Sunday, March 6, 2016

Bulletin: Dennis Oland; New Brunswick: 24 News reports that the judge who committed Dennis Oland to trial at Oland's preliminary hearing said there were many unanswered questions about the case and that police were too quick to conclude that Oland was the killer - "But in the end, LeBlanc said he had to decide whether a properly instructed jury could conclude that Oland killed his father."..."(Judge Ronald) LeBlanc said there were unanswered questions about the location of Richard Oland’s cell phone, the murder weapon, the noises heard by people below Oland’s office, and the handling of Dennis Oland’s brown jacket." Globe and Mail;

"The judge who committed Dennis Oland to trial for his father’s murder said there were many unanswered questions about the case, and police were too quick to conclude that Oland was the killer.
Source Judge Ronald LeBlanc provided a lot of commentary in his 53-page preliminary hearing decision rendered in December 2014, but it was under a publication ban until the trial was complete. LeBlanc said the Crown had failed during the preliminary hearing to establish motive, and the conclusion by police – mere hours after Richard Oland’s body was found – that the younger Oland was the killer was unjustified as irrational. LeBlanc said there were unanswered questions about the location of Richard Oland’s cell phone, the murder weapon, the noises heard by people below Oland’s office, and the handling of Dennis Oland’s brown jacket." But in the end, LeBlanc said he had to decide whether a properly instructed jury could conclude that Oland killed his father."
http://www.24news.ca/the-news/canada-news/203306-judge-in-oland-preliminary-hearing-said-he-had-unanswered-questions

See very comprehensive Wikipedia entry on the murder of Richard Boland: "Canadian Civil Liberties Association. "Since court documents revealed Dennis Oland experienced a number of major violations to his Charter rights, and testimony revealed police corruption and a possible cover-up during the course of the investigation, The Canadian Civil Liberties Association of Canada (CCLA) has been monitoring the Oland Case.[101] On the CCLA's blog Rights Watch, their major concerns related to police conduct include: police officers using the bathroom at the crime scene before gathering blood or DNA evidence, a senior police officer of the Saint John Police Force admitting to entering the crime scene without authorization or protective gear for no other reason but to satisfy his own curiosity, a junior officer alleging he was told to lie about the presence of the senior officer at the crime scene unauthorized, investigators not wearing boot coverings or gloves at the crime scene and officers alleging one another had cross-contaminated the scene, police using and contaminating the backdoor to the crime scene for convenience of themselves and admitting it would be the most convenient escape route for a killer before testing it for fingerprints, the body being removed from the scene before the blood spatter expert arrived, witnesses not being questioned until 18 months after the investigation began, a photograph of the back alleyway not being taken until 3 years after the murder, and unlawful search and seizure." University of Toronto: "Brandon Trask, a former Crown Attorney in Newfoundland and Labrador and a doctoral candidate at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Law has also been following the Oland trial. Trask claims the "most concerning" thing about the Oland trial is that the chief of the Saint John Police Force says the guilty verdict provides 'a degree of validation' to the beleagured force.[102] According to Trask, "This statement is quite disturbing and should be cause for alarm ... it seems like rather circular reasoning to claim that a murder conviction stemming from a flawed investigation targeting a particular accused person provides a "degree of validation" for the investigators."[103] Trask lists the four factors leading to wrongful convictions within the Canadian legal system: 1) extreme public pressure to secure a conviction in a high-profile case, 2) the presence of an unpopular or marginalized accused, 3) the conversion of the adversarial nature of the criminal justice system into a game, and 4) a belief that the ends justify the means.[104] He then compares these four factors to the Oland trial, providing evidence to demonstrate that all 4 criteria for a wrongful conviction were met in the case of Dennis Oland."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Richard_Oland