Clifford Stauffer
a self-taught tradesman whose projects included houses, airplanes and miniature semi-trucks. A horseman and motorcyclist, he acquired his last bike and horse at 81. He would only get two years of enjoyment out of them. At age 83, in the early hours of June 2021, a group of four to five adults drove up to his rural Alberta home, bludgeoned him to death and lit his house on fire with his body inside. Then, they stole his van.
Only three members of that group were charged for the brutal killing (second-degree murder), and only two were
(manslaughter). Those two, Linden Buffalo and Donovan Lightning, were
in 2024 to less than two years in jail. Lightning was already out by June. We know this because he was
for committing more crimes and violating probation.
Home invasion is serious, and Stauffer’s tragic killing is a stark example of why. An intruder, by definition, has already decided to violate you and the law — and once that threshold is crossed, you can’t know how much further they’ll go. If they brutally maim or kill you, the courts can’t be relied upon to punish them with any substance. But if you kill or injure them, it’s very possible you’ll be dragged through the court process, which will analyze your split-second decisions in a high-stakes moment of vulnerability years later.
That is why many people are unhappy with
, which shields victims from conviction only if they respond to threats with “reasonable” force, and why there is now so much public sympathy for Jeremy McDonald, the Kawartha Lakes, Ont. man who has been charged with aggravated assault and assault with a weapon for defending himself against alleged burglar Michael Breen at 3 a.m.
Police have released few details about the McDonald-Breen case aside from the fact that the defender
, but they insist that they were justified in laying charges. Implied is their belief that McDonald applied unreasonable force in containing Breen. But the many angered onlookers rightfully aren’t accepting that without more information — was it one too many stabs, in the eyes of police? Was a banana smile carved into Breen’s face after the fact? We don’t know — and because police won’t say, people have no reason to believe that McDonald actually did anything wrong.
And that’s the trouble with the reasonableness standard in self-defence. While it’s very likely to produce just outcomes in clear-cut cases (it’s not acceptable to shoot a non-violent dementia-suffering senior who somehow manages to wander into your living room through an unlocked back door, for example), we run into trouble when criminals find themselves hurt or dead due to their actions.
Many people consider this to be fair-and-square karma, and a deterrent for other criminals considering burglary. For them, the injustice lies in charging the resident, who will be drained of funds while paying for their defence, and who might end up in jail nevertheless.
That was what happened to Peter Khill, a former Canadian Forces reservist who shot and killed one Jonathan Styres as he rummaged through Khill’s vehicle on an early morning in 2016. On the phone with 911 after dispatching the intruder, who he
would enter the house next, Khill
what happened: “He was in the truck with his hands up — and not like, not with his hands up to surrender, but his hands up pointing at me. It was pitch black, and it looked like he was literally about to shoot me, so I shot him.” Styres had a knife on his body, but no gun.
Khill was initially acquitted by a jury, but this was overturned by the Ontario Court of Appeal and a new trial was ordered. Khill appealed this ruling to the Supreme Court of Canada, but was denied by a majority of the court (only Justice Suzanne Côté sided with him). He was tried a second time, only for it to end in a mistrial. He was convicted after his third trial, and the judge
a sentence of eight years in 2023 — from a page meant for a different offender. Khill’s actual sentence was
to be six years, and this wasn’t rectified until 2024.
The reason for his change in fate comes down to the Supreme Court, which
that Khill’s “role in the incident” (including his lack of a 911 call before shooting the intruder) needed to be taken into account in assessing the reasonableness of his response. This precedent now binds all Canadian courts.
Had this been done in the original trial, the court said, “the jury may well have found that Mr. Khill’s conduct increased the risk of a fatal confrontation with Mr. Styres outside the home. They may also have measured Mr. Khill’s decision to advance into the darkness against other alternatives he could have taken, including calling 911, shouting from the window or turning on the lights. Those courses of conduct may have prevented his mistaken belief that Mr. Styres was armed and about to shoot, and thus avoided the need to use deadly force altogether.”
Given that Ontario is known for putting 911 callers on hold as armed burglars break into their homes, and point guns at their children (yes, this
in Orangeville last year), the expectation to call the emergency line doesn’t exactly make one feel secure. Indeed, it really does feel that regular people are expected to tolerate the violation of their sanctuaries (remember when Etobicoke police
citizens to leave their keys by the door to prevent violent run-ins with thieves?). Those who do stick up for themselves are held to a standard of perfection.
If the Canadian bench was morally aligned with the general public (we somehow don’t have polling data for this, but general online sentiment favours the right to defend oneself; polls show that the majority of Canadians
the death penalty for murder, after all), the “reasonableness” standard probably wouldn’t be an issue at all. But that’s evidently not the case. Perhaps the country would be more satisfied with a self-defence law that allows residents to defend themselves with force they believe to be subjectively necessary, full stop.
National Post
