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No miscarriage of justice, report concludes | The Jacques Delisle affair

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Jacques Delisle at the Quebec courthouse March 14, 2024

  • Marie-Pier Bouchard (View profile)Marie-Pier Bouchard

Speech synthesis, based on artificial intelligence, makes it possible to generate spoken text from written text.

The report submitted to the Federal Minister of Justice, who decided to order a new trial for former judge Jacques Delisle, does not report any judicial error in the handling of his case, noted < em>Investigation, who was able to dissect it.

In 2021, David Lametti, who was then the minister in office, ordered a new trial based in particular on this document prepared by the Criminal Conviction Review Group of Canada (CRCG), a committee of jurists from the federal Department of Justice. Justice.

In this document, until today subject to a publication ban, the GRCC bluntly criticizes the defense strategy of the former judge. He even writes that Jacques Delisle took an enormous risk in his quest to be completely exonerated.

We read there among other things, that he lied, that he manipulated the truth to use it as a strategy, that his explanations raise credibility issues and that he took a serious risk by not testifying at his trial.

It was only in 2015, after having exhausted all his appeals, that Jacques Delisle publicly gave his version of the facts. In an interview on the show Enquête, the former judge makes surprising revelations.

The Jacques Delisle affair

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The Jacques Affair Delisle

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“I loaded the gun […], then put the gun on the table across from there where Nicole was sitting”, confides Jacques Delisle who, initially, had told the police that his wife had committed suicide in his absence with a prohibited weapon, already loaded , which he had left on a table near the front door of their condo.

Jacques Delisle confesses as well as lying to the police and his family. He admits that he helped his wife commit suicide, but he persists and signs: You need to know: I did not kill Nicole.

The former judge still maintains his innocence during this interview. He claims to be the victim of a serious miscarriage of justice and, on the same day this interview was broadcast, he presented his request for review to the Minister of Justice.

To support his claim, he relies on a statement in which he explains why he did not tell the truth before as well as on expert opinions which call into question the work of the pathologist presented by the Crown prosecutor during his trial.

For Jacques Delisle, the new analyzes and his recent version of the facts are new evidence that could have had an effect on the trial in 2012.

Except that in its report, the GRCC mentions that the former judge could have delivered his version of the facts well before: by testifying at his trial, before the Court of Appeal or at the Supreme Court. But he decided not to do it.

For the Review Group, Jacques' new version of the facts Delisle is not as convincing and her statement raises credibility questions.

The RCMP also points out that the moment when Jacques Delisle chose to reveal his version of events is also indicative of a strategic decision on his part.

As for the new expert opinions, the committee concludes, after a lengthy investigation, that despite the destruction of certain elements of evidence, several experts were able to pronounce based on what was available at the time of the trial .

Could these new opinions have influenced the verdict? The Review Group is not not sure. He leaves it up to the minister to decide whether they could have had an effect on the verdict.

Finally, the Group review recalls that the Ministry of Justice is not a court of appeal and that the extraordinary powers granted to the minister must be used to repair judicial errors.

And not telling the truth during a trial is not an error in the justice system, we write.

Presumably, David Lametti did not see things the same way.

In his statement issued in April 2021, he stated that a miscarriage of justice likely occurred. He clarified that his decision “results from the discovery of new information that was not before the courts at the time of the trial.”

Thus eight years after being sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his wife, Jacques Delisle was released in 2021 while awaiting further proceedings.

He finally pleaded guilty this morning to manslaughter.

The second trial ordered by ex-minister Lametti will not take place.

A few weeks ago, leaving the House of Commons, David Lametti hammered home the same message when asked about this: “In my opinion, in my opinion reading the evidence and the new elements of the evidence, there was the possibility of a legal error”, he responded on the occasion of 'an interview which took stock of his career as a deputy and minister.

He added this: is a power that the Minister of Justice possesses.

In the current system, the Minister of Justice of Canada does not have to explain its decisions, regardless of the conclusions of the GRCC.

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Teilor Stone

By Teilor Stone

Teilor Stone has been a reporter on the news desk since 2013. Before that she wrote about young adolescence and family dynamics for Styles and was the legal affairs correspondent for the Metro desk. Before joining Thesaxon , Teilor Stone worked as a staff writer at the Village Voice and a freelancer for Newsday, The Wall Street Journal, GQ and Mirabella. To get in touch, contact me through my teilor@nizhtimes.com 1-800-268-7116