Ex-judge Jacques Delisle a step closer to murder-conviction review by justice minister
Lawyer James Lockyer says Delisle didn't testify at his murder trial due to family pressure
Federal Justice Minister Peter MacKay will carefully examine a request to review the case of Jacques Delisle, believed to be the only Canadian judge ever convicted of first-degree murder.
That comes after Delisle's new lawyer, James Lockyer, filed an application for the conviction to go through a ministerial review and be referred back to the Quebec Court of Appeal.
Delisle was convicted of murder in 2012 in the death of his wife, Nicole Rainville.
MacKay said documents from Delisle's legal team have started to trickle in and he'll wait to see all the evidence before deciding how to proceed.
At a news conference in Quebec City on Friday, Lockyer said he believes a review of the forensic evidence used at Delisle's trial will show he did not kill his wife.
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Lockyer was joined by Delisle's daughter and son, Hélène and Jean Delisle.
"To me, one of the most striking features of the case has always been the belief that Hélène and Jean have in their father," Lockyer said.
"If anyone knew whether or not their father was responsible for their mother's death... you would think it would be Hélène and Jean."
In an interview from behind bars with CBC's current affairs show the fifth estate, Delisle said that when he was on trial, he hid from the court his real role in his disabled wife's death — helping her commit suicide.
Now 79 and in a maximum-security prison north of Montreal, the former Quebec Court of Appeal justice said he left a loaded gun for his wife to take her own life in November 2009 and tried to talk her out of it, but that he didn't kill her.
When police arrived at the house, Delisle told them his wife had gone to get the gun by herself.
Asked in the interview why he lied, he replied: "Because I didn't want the family to know what really happened that morning. I didn't want the family to know I helped Nicole commit suicide."
Delisle was devoted to his wife, son says
Finally, when the time came to testify at his trial, he sent his then-lawyer, Jacques Larochelle, to tell his family the dark secret.
They were devastated and the night before he was to take the stand, his daughter-in-law asked him to keep quiet.
The family "didn't want the world to know he had provided her with the gun," Lockyer said.
Delisle agreed not to testify in his own defence, but says now he realizes it was a mistake.
Asked why he should be believed now, Delisle replied, "Because I am telling the truth today. It's as simple as that."
Delisle's son, Jean, told Friday's news conference that his family has never doubted that his father didn't kill his mother.
He said his father was devoted to his mother and his father's conviction has weighed on his family ever since.
Delisle has already had appeals to the Quebec Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada turned down.
Crown doesn't waver
The Crown maintains the theory it had when the trial began in May 2012 in Quebec City: that Delisle killed his wife to begin a new life with Johanne Plamondon, his mistress and former secretary.
His only hope now lies with the justice minister. According to a CBC count, only two of 72 such requests have been granted in the past five years.
"Here we had the first Court of Appeal judge, indeed the first judge as far as I know, in Canada at least, charged with first-degree murder… in a way [that] worked very strongly against him I think," Lockyer told the fifth estate.
Delisle believes he may have also been punished by the jury for having an extramarital affair with Plamondon.
"If it was one of their arguments, it's stupid, because I'm not the first person to have an extramarital affair in life," he said.
"I loved Nicole, I loved Madame Plamondon."
With files from The Canadian Press