Retrial ordered for Clow

A P.E.I. man who was found guilty of the second-degree murder of his girlfriend has been granted a new trial.

In a 19-page unanimous decision, the P.E.I. Court of Appeal allowed Joel Lawrence Clow’s appeal of his 2017 conviction.

Writing for the court of appeal, Justice John Mitchell said that based on several errors the trial judge made, he believed it was unsafe to uphold her verdict.

Clow was initially charged with the first-degree murder of Traci Lynn Lynch at a home in Pleasant Grove in 2015 and he admitted his actions caused her death. She died of a blunt-force blow to the head and strangulation.

The police found Lynch’s body on Clow’s property in a wheelbarrow covered with items that included a blanket, a pillow, a rain slicker, a tarp, four fishing tubs and a top from a fishing bin.

During the trial before Justice Nancy Key in P.E.I. Supreme Court, the defence argued Clow should have been found guilty of manslaughter because he didn’t have the necessary intent to kill Lynch for it to be considered murder. Instead, Key found Clow guilty in July 2017 of second-degree murder and sentenced him later that year to life in prison with no chance of parole for 17 years.

The P.E.I. Court of Appeal heard his appeal over two days in November 2018.

In the decision, Mitchell wrote that the appellate court doesn’t have the power to intervene just because the trial court did a poor job of expressing itself.