Jacques Delisle: Quebec; Major Development: Globe and Mail reports that new forensic evidence suggests the 81-year-old retired Quebec Court of Appeal judge has been wrongly convicted of murder: "New forensic evidence suggests the only Canadian judge convicted of murder is innocent and that his wife’s death from a gunshot wound was suicide, his lawyer says in a recent request for a Department of Justice investigation of the case."..."He has always maintained that his wife, Nicole Rainville, shot herself, though last year he told the CBC that he provided her with the loaded pistol that fired the fatal shot. Ms. Rainville was suicidal after a stroke left her right side paralyzed."..."Three forensics experts have submitted reports to the department’s Criminal Conviction Review Group attesting that the fatal bullet in Ms. Rainville’s death was fired from a 90-degree angle rather than the 30-degree angle posited by the forensic pathologist in Mr. Delisle’s trial, suggesting suicide rather than murder. The experts point to fractures on the right side of her skull that indicate the bullet travelled horizontally from left to right before ricocheting to its final resting place in the back right side of her brain. The trial pathologist who performed Ms. Rainville’s autopsy missed these fractures, as well as bullet fragments in the right side of her brain. He also apparently failed to dissect the brain, inferring the bullet’s trajectory from the entry wound and its endpoint. In his memorandum to the minister, Mr. Lockyer argues that these errors led directly to Mr. Delisle’s conviction and constitute a likely miscarriage of justice, which should trigger a formal investigation. “He just connected two dots, without realizing there was a third dot in the middle, so he didn’t look elsewhere,” Mr. Lockyer said of the trial pathologist, André Bourgault." Reporter Eric Andrew-Gee;

STORY: "New evidence suggests Quebec judge wrongly convicted of murder: lawyer," by reporter Eric Andrew-Gee, published by the Globe and Mail, on Thursday May 26, 2016.

GIST: "New forensic evidence suggests the only Canadian judge convicted of murder is innocent and that his wife’s death from a gunshot wound was suicide, his lawyer says in a recent request for a Department of Justice investigation of the case. Retired Quebec Court of Appeal judge Jacques Delisle has been serving a life sentence for first-degree murder since 2012, when a jury found him guilty in a trial that fascinated the province. He has lost each of his appeals, including one to the Supreme Court of Canada in 2013, and is now counting on a rarely used ministerial review that could return his case to the courts. The famed appeals lawyer James Lockyer has taken up Mr. Delisle’s case and is now urging the Justice Minister to wrap up a preliminary assessment launched last year and proceed to a formal investigation. Three forensics experts have submitted reports to the department’s Criminal Conviction Review Group attesting that the fatal bullet in Ms. Rainville’s death was fired from a 90-degree angle rather than the 30-degree angle posited by the forensic pathologist in Mr. Delisle’s trial, suggesting suicide rather than murder. The experts point to fractures on the right side of her skull that indicate the bullet travelled horizontally from left to right before ricocheting to its final resting place in the back right side of her brain. The trial pathologist who performed Ms. Rainville’s autopsy missed these fractures, as well as bullet fragments in the right side of her brain. He also apparently failed to dissect the brain, inferring the bullet’s trajectory from the entry wound and its endpoint. In his memorandum to the minister, Mr. Lockyer argues that these errors led directly to Mr. Delisle’s conviction and constitute a likely miscarriage of justice, which should trigger a formal investigation. “He just connected two dots, without realizing there was a third dot in the middle, so he didn’t look elsewhere,” Mr. Lockyer said of the trial pathologist, André Bourgault. Mr. Lockyer has had nearly a dozen wrongful convictions based on faulty science overturned, including several through ministerial review, and believes Mr. Delisle’s case falls into that category. “There is a systemic problem with the way science is used in criminal courts,” he said. “It points to the problems that can happen in the justice system if we place too much reliance on experts.”... Mr. Lockyer filed the request for an investigation on May 11 and expects a decision from the minister within days. If the request is granted, the 81-year-old Mr. Delisle will seek bail on the grounds of his age, pending the result of the review, which could see his case returned to an appeal court or even set for a fresh trial."

The entire story can be found at:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/new-evidence-suggests-quebec-judge-wrongly-convicted-of-murder-lawyer/article30169816/

PUBLISHER'S NOTE:

I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located  near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site.

The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:

http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith

Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:

http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html

Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com;

Harold Levy;

Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;