(Quebec) The trial of the Old Quebec saber killer is coming to an end and Judge Richard Grenier has begun instructing the jury in this highly complex case where issues of mental health and criminal responsibility intertwine.
Posted at 12:27 p.m.
Updated at 4:08 p.m.
“In this case, you are in significant danger,” the Superior Court judge warned the 11-member jury, one of whom was expelled after she contracted COVID-19.
“It is extremely dangerous if a thesis is based on facts of which we are not certain, facts which in evidence are not very, very strong and on which we have built a house of cards”, warned the magistrate.
“I am not alluding to one or the other of the theses, I have no opinion to give you. »
The jury will have to decide several questions of law. The central question is the following: Carl Girouard, 26, was he suffering from a mental disorder when he committed his actions and, if so, is he criminally responsible?
If the jury finds he is responsible, they will then have to rule on the nature of the murders. Are these murders in the first degree, as the prosecution alleges, or in the second degree, or even involuntary homicides?
Girouard is also charged with five attempted murders. He admitted during his testimony that he was looking to kill and was disappointed not to finish off the first bystander he attacked.
From the start of the trial, which lasted more than four weeks, the accused admitted to being the author of the killing of October 31, 2020. That evening, he took advantage of Halloween, all dressed in black, to attack innocent people with a katana.
The defense argues that the killer was in psychosis and suffered from schizophrenia. Rather, the prosecution believes the killer knew what he was doing that night and had for years harbored a malevolent fantasy of revenge against a society he didn’t belong in.
The jurors will therefore have to weigh the testimony of the prosecution and defense experts, who have made opposing diagnoses. A Crown-appointed psychiatrist and neuropsychologist concluded that the killer was not psychotic, while a psychiatrist testifying for the defense argued the opposite.
“You have to assess the reliability and credibility to bring to the witnesses,” said Justice Grenier.
The magistrate decided to complete his instructions to the jurors on Monday so as not to have to isolate them at the end of the week. “It must be sunny this weekend,” remarked the judge, magnanimously.
The jurors will therefore begin their deliberations on Monday. Recall that Carl Girouard is accused of two first degree murders and five attempted murders.