A judge will rule in September whether Justin Bourque and another man are guilty of stabbing a third man with shanks in a prison three years ago.
Bourque and Christian Clyke stood trial over two days in Miramichi provincial court on two charges alleging they had shanks, or homemade weapons, and assaulted Chase Spence at the Atlantic Institution on May 3, 2022.
Bourque is serving life sentences at the maximum security prison southwest of Miramichi for the 2014 murders of three RCMP officers in Moncton.
Bourque’s lawyer Simon Wood gave a closing argument Thursday afternoon saying the Crown had failed to prove the allegations against the 35-year-old. Bourque offered no defence evidence and opted not to testify.
Clyke, who doesn’t have a lawyer, took the stand to testify and argued he acted in self-defence when he stabbed Spence because Spence had sent a note the day before threatening violence, and attacked Bourque first.
Crown prosecutor Jean-Guy Savoie argued self-defence wouldn’t apply even if Spence started the fight, saying it became a two-on-one attack with Spence trying to run and continued after he fell to the floor.
After hearing the testimony from six Crown witnesses and Clyke himself, Judge Johanne-Marguerite Landry said she would need more time to consider her verdict.
Landry is scheduled to give her decision on Sept. 10.
The trial began Wednesday and much of the two-day trial focused on surveillance video that captured most of the events. It showed Chase Spence entering the prison unit with Bourque and Clyke around 1:30 p.m.
Spence walked down a hall with cell doors as Bourque followed him. There appeared to be words exchanged, though the video had no audio, and Spence appeared to punch at Bourque’s neck followed by Bourque pulling out a shank.
Clyke said he wanted to testify about what transpired, telling the judge he acted in self-defence.
Clyke told the judge that the day before, a note known as a “kite” was passed through a prison door from another unit that he was told had been sent by Spence. Clyke testified the note said he was moving to the unit with Clyke and Bourque, and that he would “take a run at,” or attack, the first person he encountered.
Clyke testified he passed the note around the unit after receiving it.
He said he watched Spence walk down the hall and then attack Bourque before turning and running toward Clyke and other inmates.
“As me and him got closer, he sliced at my arm and ran, and that’s when I chased him,” Clyke testified.
Clyke testified he was cut or stabbed four times. He testified he chased Spence to stop his “spree” in the unit, but that he was also trying to take a weapon from him.
“I wasn’t stabbing at him the whole time,” Clyke said.
Testimony, video conflict
Under cross-examination by Savoie, Clyke’s version of events shifted and he couldn’t be certain who caused his injuries.
Savoie repeatedly played the video, noting Clyke could not have seen the initial interaction between Spence and Bourque because Clyke was around a corner.
The questioning also probed the existence of the kite note. Savoie asked who was aware of its contents and why it wasn’t reported to prison officials.
Clyke then said he was only told by the inmate who received the note through a door who sent it, but couldn’t remember the name of the inmate who got the note.
He said it wasn’t reported because of unwritten prison rules against snitching. Clyke said he didn’t keep the note, but had passed it along to other inmates.
“We just have your word for it?” Savoie asked about the note.
“Pretty much,” Clyke said.
Bourque’s lawyer briefly cross-examined Clyke, asking if he saw Bourque stab Spence while on the floor.
“No,” Clyke said.
The trial has heard that Spence was stabbed several times. Medical records were entered as evidence, which Savoie told the judge show Spence had various minor wounds and one stab wound that penetrated his chest wall.
Spence didn’t testify in the trial. An RCMP officer testified that neither Spence nor the two accused provided statements to police.
While the events at the centre of the trial occurred in May 2022, the charges were only laid in November 2023.
Bourque is serving life sentences for fatally shooting RCMP constables Dave Ross, Fabrice Gevaudan and Douglas Larche and wounding constables Darlene Goguen and Eric Dubois in Moncton on June 4, 2014.
Clyke, 33, is serving a life sentence for the 2011 shooting death of Angela Hall in Dartmouth, N.S.
In 2016, he called police and confessed to the killing. He was sentenced in 2019.
