A court in Alberta, Canada, has ruled that Kendal Longclaws, a 34-year-old deaf man accused of multiple child sex offences, cannot be tried because he was never taught any form of communication. Longclaws faced eight sexual offence charges following three complaints, but the court found that his complete inability to communicate meant a fair trial was impossible and that proceeding would breach his rights under the Canadian Charter. The case raises difficult questions about how the justice system handles defendants who cannot understand the accusations against them or participate in their own defence.

Longclaws, a member of the Ermineskin Cree Nation south of Edmonton, grew up on an isolated farm and was left unable to read, use a phone, understand a calendar or speak more than a few words. He was accused of offences including sexual interference and sexual assault, with two alleged victims said to have been attacked between 2012 and 2016 and a third in 2021; some of the alleged victims were children. In 2025, King's Bench Justice Debra Yungwirth halted the only attempt at a trial before it began, ruling that Longclaws could not be provided with an interpreter because he understood no language, and that even ordering a mental fitness assessment would violate his Charter rights to liberty, as Canadian law requires a defendant to be able to hear and answer the case against them.