Case Summary
Jacques Delisle was a Quebec Court of Appeal judge who retired in 2009. At around 10:30 a.m. on November 12 of that year, he found his 71-year-old wife, Marie-Nicole Rainville, dead in their Quebec City condo.1 A pistol was found beside her as well as gunpowder on her left hand. Her cause of death was a bullet wound to her left temple.2
Delisle called 911, telling the operator that his wife had killed herself.3 Rainville had a paralyzing stroke in 2007 and had been dispirited since that time. Delisle had found it difficult to care for Rainville.4 Her sister would later testify that Rainville had expressed suicidal thoughts since her stroke.5 When first responders arrived, Delisle requested that they not attempt to resuscitate Rainville, but rather respect her wish to die.6
Delisle told police “that around 9:00 that morning, he and his wife had argued and he had said, [translation] ‘Will all this never end?’ At that point, around 9:30 a.m., he had left the apartment” to go to the grocery store.7 He had returned to find that she had shot herself. Delisle stated to the officers that his wife had been depressed, and had killed herself using his gun that was found by her body.8 At one point he also told investigators: “I know what you’re thinking, but I did not kill her.”9
Police learned in the course of their investigation that Delisle had been having an affair with a former secretary and that the two had discussed their intentions to live and travel together shortly before Delisle’s arrest.10 Rainville’s death meant that Delisle did not have to pay her $1.4 million in assets in the case of a divorce (as per their marriage contract), and Rainville had also bequeathed all the couple’s assets to him.11
In June 2010, Delisle was charged with the first degree murder of his wife and unlawful possession of an unregistered firearm. He was released on bail pending trial.12
Delisle’s trial was held in Montreal from May 8 to June 14, 2012.13 A number of expert witnesses gave evidence. Notably, two ballistics experts testified for the prosecution that the gunshot residue on Ms. Rainville’s left hand could not have been the result of a suicide. The defence called a different expert who said that it could, provided that Rainville held the gun in an unusual manner.14 Unbeknownst to Delisle, a colleague of one of the Crown’s ballistics experts had formulated a theory that accorded with his defence – that is, it was possible for Rainville to have shot herself and left the gunshot residue on her palm.15
In addition, the Crown’s pathology expert testified that the bullet had entered Rainville’s skull at a 30 degree angle, which was said not to be consistent with suicide.16 Delisle did not testify at his trial, though he later stated in a 2015 interview with Radio-Canada that he had helped his wife to kill herself by giving her the gun.17
The jury found Delisle guilty of first degree murder on June 14, 2012. He was sentenced to life in prison with no parole eligibility for 25 years.18 He appealed his conviction, and was denied bail pending appeal in July 2012.19 The Quebec Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal in 2013.20 The Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear Delisle’s further appeal.21
In March 2015, Delisle made an application to then Minister of Justice Peter MacKay to review his conviction and determine if he had suffered a miscarriage of justice. This application was submitted shortly after Delisle had told reporters that he left the loaded gun for Rainville to take her own life.22 In December 2016, Delisle was denied bail pending his application.23
On April 7, 2021, Minister of Justice David Lametti ordered a new trial for Delisle on the basis that there was a reasonable probability that a miscarriage of justice had occurred.24 In reaching his decision, the Minister of Justice received expert evidence from pathologists who had observed a bullet fragment in Rainville’s x-rays, suggesting that the bullet may have ricocheted in her brain. This cast doubt on the prosecution’s theory at trial that the bullet had entered her skull at a 30 degree angle, a fact on which the Crown relied to establish that Rainville did not take her own life. The expert pathologists found that suicide could not be excluded based on the autopsy findings.25
Delisle was released on bail, at 85 years of age, a few days after the Minister’s decision.26
At his second trial, the court reviewed extensive fresh evidence from seven eminent pathologists, all of whom concluded that Rainville’s autopsy had not been competently performed by the Crown’s star witness, and criticized his failure to preserve the tissues on which his opinion was based.27 The experts found that the Crown’s pathologist had both erred in his interpretation of the autopsy findings, and been negligent in failing to record them to the required standard.28 Moreover, he had not properly prepared or preserved Rainville’s brain tissue, and had irreparably damaged it during the autopsy such that it was unavailable for future examination.29 Upon reviewing the materials that were still available, the experts found that the evidence on which he relied for his opinion that Rainville’s death was a homicide did not, in fact, support this conclusion. Rather, it was consistent with Delisle’s trial testimony that Rainville had chosen to end her life.30
In its reasons, the court made reference to the following comments from Dr. Milroy, one of the pathology experts:
The first pathologist is in a privileged position in performing the autopsy because it is a destructive process. lt is imperative therefore [that they] . . . document the findings accurately[,] including detailed photography of all injuries and wound paths[,] so they are reviewable by a second pathologist. This is not just for quality assurance; reviewing pathologists can also identify evidence not seen by the first pathologist. . . . It is a fallacy . . . to regard the first pathologist as necessarily being in the best position to determine the findings and their interpretation in a case.31
Since the Crown’s pathologist failed to preserve this potentially crucial evidence for Delise’s defence – which was not available due to the negligence of state actors, and now could never be disclosed – the court found that Delisle’s constitutional right to receive a fair trial had been irreparably breached.32 The court therefore stayed the proceedings against Delisle, as there was no societal interest in holding an inexorably unfair trial.33
The Crown prosecutor’s office has since announced its intention to appeal the judicial stay of proceedings, though no record has been discovered as to whether the putative appeal has moved forward. At the time of the Crown’s announcement, Delisle was 86 years old and had spent nine years in prison.34