Former judge Jacques Delisle, who pleaded guilty to murdering his wife last March, has died at the age of 89.
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The news was confirmed by his daughter Eileen in a short exchange Newspaper.
“My father passed away earlier this week. The family wishes to experience this grief in complete privacy and will not make any statement,” he wrote.
During the last legal proceedings last spring, the octogenarian showed obvious signs of aging. He walked very slowly and had problems with his hearing.
The Montreal-born lawyer was best known as a judge of the Superior Court of Quebec from 1985 to 1992 before being appointed a judge of the Court of Appeal of Quebec, a position he held from 1992 to 2009.
Death of his wife
In 2009, Jacques Delisle’s life took another turn when his wife, Nicole Rainville, was found lifeless with a bullet to the head at their wedding complex in Sillery in November.
Jack Delisle told police his distraught wife had taken her own life with a gun left on a small table in the condo’s entryway.
Former judge Delisle would be arrested in the summer of 2010 and convicted of the premeditated murder of his wife in June 2012 after a six-week trial.
He received a life sentence and became the first magistrate in Canada to be convicted of the most serious charge in criminal law.
Delisle tried unsuccessfully to overturn the verdict before the Court of Appeals and then before the Supreme Court, alleging a miscarriage of justice.
Request for review
After a request for a review in 2015, Liberal minister David Lametty ordered a new trial in 2021. He said he believed there might have been a miscarriage of justice in the case.
Jack Delisle, who had spent the previous nine years in prison, was released on conditions pending further legal proceedings.
As part of his request for a ministerial review, former judge Delisle revealed he lied to Nicole Rainville’s family and the police during her death.
He later claimed that at his wife’s request, he helped her commit suicide by giving her a loaded gun in his office. He tried to dissuade his wife from taking action, in vain. Mrs Rainville is said to have committed suicide while her husband was out on an errand.
The Delisle clan sought a stay of proceedings in 2022, a decision that was overturned by the Court of Appeal in 2023.
On March 14, former judge Delisle finally pleaded guilty. The parties recommended a sentence of 8 years and 311 days, one day more than Jacques Delisle had already served.
After a few hours of detention that same day, he was a free man.
– With information from Catherine LaMontagne
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