Sorella appeals conviction
Woman’s lawyer claims judge made errors during trial for murder over deaths of daughters
The trial was a challenging one for the prosecution because it was impossible for experts to determine how the girls were killed.
Adele Sorella, the Laval woman convicted last month of murdering her two daughters, has filed for an appeal of the jury’s verdict.
Sorella was convicted on two counts of first degree murder on June 24 and had 30 days to request an appeal, which she did earlier this week.
The appeal was filed by Pierre Poupart, the lawyer who defended Sorella during her lengthy trial at the Laval courthouse.
A jury deliberated for a few days before finding Sorella guilty of killing her daughters, Sabrina De Vito, 8, and her sister Amanda, 9. The two girls were found dead inside Sorella’s home on March 30, 2009. Sorella was automatically given a life sentence with no eligibility for full parole until she has served 25 years behind bars.
The trial was a challenging one for the prosecution because it was impossible for experts to determine how the girls were killed. The prosecution’s theory was that the girls died of asphyxiation after being convinced to get inside a hyperbaric chamber, a medical device used to provide people with higher concentrations of oxygen as the person breathes inside it. Sorella purchased the chamber in 2008 to treat the symptoms of Sabrina’s juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Evidence heard at the trial revealed both girls were comfortable with spending time inside the chamber, which resembles a pup tent.
An expert testified that the chamber itself could be hermetically sealed when disconnected from other parts of the device and that the girls would have been breathing air with dangerously low levels of oxygen after an hour.
The Crown’s theory was also that Sorella killed her children while depressed over how her husband, Giuseppe De Vito, had abandoned his family when he went into hiding, in 2006, to avoid drug smuggling charges. He was eventually arrested and was sentenced to a lengthy prison term.
De Vito, who expressed regret for what he did during Sorella’s trial, was found dead inside his cell at the Donnacona Institution, a maximum-security penitentiary near Quebec City, last week. The cause of De Vito’s death has yet to be made public.
The notice for appeal is based on six points. Poupart argues the Superior Court Justice Carol Cohen erred by allowing a videotape of a statement Sorella gave to the police following her arrest into evidence.
Poupart also argues the judge made an error while instructing the jury on the issue of reasonable doubt. (A jury is always instructed that they have to be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt to convict someone of a crime).
The defence also wrote in his notice that he believes Cohen made other errors in her instructions to the jury.