(Quebec) The lawyer for the saber killer of Old Quebec attacked the credibility of the experts of the continuation Wednesday, in a last attempt to convince the jury that Carl Girouard is not responsible for his actions because of mental disorders.
Posted at 11:31 a.m.
Updated at 12:59 p.m.
The Crown’s thesis is a house of cards destined to collapse, because its base is built on a “fundamental error”, indicated in substance Mand Pierre Gagnon to the 11 members of the jury gathered at the Quebec courthouse.
“What value can we give to these results when the premises are false? asked M.and Gagnon during his pleadings.
The tests of neuropsychologist William Pothier, who concluded that Carl Girouard was not schizophrenic, are distorted according to him. Because the prosecutor’s expert was unaware that the killer had consumed an antipsychotic drug a few weeks before undergoing the tests.
“Carl Girouard had stopped taking Seroquel for three weeks, a month. The Dr Gilles Chamberland explained to you that it is a drug that can work for a month, he says. The Dr Pothier passes the tests and says he is a little surprised by the results, because Carl Girouard has not been subjected to antipsychotic medication. But that’s wrong, we know that now. »
“It’s a fundamental error,” he told the jury.
According to him, the neuropsychologist’s erroneous conclusions then served as the basis for the second Crown expert, the psychiatrist Sylvain Faucher.
“I am of the opinion that from the moment the Dr Faucher gets a report from the Dr Pothier even before producing his own expertise, it can only create a bias, to be biased, ”argued Ms.and Gagnon.
Carl Girouard’s lawyer claims that the Dr Faucher stubbornly defended his thesis in cross-examination, because he was “on mission” and “in representation”. He absolutely wanted to win the “duel”.
“I have the impression that if I had asked him, ‘If it has four legs and it yelps, is it a dog?’, he might have answered me, but in the Amazon, they found a yelping cat. He had to have an answer to everything. »
“It shows you the personality of the character,” he believes.
In return, M.and Gagnon asserted the qualities of his own expert. The Dr Gilles Chamberland “has a career which, in my opinion, could be the envy of many psychiatrists”. “He did not go through an unrecognized path to reach his conclusions. He says: this is what it clearly is. »
The Dr Chamberland concluded that Girouard was in psychosis when he killed two innocent bystanders with a saber on October 31, 2020.
The Drs Pothier and Faucher believe that the killer was not schizophrenic. He was not delirious the night of the killing, but rather realizing a malevolent fantasy, stemming from a resentment towards this society which had rejected him.
Crown pleadings will take place on Wednesday afternoon. Judge Richard Grenier is due to instruct jurors on Thursday and Monday. They will then be sequestered and will have to render their decision.
Carl Girouard, 26, admits to being the perpetrator of the attack, but he pleads not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder. He is charged with two first degree murders and five attempted murders.