Former Devil’s Army president Richard “Ricky” Alexander is appealing his conviction for the first-degree murder of a 91原创 Island man.
On March 15, a B.C. Supreme Court jury convicted Alexander, 68, of the murder of Dillon Brown, a Victoria father and mixed martial arts fighter who was shot in the head at the Devil’s Army clubhouse in Campbell River on March 11, 2016.
Alexander was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 25 years.
A notice of appeal was filed by defence lawyer Brent Anderson on March 26. He argued that the trial judge erred in law by not hearing Alexander’s application for disclosure of materials related to protected witness X, the Crown’s main witness and another full-patch member of the Devil’s Army.
Anderson argued that the trial judge erred in his instructions to the jury on the central issues of identity, after-the-fact conduct and how to consider the evidence of disreputable or unsavoury witnesses.
Alexander is also appealing his conviction on the grounds that the trial judge erred by exhorting the jury to reach a verdict when he was not present in the courtroom.
He also alleged that the judge erred by allowing the jury to deliberate past 10 p.m. without giving Alexander a chance to make submissions on that point.
Finally, Alexander argued that the trial judge erred by refusing to instruct the jury on the defence of alibi or on evidence that exonerated him of guilt.
The Crown argued at trial that Alexander killed Brown, a 30-year-old construction worker, to put an end to a lawsuit that would make Hells Angels and their puppet club, the Devil’s Army, look bad. Brown had been in a fight with three to five bikers at a Campbell River nightclub, the Voodoo Lounge, in November 2015, where he was injured.
He decided to sue the nightclub to pay for dental bills and lost wages because bouncers didn’t stop the fight or come to his assistance.
After Brown was killed, Alexander drove Brown’s car with the body in the trunk and abandoned it near the Cable Bridge on the road to Sayward.
The trial was held under heavy security, with those entering the courtroom required to pass through a metal detector and have their belongings searched and undercover officers mixed with the public.
