Husband was ‘impulsive’ in wife’s death, trial told
Woman suffered from Alzheimer’s disease
HE WANTED JOCELYNE’S SUFFERING TO STOP — BUT HE DID NOT WANT HER TO DIE. — ELFRIEDE DUCLERVIL
Michel Cadotte had reached his breaking point after nine years of witnessing the “tsunami” that is Alzheimer’s disease ravage his wife and sap the life from her, his defence team argued Tuesday.
Lawyer Elfriede Duclervil, delivering the defence’s closing arguments, asked jurors to focus on how Cadotte’s mental state had deteriorated during Jocelyne Lizotte’s decade-long battle with the disease.
Duclervil described the couple’s relationship as a love story that turned into a living hell the moment the diagnosis was confirmed, saying Cadotte and Lizotte did all they could to fight a disease “that always ends up winning in the end.”
“But through it all,” she said, “Jocelyne was always his wife. He couldn’t abandon her, he loved her too much.”
On trial for second-degree murder, Cadotte, 57, has admitted to killing Lizotte on Feb. 20, 2017, by suffocating her with a pillow at her longterm care facility.
Lizotte, 60, had been suffering from the disease for more than a decade.
Cadotte’s request for medically assisted dying for Lizotte had been refused the previous year. Cadotte said Lizotte, who witnessed her mother decline through Alzheimer’s disease, had said she would rather die than end up in a long-term-care centre herself.
By 2017, Lizotte could no longer walk, speak or eat solids. She couldn’t remember loved ones and spent the majority of each day strapped to a chair or bed at the centre.
On Tuesday, Duclervil reminded jurors of how staff who testified told them Cadotte “wasn’t himself” on Feb. 20, 2017, and how a psychiatrist said his decision-making process was affected by depression and stress caused by nine years of looking after Lizotte with little outside support from family.
“February 20 was the result of several combined factors,” Duclervil said, “and the sum of nine years of suffering: both Michel’s and Jocelyne’s.”
She compared Cadotte to a pressure cooker accumulating pressure — from stress, suffering and isolation — before finally exploding.
“What he did was impulsive,” she told jurors. “He could not have had the specific intent needed for second-degree murder.”
She added, “For a brief moment, he lost control. He wanted Jocelyne’s suffering to stop — but he did not want her to die. He just wanted her to stop suffering.”
The prosecution reminded jurors that seconddegree murder is not planned or premeditated, and not a lot of thought needs to be given before the slaying.
Crown Genevieve Langlois told jurors their task will be to focus on what Cadotte was thinking that day, noting the questions of who killed Lizotte and how it was done are not contested.
“The only question you have to ask yourself is, at the moment that Mr. Cadotte put the pillow on Mrs. Lizotte’s face, did he intend to cause her death?” Langlois said.
Defence experts testified that Cadotte was suffering from a major depression and was disturbed, but Langlois countered that the depression diagnosis put forth by the defence experts is purely hypothetical.
“I submit that the evidence presented before you shows that Mr. Cadotte made many decisions, and we suggest that he very likely made the wrong one at the moment he chose to take the life of Mrs. Lizotte,” Langlois said.
She also noted that he didn’t try to revive Lizotte — which he told the court he had training to do. If it was impulsive, why did Cadotte not try to revive her, Langlois asked.
The minimum sentence for a second-degree murder conviction is life in prison with no parole for 10 years. There is no minimum sentence for manslaughter, except in cases when a firearm is used and the minimum is four years in prison.