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Jacques
DELISLE
Classification: Murderer
Characteristics:
Parricide - The first
Canadian judge to ever stand trial for murder
Jacques Delisle
(born 1935, Montreal, Canada) is a Canadian judge who sat on the
Quebec Superior Court from 1985 to 1992, and on the Quebec Court of
Appeal from 1992 until his retirement in 2009.
In June 2010, he was arrested and charged with
murder, in connection with the November 2009 death of his wife
Marie-Nicole Rainville.
Delisle is the first judge in Canadian history to
be charged with murder.
His trial began in May 2012; it had been scheduled
to begin in 2011, but was delayed after one of the prosecutors
withdrew.
On June 14, 2012, Delisle was found guilty of
first-degree murder for killing his wife.
Wikipedia.org
Ex-Quebec judge loses appeal in
murder case
The Canadian Press
May 29, 2013
QUEBEC – A retired Quebec judge sentenced to life
in prison for murdering his wife has failed to have his conviction
overturned.
The Quebec Court of Appeal announced Wednesday it
has dismissed an appeal by Jacques Delisle, who was found guilty last
June of first-degree murder.
Delisle, who spent nearly a quarter-century on the
bench, is believed to be the first Canadian judge to ever stand trial
for murder.
A jury found him guilty in the shooting death of
Marie-Nicole Rainville in November 2009.
Delisle, who is in his late 70s, was given a life
sentence without possibility of parole for 25 years.
Delisle maintained his wife was in poor health and
that her death was a suicide. She died of a bullet to the head.
The Crown argued during Delisle’s month-long trial
that he killed his 71-year-old spouse because he wanted to avoid a
costly divorce and move in with his former secretary, with whom he had
been having an affair.
Delisle’s lawyer argued there were procedural
errors that led to the guilty verdict. But in a 41-page ruling
released Wednesday, the province’s highest court said the former
magistrate failed to show the verdict was unreasonable.
According to its ruling, “the guilty verdict for
murder is one that a jury acting judicially could reasonably render”
and that “there was sufficient evidence to justify a conviction.”
As for the decision to convict on a first-degree
murder charge as opposed to a lesser charge, the appeals court ruled
that given Delisle was planning a life with his mistress, the verdict
was one a jury could reasonably render.
The Crown said it was pleased with the ruling.
“We are very satisfied,” Michel Fortin, one of the
prosecutors in the case, told The Canadian Press. ”It confirms what we
felt since the beginning.”
Delisle’s lawyer, Jacques Larochelle, had also
argued that the trial judge had given improper instructions to the
jury by not giving enough importance to the ballistic evidence, which
the defence used to push its suicide defence.
The appeals court did not retain the argument.
Delisle retired from the bench in 2009, having
served as an appeals court justice since 1992. Previously, the
longtime magistrate had spent seven years as a Quebec Superior Court
justice.
Rainville was handicapped and required constant
care. She had been paralyzed on one side by a stroke in 2007 and was
recovering from a fractured hip suffered a few months before she died.
She was found dead in the couple’s condominium on
Nov. 12, 2009.
It was Delisle who called 911 and told police he’d
found her with a revolver next to her body. Police originally accepted
that theory until they probed further.
Delisle was still behind bars, having failed to
secure bail last July while awaiting a ruling on the appeal.
— With files from Pierre Saint-Arnaud in Montreal
Quebec judge Jacques Delisle
found guilty of murdering wife
The Canadian Press
June 14, 2012
QUEBEC – An emotional courthouse scene erupted as
Jacques Delisle, believed to be the first Canadian judge to ever stand
trial for murder, was found guilty Thursday of having shot his wife in
the head with a pistol.
The first-degree murder verdict means the
77-year-old retired judge will automatically receive the sternest
possible punishment in the Criminal Code: life in prison, with no
possibility of parole for a quarter-century.
The voice of the presiding judge, Claude C. Gagnon,
trembled as he explained that sentence.
The accused buried his face in his hands upon
hearing the verdict. He slammed his fist into a table and said, “For
God’s sake, no.”
There were pained screams from his family. Over in
the public gallery, Delisle’s son inexplicably removed his jacket and
began unbuckling his belt, before being ordered to calm down by
courthouse constables. He pleaded for the chance to hug his father –
and was denied.
