Murray Lloyd "Merv" Blaker (born 1945) is a Canadian outlaw biker, convicted in the Port Hope 8 case, turned social activist.
Blaker was noted for his easy-going nature and an unwillingness to engage in violence, being more interested in riding motorcycles and being part of a "brotherhood" where his Ojibwe ethnicity was not an issue.
[2] Peter Edwards, the crime correspondent of the Toronto Star wrote about Blaker's riding: "At times, he truly seemed at one with his motorcycle commanding it to do high-speed wheelies, veering to the left and right, or to inch forward at what seemed like an impossibly slow speed".
[7] On the night of 18 October 1978, Blaker was called by Richard Sauvé to come with him for a possible confrontation with William "Heavy" Matiyek, the sergeant-at-arms of the rival Golden Hawk Riders, at the barroom of the Queen's Hotel.
[12] Blaker was arrested at his Port Hope house on 7 December 1978 by Constable Colin Cousens and Sergeant Sam McReelis on charges of conspiracy to commit murder.
[13] Blaker heard the knocking on his door while lying in bed, looked out the window to see the policemen standing out front, and then back went to sleep.
[14] On 27 December 1978, a bail hearing was held for the three of the Port Hope 8 at Osgoode Hall in Toronto, where Blaker was represented by the lawyer Howard Kerbel.
[23] During his cross-examination of Cotgrave, O'Hare asked her if she knew Blaker and received a positive answer as she testified that he had frequently drank in the Queen's Hotel's bar-room in the past.
[24] O'Hara who a friendly and affable courtroom style was able to have Cotgrave admit that before she went to work at the Queen's Hotel on 18 October 1978 she had been smoking marijuana and drank some shots of Southern Comfort, through she insisted that did not affect her memory of the murder.
[25] The next witness called to the stand, a waitress at the Queen's Hotel, Julie Joncas, testified that she often taken rides in Matiyek's car and that Matiyek made a point of driving by the houses of Blaker and Sauvé to write down the license plates of any cars parked in front in case the automobiles belonged to visiting Satan's Choice members from other chapters.
O'Hara concluded if there had been a conspiracy to kill Matiyek, the task would have been assigned to the coldly efficient professional contract killer Sangiugni, instead of the goofy and silly Comeau.
[31] As such, O'Hara reached the conclusion there was no conspiracy to kill Matiyek and he was defending an innocent man whose only crime was being at the Queen's Hotel at the time of the murder.
[32] O'Hara believed that as an Ojibwa man the all-white jury would be predisposed to convict Blaker because of his race, and very much wanted him to testify in his defense.
[33] O'Hara believed that if Blaker were to testify, his sincerity, honesty and good nature would show his humanity to the jury and dispel their prejudices against him for being an Ojibwa.
[34] Affleck argued that the jury would not understand the accused would follow the outlaw biker code and would see the refusal to name the killer as evidence of guilt.
[37] The defense lawyers would have preferred that the trial be held in Toronto, where a more racially diverse jury might had been recruited, but the Crown insisted on London.
[37] O'Hara expressed some concern about the composition of the jury whom he noted disapproved of his First Nations client with his black hair and dark skin, and felt that Meinhardt had the advantage.
[38] A witness for the Crown, David Gillespie, testified that Gary Comeau had told Blaker and Sauvé just minutes before Matiyek was killed: "Are we going to it to this fat fucker now or what?
[39] The most crucial difference between Gillespie's first statement given hours after the murder vs. his testimony in 1979 was that the remark about the "fat fucker" Matiyek concerned who was to speak to him first, not who was to kill him.
[41] One witness, Randy Koehler, the bouncer at the Queen's Hotel, testified for the Crown they had a been a brawl at the Queen's Hotel in December 1977 where Blaker along with Richard Sauvé, Gordon van Haarlem, David Hoffman, Gary Comeau, Larry Hurren, Brian Babcock and Tommny "the Retard" Horner had beaten up Matiyek as evidence that the accused hated Matiyek so much that they wanted him dead.
[46] During the trial, O'Hara spent hours with Blaker at the Middlesex County Detention Center reviewing the case and looking any flaws in the Crown's thesis.
[48] Bastos would drive out to Port Hope to interview the witnesses and always discovered that they had a mysterious alteration in their willingness to remember or testify for the defense.
[49] As the case was coming to a close, O'Hara begged Blaker to take the stand and testify in his defense even it meant violating the outlaw biker code by naming the killer.
[38] O'Hara asked the jury to think about "the way the world works" and argued that it was illogical to be involved in a murder at the Queen's Hotel where he was known by name by the patrons and staff.
[38] O'Hara made much that Campbell had confessed on the stand that he killed Matiyek, not Comeau, which he used as evidence that the Crown had botched the case by charging the wrong man.
[73] In an interview with the American journalist Mick Lowe the same year, Blaker stated that he intended to leave Satan's Choice as he more interested in spending time with his wife and daughter and developing his spiritual side.