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The Supreme Court of Canada has restored the manslaughter conviction of a Regina man accused in the starvation death of a four-year-old girl in the care of his family.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard the Crown’s appeal of a decision by the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal in the case of Kevin Goforth.
After the hearing, the Supreme Court issued a one-paragraph decision saying it was allowing the Crown’s appeal, restoring the convictions and ordering the case to be sent back to the Court of Appeal for consideration of the sentencing appeal.
Written reasons for the decision are to be released at a later date.
In February, Saskatchewan’s top court allowed Goforth’s appeal of his initial conviction on the grounds the trial judge had made mistakes in her instructions to the jury. The Court of Appeal ordered a new trial for Goforth.
However, the court dismissed the appeal of Tammy Goforth — Kevin’s wife. She was convicted of second-degree murder when the couple was tried in 2016.
Both also were convicted of causing bodily harm to the girl’s younger sister. The children were in the couple’s foster care.
The four-year-old girl died in August of 2012 after being rushed to hospital; she died after being taken off life support.
According to the trial judge, the girl and her sister hadn’t been fed properly for three to four weeks and the Goforths didn’t seek medical attention for the girls.
After their trial, Kevin Goforth was sentenced to 15 years in prison, minus time served. Tammy Goforth was given a life sentence with no chance of parole for 17 years.
The couple’s appeals were heard in 2019, with the decision released Feb. 2.
In it, justices Robert Leurer and Brian Barrington-Foote laid out errors they believed the trial judge had made in her charge to the jury regarding Kevin Goforth. The justices said those errors may have “misled the jury.”