With that, the once-prominent judge was escorted
from the courtroom as a convict. It had taken an eight-man, four-woman
jury just under three days to reach its decision.
The Crown prosecutor said the outcome proved that
“nobody is above the law, regardless of title, regardless of
profession, regardless of someone’s place in society.”
But he did express sympathy for the son following
the emotional scene: “The mother is dead, and then the father is in
jail for the rest of his life,” said Crown lawyer Steve Magnan. “So I
do understand the reaction that they had.”
It will now be up to Delisle’s lawyers to decide on
an appeal. It’s also up to them to request special prison security, if
they want it, for the ex-judge. They did not comment Thursday.
On Nov. 12, 2009, Delisle said he found his wife
already dead when he walked into the condo they shared in Quebec City.
She lay on a sofa, a .22-calibre pistol at her side
and a bullet wound in her head. He called 911, telling the operator
that his wife had committed suicide.
Delisle’s wife, Marie-Nicole Rainville, was
paralyzed on her right side by a stroke two years earlier and had just
undergone therapy for a hip fracture that summer.
The accused wept while listening to testimony at
his trial about his wife’s physical challenges, including the loss of
the ability to speak foreign languages, play bridge and do puzzles
because of her brain damage.
One Quebec legal observer now says he expects an
appeal because, at this point, Delisle has nothing left to lose.
He says the verdict was predictable, however, for
two reasons: First, Delisle never testified in his own defence and
juries in murder cases often react badly to that. Also, the forensic
evidence was devastating, says criminal-law expert Robert LaHaye.
“(The verdict) doesn’t surprise me,” LaHaye said in
an interview.
Police originally appeared to accept Delisle’s
explanation for his wife’s demise and the death was officially listed
as a suicide. But further investigation led to first-degree murder
charges against the retired Quebec Court of Appeal justice.
The Crown argued during Delisle’s month-long trial
that he killed his 71-year-old spouse because he wanted to avoid a
costly divorce and wanted to move in with his former secretary, with
whom he had been having an affair.
Johanne Plamondon, the former secretary, testified
she was ready to move in with Delisle a few days before he was
arrested for Rainville’s murder in 2010.
Plamondon, 57, had started working for Delisle as a
legal secretary in 1983 when he was named to Quebec Superior Court and
followed him when he was appointed to the Quebec Court of Appeal in
1992.
While she and the judge were friends at first,
Plamondon testified their feelings evolved in the months before
Rainville’s stroke in April 2007.
Another key area of contention was a black smudge
on Rainville’s left hand from gunshot residue – in a bizarre spot,
outside the palm.
The Crown said that happened as she tried to defend
herself from the fatal bullet. The defence insisted it came from her
awkward grip on the gun as she took her life.
Rainville’s health had been deteriorating and, in
the summer of 2009, she fractured her hip. She was in the hospital
until two weeks before her death.
Rainville’s sister, Pauline, said Marie-Nicole had
expressed suicidal thoughts to her in correspondence in the months
after her stroke.
Pauline Rainville also said her sister feared being
a burden on her family after her broken hip because of her limited
mobility.
She had actually wanted to go into a nursing home
instead of returning to her condo.
Pauline Rainville also said she didn’t approve of
the care provided by Delisle, and said she didn’t think she was ready
to be discharged from the hospital after her hip therapy because she
was weak and thin.
Pauline Rainville said she had limited contact with
her sister because she didn’t like being around Delisle, whom she
found aloof.
Marie-Josee Tremblay, who cared for Rainville in
the hospital, said she found her combative and sometimes sad and tired
but never depressed.
With files by Nelson Wyatt
‘Destroyed, but not guilty,’ says
judge accused of murdering his wife
Tristan Hopper and Marianne White -
NationalPost.com
May 8, 2012
Summoned by an unidentified 911 caller on Nov. 12,
2009, Quebec City police rushed to the home of retired judge Jacques
Deslisle amid reports of “a woman who had just killed herself.”
Entering the apartment in the upscale Sillery
district just after 10 a.m., officers came upon the body of
Marie-Nicole Rainville, Mr. Delisle’s wife of 49 years, dead of a
gunshot wound to the temple.
The 71-year-old, who was severely handicapped as
the result of a stroke only months before, had apparently committed
suicide.
