Verdicts a miscarriage of justice, says Michael Durant’s trial lawyer
New, separate trials granted in murders of Diane Dimitri and Cassey Cichocki
A lawyer who represented Michael Durant at his first-degree murder trial says Ontario’s highest court made the right decision in granting the Niagara Falls man new trials.
“What the judgment makes clear is the verdicts in this case were the product of legal error that occasioned miscarriages of justice,” said Michael Lacy, a partner at Toronto law firm Brauti Thorning.
“This vindicates our position that Michael Durant’s original trial was unfair.”
In a decision released Monday, the Ontario Court of Appeal ordered new, separate trials for Durant, convicted in 2012 on two counts of first-degree murder, saying the matters should not have been tried together.
Lacy, who unsuccessfully argued back in 2012 that the trials should have been held separately, said two trials are necessary in order to ensure fairness.
The defence lawyer anticipates continuing to assist Durant “in some capacity” going forward.
“Properly assessed in the context of a fair trial we are confident that he will not be found guilty of first-degree murder,” he said.
Durant, now 45, was sentenced to life in prison in connection with the deaths of Diane Dimitri, 32, and twenty-two-year-old Cassey Cichocki.
Dimitri’s body was found in a ditch in Welland in August 2003. Cichocki was discovered in the north end of Niagara Falls in January 2006.
While the two cases shared some common features, the appeal court said Judge James Ramsay was wrong to admit the evidence on each killing as evidence of a similar act on the other, and to proceed with only one trial. Also, the appeal court ruled the judge erred in refusing to dismiss a juror who knew a relative of one of the victims, and in failing to leave manslaughter as an available verdict for one of the cases.
Niagara Regional Police formed a task force days after Cichocki’s body was found in a wooded area near Whirlpool Road.
The team focused on the deaths of several women who police say were engaged in “high-risk lifestyles” including the 1999 death of Nadine Gurczenski, found in Vineland, and Margaret Jeanette Jugaru, whose body was found at a Niagara Falls elementary school in 2004.
Both those cases remain unsolved.