Everett Farmer (1902 in

Shelburne, Nova Scotia Shelburne is a town located in southwestern Nova Scotia, Canada. History Shelburne lies at the southwest corner of Nova Scotia, at roughly the same latitude as Portland, Maine in the United States. The Mi'kmaq call the large and well-sheltered ...

Nova Scotian never really had a chance when he went to trial for murder
by

Max Haines Max Haines (January 4, 1931 – September 30, 2017) was a Canadian true crime newspaper columnist and author, widely syndicated internationally. Max Haines was born in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, to Jewish parents, Alexander and Augusta (Rich) Haine ...

, in the Amherst Daily News; published April 23, 2008; retrieved February 19, 2015 – December 11The Supreme Court of Nova Scotia, 1754-2004: From Imperial Bastion to Provincial Oracle
by Philip Girard, Jim Phillips, and Barry Cahill; published January 1, 2004, by

University of Toronto Press The University of Toronto Press is a Canadian university press founded in 1901. Although it was founded in 1901, the press did not actually publish any books until 1911. The press originally printed only examination books and the university cale ...

; via

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical ...

or 14Celebrating the 250th Anniversary of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia: Legal Milestones
, at the

Supreme Court of Nova Scotia The Nova Scotia Supreme Court is a superior court in the province of Nova Scotia. The Supreme Court consists of 25 judicial seats including the position of Chief Justice and Associate Chief Justice. At any given time there may be one or more addit ...

; published 2004; retrieved February 20, 2015 or 15,N.S. KILLER HANGED: Everett Farmer Pays Penalty for Brother's Murder
in the ''

Montreal Gazette The ''Montreal Gazette'', formerly titled ''The Gazette'', is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Three other daily English-language newspapers shuttered at various times during the second half of th ...

'' (via

Google News Archive Google News Archive is an extension of Google News providing free access to scanned archives of newspapers and links to other newspaper archives on the web, both free and paid. Some of the news archives date back to 18th century. There is a tim ...

); published December 16, 1937; retrieved February 20, 2015 1937 in Shelburne) was the last person in

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native En ...

to be

executed Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the State (polity), state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to ...

Background

On the evening of August 1, 1937, Farmer shot and killed his half-brother Zachariah, then walked into town and turned himself in to police. Farmer said that the killing had been in

self-defence Self-defense (self-defence primarily in Commonwealth English) is a countermeasure that involves defending the health and well-being of oneself from harm. The use of the right of self-defense as a legal justification for the use of force i ...

, claiming that after a drunken argument, Zachariah had refused to leave Farmer's home, and had threatened to kill him. Since Farmer was unable to afford legal representation, and the province of Nova Scotia had no

legal aid Legal aid is the provision of assistance to people who are unable to afford legal representation and access to the court system. Legal aid is regarded as central in providing access to justice by ensuring equality before the law, the right to c ...

system at the time,

Vincent Pottier Vincent-Joseph Pottier (11 April 1897 – 4 February 1980) was a Liberal party member of the House of Commons of Canada. He was the first Acadian from Nova Scotia elected to the House of Commons and the first Acadian to serve on the Nova ...

was appointed to represent Farmer free of charge. The trial began on September 28, 1937, with Justice William F. Carroll presiding. At the conclusion of the trial, the jury deliberated for less than two hours before finding Farmer guilty. In December of that year, Farmer was

hanged Hanging is the suspension of a person by a noose or ligature around the neck.Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. Hanging as method of execution is unknown, as method of suicide from 1325. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' states that hanging in ...

from a

gallows A gallows (or scaffold) is a frame or elevated beam, typically wooden, from which objects can be suspended (i.e., hung) or "weighed". Gallows were thus widely used to suspend public weighing scales for large and heavy objects such as sacks ...

that had been constructed in the

Shelburne County Shelburne County is a county in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. History Shelburne County was founded in 1784 shortly following the influx of Loyalist settlers evacuated from the newly independent United States of America. It was originally ...

Courthouse where his trial had taken place.Celebrating the 250th Anniversary of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia: Courthouses
at the

; published 2004; retrieved February 20, 2015

Aftermath

George Elliot Clarke George Elliott Clarke, (born February 12, 1960) is a Canadian poet, playwright and literary critic who served as the Poet Laureate of Toronto from 2012 to 2015 and as the 2016–2017 Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate. His work is known larg ...

has described the case as "suspect", in terms of how the prosecution, conviction and execution of Farmer may have been influenced not only by Farmer's inability to afford proper legal representation, but by the fact that he was

black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white ha ...

.Directions Home: Approaches to African-Canadian Literature
by

; published 2012, by

(via

) In 2005, Farmer's case served as the basis for Louise Delisle's play ''The Days of Evan''. 'Symposia' in the Drama of trey anthony and Louise Delisle
by George Elliot Clarke, in ''Theatre Research in Canada / Recherches théatrales au Canada'', January 2009. ISSN 1913-9101. Retrieved February 6, 2016

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Farmer, Everett 1902 births 1937 deaths Black Nova Scotians Canadian people convicted of murder Executed Canadian people People convicted of murder by Canada People executed by Canada by hanging People from Shelburne County, Nova Scotia People executed for murder