Seven months later, to the astonishment of
neighbours and the Quebec legal establishment, police returned to the
same address to arrest Mr. Delisle and charge the veteran judge with
first-degree murder.
On Monday, the first day of his trial, the gaunt,
grey-haired 77-year-old had the dubious distinction of being the first
judge in Canadian legal history to stand trial for murder. He has
pleaded not guilty.
“I didn’t kill Nicole,” Mr. Delisle told a court
hearing in March 2011. “I’ve been destroyed but that doesn’t mean I’m
guilty.”
He is also charged with possessing a loaded,
unregistered firearm, for which he will face a separate trial.
Mr. Delisle’s lawyer, Jacques Larochelle, a
prominent defence attorney known for having represented Hell’s Angels’
alleged leader, Maurice “Mom” Boucher, is expected to argue Ms.
Rainville’s death was suicide and anything else is mere speculation.
Prosecutors are expected to use medical evidence
and ballistics to bolster a claim the woman would have been unable to
hold the weapon that fired the fatal shot.
The case has proved a logistical headache for the
provincial prosecutor, given the difficulty of ensuring an impartial
trial for a man with so many ties to the legal profession.
“To have the career he had, he had to be an
upstanding and well-known man … that’s why [the accusation of
first-degree murder] made us in the legal community react. We are
truly stunned,” criminologist Jean-Pierre Rancourt told La Presse in
2010.
At a 2010 bail hearing for Mr. Delisle, Superior
Court Justice Claude Gagnon stressed he had “no memory of any social
event I might have attended with him and I don’t know any member of
his family.”
The Canadian Judicial Council has noted the case is
unique, but remained confident Mr. Delisle would nevertheless be able
to receive an impartial trial.
Ms. Rainville married Mr. Delisle in 1960, and the
couple had two children. In 2009, she suffered a devastating stroke
that left one side of her body paralyzed and required her to use a
wheelchair. A subsequent hip fracture aggravated her condition.
When Mr. Delisle stepped down from the bench in the
spring of 2009, some say reluctantly, he told colleagues he was
leaving to care for his wife full time.
Because of Ms. Rainville’s medical condition,
associates of Mr. Delisle began to suspect the killing — if performed
by Mr. Delisle — was done out of compassion.
Mr. Delisle, who was born in Montreal in 1935,
obtained his law degree at the age of 22 from Laval University and was
a senior partner by the close of the 1960s.
He was first appointed to the Quebec Superior Court
in 1983 and moved to the Court of Appeal in 1992, a position he would
hold until his retirement.
One of the judge’s most high-profile cases was that
of Micheline Vaillancourt, who was convicted of murder in 1995 for
shooting her abusive husband while he slept. He was among the panel of
judges that overturned her sentence on appeal, stating the woman had
good reason to believe her husband would kill her and saw murder as
the only way out.
“He is certainly not an evil man,” Ms. Vaillancourt
told Quebec media soon after Mr. Delisle’s arrest.
“He is not just a judge, he is a human being. He
understood my suffering, and now he is the one suffering.”
At the close of proceedings on Monday, eight male
and four female jurors had been selected to decide Mr. Delisle’s fate.
The trial is expected to take four weeks.
Retired judge charged in wife's
murder
Ctvmontreal.ca
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Retired judge Jacques Delisle was
charged in the Quebec City courthouse Tuesday with the first-degree
murder of his wife.
Delisle, 75, is a retired Court of
Appeal justice who allegedly killed his 71-year-old wife, Nicole
Rainville, on November 12 in the province's capital.
The death was initially classified
as a suicide, said Quebec police Const. Sandra Dion, but the arrest
was made following a lengthy investigation.
An autopsy report revealed new
information about the woman's death.
"The events go back to Nov. 12, 2009
(when), around 10:22 in the morning, the Quebec City police service
received a call about a woman who had just taken her life," Dion said.
A court clerk said Delisle, who was
named to the Quebec Court of Appeal in 1992, also faces a charge of
possessing an illegal firearm.
The murder case is extremely rare
for a person of Delisle's credentials, said Martine Berube,
spokesperson for the Quebec Bureau of Criminal and Penal Prosecution.
"Having a judge accused of first
degree murder in Canada -- we've never seen that before," she said.
Delisle, a Montreal native who
retired in April 2009, is being detained until his next court
appearance on Monday.
