The Quebec Court of Appeal has overturned a decision that allowed a former judge, who is now 88, to avoid a second trial in the death of his wife.
In 2012, Jacques Delisle, a retired judge with the Quebec Court of Appeal, was convicted of first-degree murder in the 2009 death of his wife, 71-year-old Marie Nicole Rainville, and was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.
He spent nine years in prison before David Lametti, the federal justice minister at the time, ordered a retrial after finding that “a miscarriage of justice likely occurred” in the case. One of the Crown’s experts made made serious mistakes in the original pathology report that led to his conviction.
In April 2022, a Quebec Superior Court judge agreed with Delisle’s legal team that a second trial would be unfair, given the magnitude of those errors, and granted a stay in legal proceedings.
In a unanimous ruling issued Friday, the Quebec Court of Appeal disagreed with the lower court, saying that the expert’s mistake, while serious, does not justify a stay in proceedings, which should only be granted in the rarest of cases.
Friday’s ruling tosses aside the stay in proceedings that was granted last year, and sends the case back to the Quebec Superior Court where Delisle once again faces the possibility of a second trial.
More to come.