He started by saying he was innocent. Then he admitted to recklessness with his firearm. Then a sort of ambiguous encouragement to suicide…
But on Thursday, at the courthouse, it was for the crime of homicide that Jacques Delisle admitted his guilt. “Involuntary” homicide, certainly, but homicide nonetheless. The watered-down version that his lawyer Jacques Larochelle gave to the court does not correspond to involuntary homicide, which is the act of killing a human being illegally – without it being murder.
I repeat, after all these adventures, this compromise between the defense and the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP) was reasonable. The man is almost 89 years old, appears frail, has served nine years in prison and was in danger of dying even before the second trial took place.
What is confusing is that he pleads guilty to a much more serious crime than his lawyer told the judge. Obviously, the agreement between the public prosecutor and the defense provided that the presentation of the facts would belong to Ms.e Larochelle. The DPCP prosecutor simply said that in his opinion, the ex-judge had a more “active” and “contemporary” role in the death of his wife.
Let us therefore be as picky as the former judge was, and let us retain the legal conclusion contained in his confession: it was homicide, not assistance in the suicide of his wife.
In short, he killed her.
But the most important news is not there. It is contained in the report of the Criminal Conviction Review Group (GRCC), made public with the admission of guilt – and first revealed by Radio-Canada. A report which does not at all conclude that there was a miscarriage of justice.
However, it is on this report that the former Minister of Justice David Lametti based himself to order a new trial for Delisle.
Because Jacques Delisle was found guilty by a jury in 2012 of the premeditated murder of his disabled wife, Nicole Rainville. The Quebec Court of Appeal confirmed this verdict, then the Supreme Court. The offender had therefore exhausted all his appeals. All that remained was the request for review to the GRCC, which exists to correct judicial errors. Request he made in 2015.
The GRCC reports to the Minister of Justice, who decides whether to forward the case to the Court of Appeal or to order a new trial himself if he believes that a judicial error has “probably” been committed. .
For 20 years, barely one case per year in Canada has passed the very demanding GRCC test. Generally, you must have found new credible evidence that changes the entire perspective (DNA, a new witness, a video, etc.).
For all new evidence, Delisle had a series of expert reports that cast doubt on his guilt. The minister deemed this sufficient and ordered a new trial in 2021 (a trial which was still pending).
And now we learn by reading this report dated 2017 that the GRCC had not concluded that there was a judicial error. The system did not commit any injustice towards Jacques Delisle: it was he who lied, it was he who decided not to testify, it was he who changed his version after his conviction.
“The defendant consistently attempted to cover up, minimize, or portray his criminal behavior in new ways,” the GRCC wrote.
Delisle, even in his interview on the show Investigation where he claimed to have given a weapon to his disabled and depressed wife, repeated: “I did not commit a crime. »
The GRCC recalls the well-established rule that new evidence that was available at trial, but which was kept secret for strategic reasons, should not be allowed on appeal. Letting a convicted person advance a new theory on appeal because the first one failed “would bring justice into disrepute,” writes the GRCC.
This is exactly what Delisle did in judicial review.
He could have asked to testify on appeal, but did not do so. It was when he lost down the line that he told a new story.
In light of the evidence, many aspects are not credible in this new official version of the accused (my wife wanted to commit suicide, I gave her my gun and asked her to think), believes the GRCC. Whether it was suicide or assisted suicide in no way weakens the prosecution’s evidence. This is a late and convenient theory, where he is more active than in the first version, when he said he left the prohibited weapon lying around in the apartment… loaded… while waiting to return it to the authorities, because it was prohibited. Note that he had owned it illegally for more than 20 years.
Of all the new experts summoned by Jacques Delisle to prove his innocence, nothing radically affirmative came out. Some raise doubts. Others say that both theses – murder or suicide – are possible. It’s the same debate as at the trial, in short, where Delisle did not testify, and where he failed to raise doubt.
Ultimately, the GRCC does not decide definitively, but reminds the minister that this power is extraordinary and should not serve as a disguised appeal after all the others. It is only when the system has acted badly, has failed, that we should review a final conviction.
The fact of not having defended oneself well, of not having testified, of having lied, of not having submitted other expert opinions… All of this is not the error, even less the fault of the “system” , but of the accused himself.
Obviously, Minister Lametti has broadened the scope of this exceptional power, and this raises many questions.
Philosophically, this would not be surprising, because we know he is very concerned about judicial errors. He himself presented a bill to completely reform the GRCC, which was far too restrictive in its analyses. Except that this bill is not yet in force. And that many people in prison at the moment have not had the chance of such a broad and generous interpretation of the current law – I am thinking of Daniel Jolivet, of whom I have spoken at length in these pages.
This too is messy and vaguely arbitrary. This too will require explanations from the ex-minister.
Read the column “Pride and Guilt”