Trial date set for manslaughter trial

By Delon Shurtz - Lethbridge Herald on February 14, 2023.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDdshurtz@lethbridgeherald.com

A Fort Macleod man charged with manslaughter in 2021, is finally set to stand trial, but not until early next year.

The trial for Cullen Drake Tailfeathers will begin with a voir dire – a sort of mini trial within a trial – on Oct, 19, 20 and 23 of this year to discuss pre-trial applications and the admissibility of evidence. The trial proper, however, isn’t scheduled to run until Jan. 8-12, 2024.

The dates were confirmed Monday during a brief hearing in Lethbridge provincial court, and the matter was adjourned until the voir dire in October. A charge of break and enter was also adjourned to the same dates.

Linden Blair Grier, 33, of Brocket, Alta., was found dead in a home in Fort Macleod May 24, 2021. Police were called to the residence at 2:24 a.m., following a report that a man had been injured. Attempts to save the man’s life were unsuccessful.

Tailfeathers was arrested three days later and he pleaded not guilty to the charges in August.

Tailfeathers, 27, was set to stand in January, but it was cancelled the previous November after Calgary lawyer Balfour Der withdrew as counsel, citing an “irreparable” breakdown in the lawyer-client relationship. A week later Calgary lawyer Jim Lutz went on the record and requested the trial be adjourned.

An agent for Lutz told the judge during a subsequent hearing on Nov. 30, when the matter was again adjourned, that the lawyer needed more time to go over 12 binders of disclosure.

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