Miguel Chacon-Perez repeated the same plea as he did six years ago when he went on trial again for second-degree murder.
“Not guilty,” he said clearly when he was arraigned Monday morning in the Superior Court of Justice in the stabbing death of Chad Robinson, 26, at an all-trades Christmas party on Dec. 18, 2016.
That’s about all that followed the usual protocols and procedures at typical murder trials. How Chacon-Perez’s retrial is being conducted might be a first locally for a Superior Court murder case.
The Crown won’t be calling any new testimony or evidence. Neither will the defence.Unlike the first trial, there is no jury. The courtroom will be used sparingly. Most of the proceedings will be held in a judge’s chambers without lawyers or the accused present.
What the Crown and defence have agreed to do is have Justice Kelly Tranquilli listen to the audio, review the transcripts and examine the exhibits of the first trial in her chambers over the next couple of weeks.
Both sides will file written arguments and make in-court submissions once the judge completes her review of the evidence.
That seems to signal from both sides that there can’t be any better evidence available than what the jury heard during the lengthy trial held in the fall of 2018, which ended with the Cuban immigrant convicted of the fatal stabbing.
Chacon-Perez has maintained his innocence since being charged. The defence pointed to a former friend of his, Irvine Alex Aparacio-Chicas, as the person who killed Robinson, a Guelph plumbing apprentice.
On Monday, before Chacon-Perez, now 35, entered his not guilty plea, Tranquilli asked him if he agreed to the procedure. “Yes, Your honour, I understand, I agree to proceed in this way,” he said.
She emphasized that by agreeing to the procedure, Chacon-Perez wouldn’t be present while she reviewed the evidence at the first trial.
“Yes, Your honour, I understand and I agree to that as well,” he said.
Robinson died during a melee at a large open-bar Christmas party for contractors and subcontractors hosted by Intact Renovations at the Imperio Banquet Hall on Falcon Street in London on Dec. 18, 2016.
Assistant Crown attorney Adam Campbell on Monday gave a short synopsis of the Crown’s theory that matched what he argued six years ago.
He told Tranquilli that Robinson was “a labourer, hard worker and loved his family dearly,” adding Robinson died of a single stab wound to the heart.
“That stab was triggered by an alcohol-fuelled argument with Mr. Chacon-Perez. The Crown will ask the court to find that Mr. Chacon-Perez stabbed Chad Robinson because of that argument,” Campbell said.
It’s largely a circumstantial case with differing eye-witness accounts of what happened.
Just before midnight, while standing near the bar, Robinson’s friend, Nathan Smith, asked Robinson if Chacon-Perez was “the Kijiji man” – a nickname Robinson coined while telling a story about Chacon-Perez selling online a fish tank that had been left behind at a rental unit under renovations.
Chacon-Perez, a flooring subcontractor, was insulted by the name and argued with Robinson and then left in a huff with his friends, including Aparacio-Chicas, who had a history of violence, and then returned.
There were varying accounts of what happened. Campbell said Smith got into an argument with Chacon-Perez in the parking lot and then there was a physical fight involving several men. Robinson joined the fight once he found out Smith was in the melee.
The scene was described as “chaotic.” There were accounts of Aparacio-Chicas shirtless and squared off with Robinson. One witness said they thought they saw something dark in Chacon-Perez’s waistband. Another witness didn’t put Chacon-Perez near Robinson.
But there was eye-witness evidence of Chacon-Perez with two others at the back of the parking lot tossing the knife over the fence. Robinson’s DNA was found on the tip and Chacon-Perez’s DNA was found on the handle.
When interviewed by police, Chacon-Perez said the fight was over something Robinson said “about his wife,” Campbell said, and that he didn’t know anything about the knife.
Campbell said the Crown’s theory is that Chacon-Perez stabbed Robinson, even though none of the prosecution’s witnesses testified they saw him stab Robinson. However, he had motive because of the insult, was angry, and his after-the-fact conduct by discarding the knife pointed to his guilt.
At his trial, Chacon-Perez admitted he was angry and overreacted. He said he threw the knife away because Aparacio-Chicas had dropped the knife that had been taken from his tools and asked him to get rid of it.
Defence lawyer Gabriel Gross-Stein said the main issue for Tranquilli is identification. He said that there was no evidence that Chacon-Perez stabbed the deceased or was even in striking distance.
The Crown’s theory is that the only reasonable inference is that Chacon-Perez was the murderer.
“The defence position is that it is not,” Gross-Stein said, adding there is evidence that “strongly suggests otherwise,” including a defence witness who said he saw Aparicio-Chicas stab Robinson.
There were also accounts that Aparacio-Chicas kicked and stomped on Robinson when he was down and that when police arrived at the crime scene, “he was sitting on the steps of the banquet hall weeping, despondent over something that had occurred.”
He added that Aparacio-Chicas testified that when he is drunk, “he gets very angry, sees red and blacks out.”
Tranquilli was given the transcripts and audio of the trial, but she was told she had to wait a day for the exhibits. The Ontario Court of Appeal sent them back to London for the retrial, but Campbell said they have been misplaced, except for the knife.
He and Gross-Stein said they are able to recreate the other exhibits, mostly photos submitted at the trial.
Tranquilli said she will meet with the lawyers briefly Tuesday by teleconference and again on Friday to update them on her progress.