Quebec's Court of Appeal has overturned a stay of proceedings granted to retired Quebec judge Jacques Delisle, whose conviction for fatally shooting his wife in 2012 was reversed by the federal justice minister. Delisle, left, walks into court with his granddaughter Anne Sophie Morency, Thursday, June 14, 2012 in Quebec City. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jacques Boissinot
MONTREAL – Quebec’s Court of Appeal has overturned a stay of proceedings granted to a retired Quebec judge whose 2012 conviction for fatally shooting his wife was reversed by the federal justice minister.
The province’s highest court has ruled that the case against 88-year-old Jacques Delisle should return to Quebec Superior Court, where he was facing a new murder trial.
Delisle’s lawyers had argued successfully before Quebec Superior Court Justice Jean-François Émond that a retrial would be impossible because of serious errors in a Crown expert’s pathology report and unreasonable delays in the case.
The Crown announced it would appeal the stay just weeks later in April 2022, and today’s Appeal Court ruling agrees that the lower court judge erred in granting the stay.
Delisle, who sat on the Quebec Court of Appeal before his retirement, was found guilty of first-degree murder in the death of his wife, Marie Nicole Rainville, and was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.
His initial appeal was dismissed in 2013, and the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear his case.
He spent nine years behind bars before being freed in 2021 when the federal justice minister ordered a new trial after reviewing evidence that was not previously before the courts and concluding a miscarriage of justice had likely occurred.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 6, 2023.
