A major turnaround occurred Wednesday morning at the Quebec courthouse: after spending 15 years contesting the charge of premeditated murder of his wife, former judge Jacques Delisle announced his intention to plead guilty.
The formal plea is scheduled to be entered Thursday morning.
Reached by telephone, the Crown prosecutor in this case, Me Jacques Godin, confirmed that the former magistrate would thus put an end to years of criminal proceedings, but did not reveal to which charge he would plead guilty, nor if a suggested sentence would be offered to the judge. .
Sometimes agreements are negotiated between defense lawyers and Crown prosecutors. When this happens, we often see a scenario in which a defendant agrees to plead guilty, but to a less serious charge. The trial is thus avoided and the agreement often includes a sentence which will be suggested to the judge, after having been negotiated between prosecutors – the judge is not, however, obliged to accept it.
The 88-year-old defendant struggled with the murder charge on every level — for more than a decade. He maintained his innocence throughout.
His wife, Nicole Rainville, aged 71, was found dead of a gunshot to the head on November 12, 2009, at the couple’s residence in Quebec.
The Crown argued that Mr. Delisle had killed his wife, who was sick and losing her independence, in order to live with his mistress without having to face a costly divorce. The defense argued on the contrary that Mme Rainville took her own life after making suicidal comments, because her quality of life had deteriorated since a stroke and a hip fracture.
Found guilty in 2012 by a jury of the first degree murder of Mme Rainville, Jacques Delisle was then sentenced to life in prison.
He challenged this verdict before the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court, in vain. He spent years in prison.
Second trial
Then, in 2021, he obtained a second trial from the federal Minister of Justice, pleading to have been the victim of a judicial error. This power of the minister, rarely exercised, was done here because the latter was convinced that there were “reasonable grounds to conclude that a judicial error probably occurred”, the legal criterion to be respected.
As soon as this second trial was obtained, Jacques Delisle requested a stay of proceedings, alleging an “abuse of state law” based on the negligence of one of his expert pathologists. He had not kept the samples and sections of M’s brainme Rainville: these elements were useful in determining the trajectory of the bullet which ended his life. According to experts, the bullet would have taken a different path in the brain and left distinct marks and wounds depending on whether it was a murder (the Crown theory) or a suicide (the theory of defense).
The accused’s lawyer, Mr.e Jacques Larochelle argued that without this proof, his client was deprived of his right to full defense.
He won his case, but the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP) appealed this decision – successfully.
Jacques Delisle then asked the Supreme Court to overturn this judgment so as not to have a second trial. The country’s highest court was expected to announce Thursday whether it would hear the case. After verification on Wednesday, the case was no longer included on the list of decisions to be rendered on Thursday.