Lawyer for Ray Sobotiak, James Lockyer, speaks about his client who has been in prison for murder for over 35 years, in Edmonton on May 23.JASON FRANSON/The Globe and Mail
An Edmonton man whose murder conviction was quashed by the Justice Minister earlier this year after serving more than 35 years in jail was granted bail on Friday.
Roy Allan Sobotiak was convicted in 1991 and has spent more than half his life in a federal penitentiary.
“Good luck to you,” Justice Eric F. Macklin told Mr. Sobotiak, now 61, who sat smiling in the courtroom in his orange prison uniform.
His lawyer, James Lockyer, with Innocence Canada, a non-profit organization that works to exonerate people with wrongful convictions, said Mr. Sobotiak is now the longest-serving wrongfully convicted person in Canadian history.
“He told us that when he went in, cellphones only fit in suitcases,” Mr. Lockyer told reporters after the hearing.
In 1991, Mr. Sobotiak was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison for the 1987 death of 34-year-old Susan Kaminsky, an Edmonton mother of two. After her disappearance, her body was never found. Mr. Sobotiak was the last person known to have seen her.
Mr. Sobotiak has maintained his innocence and has since retracted any admissions of guilt, including one he made in hopes of being granted parole. An appeal of his conviction was dismissed in 1994, and a leave to appeal to Canada‘s Supreme Court was dismissed in 2004.
In February, 2021, Mr. Sobotiak appealed to then-Justice Minister Arif Virani, prompting a new investigation into the case. In February, Mr. Virani tossed out the conviction and directed a new trial under the grounds that a miscarriage of justice had likely occurred.
Mr. Lockyer said in the 488 pages of arguments between Mr. Virani – who was advised by a judge – and the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service that there were three main issues that informed the Justice Minister’s decision.
The original trial heard Mr. Sobotiak tell an undercover police officer that he tortured, sexually assaulted, killed and dismembered Ms. Kaminsky, then disposed of her body in the garbage.
Tactics where undercover officers impersonate criminals and befriend suspects in order to elicit confessions, known as Mr. Big operations, have since come under public and legal scrutiny. A 2014 Supreme Court decision found these confessions unreliable in some cases.
Mr. Lockyer said another issue with the original trial were the Crown’s failure to disclose significant evidence. Recent forensic examinations that failed to tie Mr. Sobotiak to the murder.
The Crown has yet to decide if it will prosecute Mr. Sobotiak again.
During court proceedings on Friday, Crown prosecutor Joanne Dartana argued Mr. Sobotiak should be put on house arrest, citing parole board reports and psychological assessments that described violent sexual behaviour, the possession of drugs and pornography, and exposing himself to a female officer in 2022. Ms. Dartana also pointed out accounts of improved behaviour in recent years.
Mr. Lockyer painted a different picture – one of a mild-mannered man who lacked “any bitterness.”
Justice Macklin was unconvinced that house arrest would do anything to help a man who had spent more than three decades in prison.
“He would not have been able to escape the known prison subculture of drug use, pornography, violent acts and various other anti-social aspects of prison life,” Justice Macklin said in court. He later reasoned that other measures could be taken to address the Crown’s concerns.
Mr. Sobotiak was granted bail on the conditions that he abide by the rules of the Fort McMurray rehabilitation home where he will be living, wear an ankle bracelet monitor and follow a set curfew.
In Justice Macklin’s ruling, he quoted Mr. Sobotiak, who said he had “worked too hard for too long to mess things up.”