Single question sets ex-pastor free on bail
Philip Grandine is a cheat, a creep and — until, if, a higher court says differently — a killer.
The Toronto jury that found the former pastor guilty of manslaughter in December — rejecting a murder verdict in either the first or second degree in the drugging and bathtub drowning death of his fivemonths-pregnant wife — may well be among the most thick-headed triers of fact in recent history.
The lead defence lawyer was so slapdash with the facts that, out of the jury’s hearing, Justice Robert Clark subjected him to a tonguelashing over the content of his closing argument submissions, an errorriddled alternative narrative that misrepresented evidence and misquoted testimony.
That evidence was so overwhelming that court was left stunned when jurors returned their verdict, opting for the far lesser offence of manslaughter — death not intended —a result that emboldened the defence to seek a sentence in the range of six months to two years. The Crown had asked for a prison term of 15 to 18 years.
Clark, clearly contemptuous of the man who served his spouse a sedative-laced banana smoothie and who had days earlier conducted a trial-run of the concoction’s drowsing effects that landed her in hospital, concluded the facts of the case lifted it close to first-degree murder, whatever that hapless jury decreed. He sentenced Grandine to 15 years.
Seven months later, Grandine is free on the bail, the only modest restriction being that he remains at home unless accompanied by either of his parents, who are also his surety to the tune of $305,000.
Ontario Court of Appeal Justice Robert Blair last week granted Grandine leave to appeal, dancing on the head of legal pin — because of a question from the jury during its deliberations, because of the response to it by Clark after considering the query overnight.
This is precisely the legal hairsplitting that brings justice into disrepute.
And yet again the late Anna Grandine — known to all as “Karissa” — is ill-served by men in robes.
On the last night of her life, Karissa drank a smoothie spiked with lorazepam (Ativan) — the drug showed up at autopsy — and then either stepped into the tub or was placed there. There were traces of vomit on her pillow, indicating the drink had made her sick, just as she’d taken severely ill four days earlier in what the Crown said had been a “dress rehearsal” orchestrated by her husband.
The objective, as theorized by the prosecution, was that Grandine was aiming for a “therapeutic” dose to incapacitate his wife, producing the sleepy symptoms required for the plan to work but not at such high levels that they’d draw suspicions of foul play from a coroner.
Grandine told police he’d been out for a run that evening. He wasn’t. He was on the phone with his mistress, after vowing to his wife and his pastor-counsellor that their affair had ended. This was the same woman Grandine had sex with, both while Karissa was in hospital and later, while preparing his dead wife’s funeral.
Karissa had forgiven her husband for that infidelity with a fellow pa- rishioner — it had led to his resignation as minister at Ennerdale Road Baptist Church, following a humiliating admission of his sins — just as she’d forgiven him for his trolling of sex websites, including ones called “sluts.” But she’d also installed a filter on the couple’s home computer to prevent Grandine from viewing pornography. The filter was deactivated less than an hour before Grandine called 9-1-1 to report his wife was lying lifeless in the bathtub.
On that computer, someone had also conducted searches on “autopsy” and “toxicology” and asked the question of wikianswers. com: “Would 100 mg of Ativan be fatal?”
Grandine had taken a job as a nurse at a seniors’ home where he had access to lorazepam. He had medical training. But upon finding Karissa in the tub, he didn’t attempt CPR, didn’t even drain the water. When the 9-1-1 call-taker urged him to empty the tub, pull her out, he comes back on the line insisting: “I can’t do it. She’s too heavy. She’s too slippery.”
Grandine never took the stand. His lawyer argued Karissa was despondent over her husband’s affair and had committed suicide, or the suicide was unintentional. But Karissa was a devout Christian who’d never have endangered her child — she called the baby in her belly Jellybean, was thrilled about the pregnancy, was looking forward to learning the baby’s gender.
What was the question the jury had asked Clark, which has spawned this appeal, which has granted him liberty in the interim?
This: If Grandine had knowledge of his wife taking a bath while under the influence of lorazepam but didn’t stop her from getting in the tub, what then?
Clark’s response was that Grandine had a legal duty to protect his wife from harm. Failure to do so, even if the bath was Karissa’s own idea, could constitute an unlawful act causing death.
And that, according to the appellate judge, provided an additional “unlawful basis” upon which the jury could find liability — failure of a spouse to provide the necessities of life, an area not explored during the trial, thus the defence had no chance to respond to it.
As argued in the appeal submission, this left the jury to convict on manslaughter, “without having to worry about whether Mr. Grandine had drugged his wife.”
Blair writes: “I cannot say at this stage that the conviction appeal is frivolous. I am satisfied that, at least on the first ground of appeal, Mr. Grandine has an arguable case to put forward.”
Not a flight risk either, pending the appeal hearing, Blair determined, so off you go Mr. Grandine.
The baby was a girl. Rosie DiManno usually appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.