Appeal filed for first-degree-murder conviction in killing of

Kaila Tran (05/25/15)

A high-profile murder-for-hire case may soon be headed to Manitoba's highest court.
Treyvonne Willis, 22, has filed an appeal of last month's first-degree murder conviction for his
role in the 2012 ambush and execution of 27-year-old Kaila Tran outside her St. Vital apartment
block.
In an affidavit filed with the Manitoba Court of Appeal, Willis's lawyer lays out eight separate
grounds. They are seeking to overturn the jury's guilty finding and have a new trial ordered. A
date for a hearing has not been set.
Willis was given an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for at least 25 years after
being found guilty of the most serious charge in the Criminal Code.
One of his key arguments on appeal is Winnipeg police coerced a bogus or exaggerated
confession out of him during a lengthy videotaped interview later shown to jurors. Willis claims
his Charter rights were breached by officers in a variety of ways and his statement was not
voluntary.
Willis tried to have the entire statement excluded from evidence, but Queen's Bench Chief
Justice Glenn Joyal refused.
Willis claims jurors weren't properly instructed by Joyal about his possible intoxication at the
time of the killing and how that may have affected his state of mind, specifically on the intent
needed to commit first-degree murder.
Willis is also taking issue with the way Joyal handled a question from jurors during deliberations.
They asked how an action could be planned but not deliberate and were seeking an example of
a crime that falls under that definition. The judge refused to provide such an example.
Finally, Willis is arguing Joyal erred in telling jurors there was no evidence in this case of a
"planned robbery gone bad" that led to the killing of Tran.
In his videotaped police interview following his arrest, Willis admitted to carrying out the murder
in an attempt to get out of a drug debt.
"I (expletive) up," Willis said at one point in the video. "I deserve to go to jail for what I did. I
murdered her." He refused to say who put him up to the killing.
Despite the admission, Willis fought the charge on several grounds. Defence lawyer Ursula
Goeres accused police of repeatedly breaching Willis's rights during the more than 16 hours
they had him in the interview room. In her final remarks to the jury, Goeres suggested her client
was telling police what they wanted to hear out of necessity.

Goeres conceded there was other evidence -- such as phone records and surveillance video -that placed Willis at the scene. But she told jurors that didn't mean he was guilty of premeditated
murder.