Judgement at Stoney Creek

Janet McCreadie is Editor of the Pelham Herald.

One summer evening in 1976, Coreen Thomas, a 21-year-old Native woman
from Stoney Creek Reservation then in her ninth month of pregnancy, was
struck and killed by a car driven by a young man named Richard Redekop
on the outskirts of Vanderhood, British Columbia.

The resulting inquest into what might have been just another small-town
tragedy turned into an investigation of implicit racial tensions that
surfaced not only on country backroads between young people but also in
the courtroom, revealing a dual system of justice that treated whites
and Natives differently.

Judgement at Stoney Creek is a personal and heartwrenching story of a
timely issue that strikes at the heart of the Canadian conscience—how
the justice system has in many ways failed the Native Canadian.

Moran relates an episode that shows the downside of the Canadian
justice system and how it can be manipulated by those who know how to do
so. Her book confirms that in this country, liberty and even life can be
endangered through the simple fact of being born an Indian. Had the
victim been white, things would have been different; that, at least, was
the consensus after Redekop’s acquittal. Moran cites a number of cases
to show that blatant racism exists in the justice system. She wrote this
book hoping to contribute something to the survival of the human
race—Native and white alike. She has succeeded.