Accused in shootout opts for trial by judge
Backlog of cases created due to virus as proceedings in front of jury postponed
Lawyers at the Montreal courthouse are facing the likelihood that no jury trials will be held until at least September as the novel coronavirus crisis is creating a backlog of murder cases.
On Monday, Girard Anglade, 43, a Montreal North resident who has been detained since January 2018 when he was arrested following a shootout outside a restaurant in St-léonard, changed his original plans and opted for a trial before a Quebec Court judge alone instead of a Quebec Superior Court trial before a jury. Anglade is facing an attempted murder charge along with five charges related to firearms.
His jury trial was set to begin May 19, but organizers at the Montreal courthouse are now conceding that no jury trials can be held in May.
On Monday during a hearing where Superior Court Justice Hélène Di Salvo and a court clerk were the only people inside a courtroom and lawyers addressed her by phone, prosecutors conceded Anglade should have a trial before a judge alone.
“Basically, we are facing a serious backlog of cases (before a jury) in the coming months. And it was clear my client’s case wasn’t considered a priority (compared to a murder case)," Anglade’s lawyer, Debora De Thomasis, told the Montreal Gazette. “It looked like (Anglade’s) jury trial wouldn’t start before September 2021.”
Trials where the accused are charged with murder or conspiracy to commit murder are required to be held before a jury. Other Superior Court cases can be heard before judge alone.
De Thomasis said lawyers are facing the reality that there are 11 murder cases that will be on the new Superior Court role when it is scheduled to begin in September. That includes cases that were set to begin during the current spring session that have since been halted.
One is the trial of Gilles Chagnon, 67, accused of a murder that dates back to 1993. Jury selection was set to begin in mid-march, but was cancelled.
Jury pools in Quebec normally involve more than 400 people being called into one large room at the Montreal courthouse before the selection process begins.
With the social distancing measures now in place, it would be impossible for 12 jurors to follow a trial in a courtroom while staying six metres away from each other.
Another suspended trial is the murder trial of Ducakis François, 36, and Willy St-jean, 33, which started in January and was ready for closing arguments.
In 2016, the Supreme Court of Canada’s Jordan decision set limits on how long accused can wait for criminal trials. But many lawyers agree that delays caused by the coronavirus fall under its exceptions, which include cases where “circumstances lie outside the Crown’s control in the sense that are reasonably unforeseen or reasonably unavoidable.”