The Supreme Court of Canada has dismissed an NWT woman’s appeal of her conviction for dangerous driving causing death.
Hannah Lafferty was convicted of the charge last year after she fatally hit Germaine Mantla with a truck outside Yellowknife’s Bison Estates apartments in April 2022.
Following trial, NWT Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Hughes had rejected Lafferty’s argument that she was driving in self-defence to avoid a fight with another woman when she hit Mantla, an innocent bystander who happened to be walking in the area.
While Hughes accepted that Lafferty believed the woman would hurt her, the judge found Lafferty was “overly fearful” in the circumstances and she “overreacted.”
Hughes concluded Lafferty’s driving was “a marked departure from the standard of care expected of a reasonable person” in the circumstances.
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She subsequently sentenced Lafferty to two and half years’ imprisonment.
Lafferty appealed her conviction to the NWT Court of Appeal. Her lawyer, Nicola Langille, argued Justice Hughes had made legal errors that included a failure to conduct a thorough, standalone analysis of her self-defence claim.
In a majority decision, two of three appeal judges dismissed Lafferty’s appeal, finding Hughes’ rejection of the self-defence argument was “grounded in the evidence.”
Lafferty’s appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, Canada’s highest court and final court of appeal, was heard in Ottawa on Tuesday.
A panel of judges unanimously dismissed the appeal for the same reasons as the NWT Court of Appeal’s majority decision.
