R. V. Stone - Background

Background

In 1993, Bert Stone married Donna Stone and they lived together in the Okanagan Valley. He had previously been married two other times and had teenage children from his second marriage. Their relationship was a difficult one, where he was charged with physical abuse after previously trying to run Donna over in a parking lot in Winfield, BC. In 1994 he made arrangements to make a business trip to Vancouver and visit his son without telling his wife. When she found out she insisted that she went along too.

According to Bert Stone, the visit to his son was cut short when Donna threatened to lean on the car horn until the police arrived. He made a comment about getting a divorce, which greatly upset her. Bert drove into an abandoned lot and stopped the car. She began to yell and scream, and belittle him. He testified that:

she just continued on and she just said that she couldn't stand to listen to me whistle, that every time I touched her, she felt sick, that I was a lousy fuck and that I had a little penis and that she's never going to fuck me again, and I'm just sitting there with my head down; and by this time, she's kneeling on the seat and she's yelling this in my face.

At this point Bert claimed that her voice began to fade away and a "whooshing" sensation came over him. The next thing he remembers is looking down at her body slumped over the seat and a knife in his hand. He had stabbed her 47 times. He hid her body in his truck's tool chest, left a note for his daughter, and took off to Mexico. After a few weeks in Mexico he decided to return to Canada and turn himself in. He was charged with murder.

In his defence, Stone pleaded insane automatism, non-insane automatism, lack of intent, and in the alternative, provocation. The judge allowed for a defence of insane automatism. The jury convicted him of manslaughter and sentenced him to seven years. The verdict was upheld by the Court of Appeal.

The issue on appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada was

1. whether the "defence" of sane automatism should have been left to the jury;
2. whether the defence psychiatric report was properly ordered disclosed to the Crown; and
3. whether the sentencing judge could consider provocation as a mitigating factor for manslaughter where the same provocation had already been considered in reducing the charge to manslaughter; and
4. whether the sentence was fit and properly reflected the gravity of the offence and the moral culpability of the offender.

In a five to four decision, the Court upheld the conviction.