Jacques Delisle : Murder and The Judge - the fifth estate

towards him, and everyone told me: "You will lose this case, he is certainly guilty." Everyone had his opinion, and when I asked them, "What do you say to this ballistics argument?" Oh, it doesn't matter, ballistics is not a case of ballistics, he had a mistress, he had money, he was a"So there was a amount of prejudice, of blind hatred, that for me today is completely impossible to explain. Mark : Delisle can't explain it either. He feels that the jury punished him for having an affair with his former secretary Johanne Plamondon Mark: Do you think they were influenced by the fact that you had a relationship with Madame Plamondon Yes it was? one of your arguments, it's stupid, because I'm not the first person to have an extramarital relationship.

Mark: That didn't necessarily make you a

murder

er. No, that wasn't a motive. to Madame Plamondon: Delisle's legal options are now very slim After the Quebec Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court refused to reopen his case, there is only one last hope left for condemned prisoners in Canada who have lost all their rights. legal appeals have the right to do so. make a direct appeal to the federal Minister of Justice, asking the government to reopen the case. But it's a long shot. In the last 5 years, there have been 72 requests to the minister. Only 2 were granted. Back in Toronto, Delisle's new defense lawyer, James Lockyer, is confident he can do it.

He has convinced Ottawa to reopen several high-profile wrongful conviction cases in the past, but not without a fight. These cases are never easy. Of course, one fights against a presumption of guilt. Because he was convicted by a jury and his appeals were dismissed, you are fighting a presumption of guilt. Mark: He hopes to combat that presumption of guilt by having an independent scientific laboratory review the forensic evidence. Coupled with Delisle's stunning admission that he helped his wife commit suicide, Lockyer believes this new evidence should overturn a conviction he claims was based on public anger and animosity.

I understand that there was great applause when he was convicted. My own feeling, and I have experienced it in other cases, is that, as human beings, we sometimes delight in how the powerful have fallen. First you have to get the right people. You have to find someone who committed a crime before you do that, and I don't believe Mr. Delisle committed a crime for a moment. No, at least not the crime of

murder

. He committed some crimes, but not the crime of murder. Mark: Back inside the walls of the maximum security penitentiary, all Delisle can do now is wait.

Will the justice system he served for so long give him one last chance to prove his innocence? He is not a murderer, he says, but he confesses that he is guilty of helping his wife die. Legally speaking, it is a crime. But that didn't cross my mind that morning. That morning he was acting out of love for Nicole. I begged him not to do it. I did my best to convince her. I told her that I loved her, that he was willing to spend the rest of my life (gags on her) taking care of her. That's all.

But, of course, objectively or legally speaking, it is a crime. I won't deny it. (♪♪) Mark: Every day I relive that November morning 3 years ago. And the decisions that would end the life of his wife and sentence him to life behind bars. I did a stupid thing. I admit that I did something stupid. But it's easy after... it's easy after saying that, huh. But you had to be me that morning. That morning I was a guy who didn't kill Nicole. That morning I was a guy devastated by what I had seen. Mark: And you can't change the past?

No. No. Mm, mm. Mark: Now we'll see the future. (♪♪)