A Nova Scotia man will face trial for a second time next year on charges of first-degree murder.
Lawyers for 32-year-old Adam Joseph Drake appeared in Nova Scotia Supreme Court Thursday morning to set dates for a jury trial in the killing of Dartmouth battle rapper Pat Stay last September.
Drake’s trial is scheduled to begin in September 2024 and last until the following month.
Stay, 36, was stabbed outside a bar in downtown Halifax and later died in hospital. Drake was charged a week after the stabbing and has been in custody since then.
A bail hearing for Drake began this week and will continue until late May. As usual, evidence and arguments in the bail hearing cannot be made public.
Drake’s other trial begins April 2 next year and lasts until early May. The charges relate to the killing of Tyler Keizer in November 2016.
Keizer, 22, was shot in north Halifax and later died in hospital.
Drake was originally scheduled to stand trial for Keizer’s death in 2021, but prosecutors withdrew the charges shortly before the trial began, arguing that there was no longer a reasonable prospect of conviction.
The murder charge in the Keizer case was not revived until after Drake was charged with Stay’s killing.
Drake’s attorney in the case, Stan MacDonald, disputes the manner in which the charges were re-instated, and he wants that objection to be heard before trial. The prosecution favored an indictment, meaning there was no preliminary investigation.
A preliminary investigation into the Stay case is scheduled for September.
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