Pair appeals jury verdict in plot to kill spouses
Pair found guilty in 2016 of conspiring to kill their spouses
Angela Nicholson and Curtis REGINA Vey arrived separately and sat on opposite sides of the courtroom as their lawyers asked the province’s highest court to overturn a jury’s verdict finding the pair guilty of conspiring to kill their spouses.
Nicholson, 53, from Melfort and Vey, 54, of Wakaw were each found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder against Jim Taylor and Brigitte Vey in June 2016. At Prince Albert Court of Queen’s Bench in September 2016, they received three-year prison terms.
During the trial, court heard an iPod recording made by Brigitte Vey in July 2013 first uncovered the pair’s plot, which involved setting fire to Vey’s Wakaw farmhouse — apparently with a drugged Brigitte Vey still inside — and drugging and doing away with Taylor, Nicholson’s estranged husband. Their legal counsel unsuccessfully argued their clients didn’t intend to follow through on the discussed plan.
Following the verdict, Nicholson and Vey — through their lawyers Ron Piche and Aaron Fox respectively — filed notices of appeal, asking the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal to overturn the verdicts and order a new trial. Both were subsequently released on conditions pending appeal, including that they not contact each other.
Their appeal was heard Friday by justices Georgina Jackson, Maurice Herauf and Lian Schwann, following which the court reserved decision. As is usual for the court, no date for return was set.
While Fox and Piche acknowledged judges’ charges to juries cannot and should not be expected to be perfect, they claimed the errors made by Chief Justice Martel Popescul amount to a miscarriage of justice.
The defence lawyers argued the case — already complicated due to the nature of the law surrounding this particular charge — was made more complicated for jurors through the judge’s charge. But it was claimed the judge complicated the case for defence counsel as well when, according to Fox, Popescul instructed the jury it should consider the accusations against each accused separately rather than go into deliberations with an “all or nothing ” approach.
Fox and Piche said they’d tailored their closing submissions with the expectation the judge was to instruct the jury that if it found one accused guilty, the other was automatically guilty. The lawyers said they likely would have treated their cases differently had they anticipated the judge’s position on that issue.
Fox said Popescul in his charge said — and soon after reiterated — that “once the agreement (on a plan) is made, the offence is committed.” While Popescul also informed the jury they needed to find Vey and Nicholson shared a common intention to put that plan into action, Fox said the wording of the later statement might well have confused the jury.
“The jury clearly didn’t understand it,” Fox said. “They didn’t pick it up, because that’s why they came back with the questions.”
But Crown prosecutor Bev Klatt argued there was nothing to show the jury didn’t understand what Popescul had laid out for them, nor did she see evidence the judge went against a pre-existing plan for the charge when he instructed the jury to consider the cases against the two accused separately.
She argued that had the judge gone the other way, defence counsel likely would have appealed in that case as well.
She further argued the judge’s instructions must be read in context and in their entirety and, in doing so, it was made clear the jury needed to find there was intent to act on the plan, not just that the pair agreed on one.
“The judge didn’t have to spell it out for them,” Klatt said.
Among other grounds of appeal were that the judge didn’t properly handle an incident in which a juror, after the verdicts were rendered, approached a deputy sheriff to raise a concern about the verdict; that the judge didn’t provide enough detail on the defence theory of the case; poor audio quality within the courtroom; that the judge didn’t adequately instruct jurors not to draw adverse inferences because the accused opted not to testify; and that Popescul didn’t leave it open to the jury to find guilt on a lesser conspiracy charge related to arson or administering a noxious substance.
In relation to the latter, Klatt argued that, by law, the jury could not consider a lesser and included offence, as none existed in this case.