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Cape Dorset woman guilty of manslaughter

Lawyers disagree whether Jeannie Manning suffered from battered woman syndrome

Jeannie Manning leaves the Iqaluit courthouse during a spring court appearance.

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(PHOTO BY KIRSTEN MURPHY)

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KIRSTEN MURPHY

Davidee Adla raised a clenched fist at Jeannie Manning on Sept. 1, 2001, the same way he did numerous times during their tumultuous 11-year relationship.

The difference that early fall morning in Iqaluit was that Manning, then a homeless, broke single mother, was ready for Adla’s blows. She used her left hand to protect her face and her right hand to deliver three quick stabs to Adla’s back with a 14-inch kitchen knife, the court heard during Manning’s second-degree murder trial Nov. 25 to 29.

Visiting Judge Paul Chrumka found Manning guilty of manslaughter in the Nunavut Court of Justice on Nov. 29. Chrumka acquitted Manning of second-degree murder.

"I’m satisfied [Manning] had sufficient intent to cause bodily harm to the deceased but I’m not satisfied she meant to kill," he said.

Manning is the sixth person — and the second woman — to be convicted of murder since the creation of Nunavut in 1999.

Defence lawyer Susan Cooper argued that Manning suffers from battered woman syndrome, a psychiatric condition causing women to be fearful and angry after years of repeated violence from a spouse.

Adla threw Manning down and tried to choke her moments before Manning delivered the fatal blow, the court heard. Manning, was living with her friend Anna Joanasie at the time.

Cooper said her client picked up a kitchen knife to protect herself from Adla. "[Manning’s] actions were in self defence. She did not intend to kill [Adla]," Cooper said.

Adla died with a criminal record that includes half a dozen assault convictions against Manning and her family.

Under oath Manning said she retrieved the knife out of fear. "I was afraid he was going to beat me to death, like he nearly had done before," she told the court.

Manning tried unsuccessfully to resuscitate Adla, she said. Her attempt to save him, Manning testified, was evidence she never intended to kill him.

Crown lawyer Steve White countered that Manning was a strong, assertive woman who had minimal contact with Adla in the three years before his death. Nursing files and police reports suggest Adla’s beatings ceased around 1998 — the year Adla went to jail for assaulting Manning and sexually assaulting another woman.

However, after she moved from Cape Dorset to Iqaluit in 1998, Manning said Adla was making threatening phone calls and harassing her. White called the incidents irritants and annoyances.

White pointed to Adla’s attendance at Manning’s interpreter-translation graduation ceremony in 2000 as evidence the couple was on good terms. Furthermore, White said Manning was not, as psychiatrist Dr. Robert Wood Hill testified, suffering from battered-woman syndrome when she stabbed Adla.

"There is no doubt Miss Manning suffered at the hands of Davidee Adla over the years ... [but] a battered woman can kill and not necessarily in self defence," White said.

Judge Chrumka delivered his lengthy verdict to a packed courtroom. Family members of both the accused and the deceased attended the five-day trial.

Manning will live in Iqaluit until her sentencing. Her next court appearance is on Dec. 5.

White said he plans to oppose Cooper’s request for a non-custodial sentence.

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