknowledge that sustained efforts made in partnership with Indigenous communities are desperately needed. Examples are offered of structurally-oriented, deeper reform actions to begin the process of addressing root causes of white-washed criminal juries in Canada.