A man convicted of a 1994 murder, who maintains his innocence and has gone on hunger strikes in prison, has been declared a “vexatious litigant.”
Kevin Charles MacKinnon, whose family is from Olds was in prison at the Bowden Institution, had his ability to introduce or continue court proceedings following a series of unlawful detention claims, numerous applications and notices a judge said were designed to cause delays and “uninovlved third party” faxes that were in fact from MacKinnon.
A court decision from earlier this month, placed restrictions on MacKinnon’s ability to start or continue any appeal, action, application or proceeding without permission from a judge.
In his ruling, Justice Don Manderscheid said MacKinnon’s history “indicates an extensive pattern of repeated abuse of court processes.
“Mr. MacKinnon’s abusive litigation will not stop because Mr. MacKinnon is committed to his current course of action. His response to impending potential court access restrictions was to file another application and then engage in a strategy of delay by any means.”
MacKinnon was convicted of second-degree murder in 1995 in the shooting death of his roommate Laine Berube. He has long maintained his innocence. Since then he has been imprisoned primarily in the Bowden Institution and the Edmonton Institution.
Much of his litigation, and hunger strikes in 2014 and 2017, relates to “involuntary” transfers from Bowden to Edmonton. The transfer came about after MacKinnon was alleged to be manufacturing “brew” in his sink in early April 2017. He was put into segregation and the transfer to Edmonton, a maximum security facility, came later that month.
He claims he is the recipient of an illegal sentence.
“I am now in year 24 of a 10 year sentence life, and I am not designated as a dangerous offender or anything else like that etc. I was/have been eligible for parole since 2002!”
According to the website called the Helping Absolve a Wrongful Conviction, which details MacKinnon’s case and proclaims his innocence, MacKinnon hasn’t been able to get parole because of his self-proclaimed innocence and lack of showing remorse.
Between April 2017 and March 2018, MacKinnon has made numerous court applications that were categorized by Manderscheid as “litigation misconduct.” Manderscheid ruled that the central purpose to MacKinnon’s flurry of court applications is that it would “by some unknown mechanism undo and reverse his over 20 year old criminal conviction for murder.”
In December, a series of faxes were received by the Court. Some were from MacKinnon while others claimed to come from an “uninvolved third party.” However, the faxes all made the same claims that prison administration had “essentially shut down the prison” and were not providing adequate resources for MacKinnon’s case. He later acknowledged being the author of the third party faxes.
Manderscheid said MacKinnon has a continued pattern of illegitimate delay, complaints, late applications and actions, part of which led to his decision to impose the restrictions.
mcrawford@reddeeradvocate.com
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