Sawyer Robison found not guilty on all charges

Sawyer Robison was found not guilty Friday on all eight charges against him, including two counts of attempted murder for the shooting of two Alberta RCMP officers.

When Justice Eric Macklin delivered his decision, a crowded Wetaskiwin, Alta., courtroom erupted with applause.

Outside the courthouse, Robison stood next to his lawyer and told reporters he is relieved his long ordeal is over.

"I'm kind of lost for words right now," he said. "I was confident the truth would eventually come out."

Defence lawyer Brian Beresh commended the judge for his detailed analysis of the evidence presented during the lengthy trial.

"After all the many years that have gone by, to hear those words, we're very impressed," Beresh said. "Finally, I think justice has been done.

In closing arguments Friday, Crown prosecutor Rod Clark admitted the case against Robison relied on circumstantial evidence.

"No trial has any guarantees," Clark said outside court, after the decision. "It was a tough circumstantial case for the Crown."

In summing up his case, Beresh argued that all the evidence shows his client was not armed during a wild shootout with police on Feb. 7, 2012, in a rural house near Killam, Alta.

He said the evidence proved that when police walked into the house, Robison's uncle, Bradford Clarke, leapt from the bathtub naked and came out shooting, with a .40-calibre Glock in his left hand and .45-calibre handgun in his right.

"This is a very tragic situation," Beresh told the judge. "There's no one who knows the facts of this case who would not want to reverse February 7, to take it back. Take it out of our history. But I say, at the end of the day, the prosecution has failed to show this young man was either a principal or even a party to the offence."

No DNA or fingerprint evidence

In his ruling, Macklin said an important area of concern was that none of Robison's DNA or fingerprints were found on either handgun used in the shootout with police. That left room for reasonable doubt that Robison had fired a weapon at RCMP

Macklin said the prosecution "did a very credible job" of piecing together the Crown's case, built on the theory that there were two shooters in the house that day, and that Robison was one of them.

But the judge said the "two-shooter theory" was not the only reasonable conclusion that could be drawn from the evidence presented, and he noted that reasonable doubt usually benefits the accused.

What was never in dispute was that events unfolded quickly after RCMP constables Sheldon Shah and Sidney Gaudette walked into the house.

During the ensuing shootout, both were wounded by .45-calibre bullets.

Clarke was shot twice by Mounties. An expert witness for the defence testified that he used his own Glock later to shoot himself in the head.

​Circumstantial evidence

In his closing arguments Friday, Clark took the judge through his version of what happened that day.

During a shootout with police, nine shots were fired from a .45-calibre pistol and nine more from a .40-calibre Glock handgun.

Clark argued the gunman holding the .45 had perfect aim, and that all those shots found their marks.

But bullets from the Glock went wild and nowhere near the officers.

The prosecutor's theory was that Robison's uncle fired the .45 pistol while Robison fired the other handgun, but either wasn't trying to hit police or couldn't see them because a wall was in the way.

"The devil is in the details," Clark said. "The only fair inference is that the .45-calibre handgun appears to be aimed at the two officers."

But the .40-calibre missed the officers, and those shots had "every appearance of not being aimed," Clark said.

That's inconsistent with one ambidextrous shooter, firing two guns.

Clark said, "If there's one shooter, it doesn't make any sense that he was so good with the .45-calibre and so bad with the .40-calibre."

The judge asked Clark if his theory was that one shooter aimed at the police officers while the other fired randomly, or not directly at the two constables.

Clark said the shot patterns were different, so there must have been two shooters.

The judge asked if Clark's theory was that Robison fired the Glock.

Clark said yes.

"What is inexplicable on a one-shooter, two-guns theory is how none of those shots from the .40-calibre hit an officer," Clark said.

"Is it?" the judge asked. "I mean, how do I know that?"

"You're asking me to speculate," Clark said.

with files from Janice Johnston