Juror says murder trial left her traumatized
Lawyer for juror who served on Tori Stafford trial says client will seek compensation
An Ontario woman says she suffered bouts of depression, rage and compulsive shopping in the weeks and months after serving as a juror in the trial of a man accused in the brutal rape and murder of 8-year-old Tori Stafford.
The woman’s lawyer, Barbara Legate, said her client suffered a “precipitous decline” after the trial, spending large amounts of money on items she later forgot she purchased.
The juror, who cannot be identified due to a publication ban, will go to court next month to seek compensation for the trauma she says she suffered.
While sitting on the jury during Michael Rafferty’s two-month trial, the woman visited the scenes of the rape and burial, saw photographic evidence from the crime and heard eyewitness testimony from Rafferty’s girlfriend and accomplice, TerriLynne McClintic.
In a submission to the Ontario Court of Appeal, the juror said that almost immediately after the trial, she lashed out at her children, suffered from depression, had flashbacks to trial evidence and experienced loss of short-term memory and loss of concentration.
She said she has been diagnosed with PTSD and an anxiety disorder, and is on long-term disability leave from her job.
Ontario’s Compensation for Victims of Crime Act defines a victim as a person injured or killed by “any act or omission in Ontario of any other person occurring or resulting from . . . the commission of a crime of violence.”
The juror applied to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board in 2014, seeking reimbursement for her treatment costs, lost wages and other expenditures she said were brought on by her traumatic experience.
The board denied her application, saying that to be a victim of nervous shock, a person must witness an exceedingly violent crime or come upon the scene in the immediate aftermath, have a close personal relationship with the person directly injured in the crime and have a “significant diagnosed/recognized psychological injury” from the incident.
The juror appealed the Board’s decision to the Divisional Court, but was denied.