Ex-Quebec judge convicted of killing wife released from prison pending new trial

Ex-Quebec judge convicted of killing wife released from prison pending new trial

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Jacques Delisle has served nine years of a life sentence for the murder of his wife.

Former Quebec Appeals Court judge Jacques Delisle, found guilty in 2012 of the murder of his wife, was ordered released from prison pending the start of a new trial.

Superior Court Justice François Huot accepted the request to release the 85-year-old JacquesDelisle following a 15-minute hearing at the Quebec City courthouse.

Delisle was found guilty of first-degree murder in the death of his wife, Marie Nicole Rainville, and was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. His appeal was dismissed in 2013, and the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear his case.

Calling himself a “victim of a judicial error,” Delisle requested in 2015 that the Justice Department review his case. In the application to the department, lawyer James Lockyer had argued that proper analysis of the gun used to kill Rainville would rule out the possibility that Delisle fired the weapon.

Lockyer and another lawyer for Delisle, Jacques Larochelle, argued in court Friday that the new evidence reviewed by Lametti “suggests Delisle is probably innocent and that the death of Rainville was a suicide.”