Jacques Delisle

The Case

Jacques Delisle, a 73-year-old retired Justice of the Quebec Court of Appeal, was a respected Judge, father of two adult children, grandfather to three grandchildren and husband to Nicole Rainville. His life was upended when he was wrongly convicted of his wife’s murder and sentenced to life imprisonment without eligibility for parole for 25 years.

On November 12, 2009, Nicole Rainville 71, was found dead from a gunshot wound to her left temple. She was discovered lying on the couch with a .22 calibre handgun on the floor beneath her left hand. Nicole had been paralyzed on her right side following a debilitating stroke in 2007. Delisle told police he owned the unregistered firearm, which had been gifted to him years earlier and used for hunting.

The Trial and Conviction

Mr. Delisle was charged with his wife’s murder on June 15, 2010. The Crown alleged that he had killed her because he was involved with another woman. Delisle maintained that Nicole had died by suicide and that he was innocent. The Crown’s case relied heavily on forensic evidence from a pathologist and two ballistics experts. It was their testimony that the forensic findings around Mrs. Rainville’s fatal wound and other physical evidence left by the gunshot that killed her eliminated suicide as a possibility.

The Fight for Justice

In 2015, Innocence Canada (then known as AIDWYC) filed a 696.1 application on Mr. Delisle’s behalf. The application challenged the forensic pathology and firearms evidence. It contained opinions from firearms experts that concluded suicide. In an interview with CBC’s The Fifth Estate, arranged by Innocence Canada, Mr. Delisle admitted to providing Nicole with a loaded gun when she requested it but denied he had shot her.

The Exoneration

On April 7, 2021, then Justice Minister David Lametti concluded that a miscarriage of justice had likely occurred in relation to his conviction for first degree murder. He quashed his conviction and ordered a new trial. Mr. Delisle’s new trial resulted in a judicial stay of proceedings in the Quebec Court Superior Court on April 8, 2022.

Life After Exoneration

Mr. Delisle’s fight to prove his innocence did not end in 2022. The Crown appealed the decision to stay the case, and in September 2023, the Quebec Court of Appeal agreed with the Crown and reopened the case. Mr. Delisle then asked the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) for permission to appeal that decision.

On March 14, 2024, the day before the SCC was to decide on his application, Mr. Delisle at 88 years of age, plead guilty plea to a lesser charge of manslaughter. He was sentenced to time served plus a day and given credit for the almost nine years he had already spent in custody.

At a press conference, Mr. Delisle’s lawyer, Jacques Larochelle said:

“The case has been going on for 15 years. (Mr. Delisle) is 88 years old. He wanted to plead guilty to manslaughter. The prospects of completing a second trail seemed utopian to us”.

Mr. Delisle’s two children, who had always believed in their father’s innocence, were in court with him.

Jacques Delisle died a few months after his guilty plea on August 10, 2024, at the age of 89.