Woman tries to hire someone to kill husband. In court, claims "abuse!" and gets away with it scott-free.

saint2e · 2013-07-03T13:13:55+00:00

Here's a different article that isn't an op-ed:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/story/2013/01/23/ns-hitman-michael-ryan.html

Edit: and another which really outlines the problem: http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/06/21/the-abuse-excuse-were-courts-right-to-drop-case-against-woman-who-hired-hit-man-to-kill-her-husband/

"Despite conflicting accounts that Ms. Doucet gave to police and others, despite the lack of any photographs, police evidence, or third-party corroboration, and despite evidence that called into question her credibility, Justice David Farrar of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court accepted the story. Furthermore, he came to the remarkable conclusion her actions in contracting murder were entirely justified. “A reasonable person,” the judge decided, “would have acted in the same manner.”

To the astonishment of legal experts, Mike Ryan, the RCMP and the Crown, Ms. Doucet was acquitted.

And this past January, the Supreme Court of Canada overturned the trial judge’s decision. Mr. Justice Farrar had erred, the high court found. So had the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal, which upheld the acquittal. In fact, Ms. Doucet’s defence of being a victim of duress when counselling murder “was not open to her in law,” the Supreme Court declared, as it is a defence reserved for someone bullied against their will into committing a crime. But then the court did something strange. It ordered a stay of proceedings, which means that even though Ms. Doucet’s defence was ruled completely invalid, she will never be held to account for her crime.

“It would not be fair to subject [Ms. Doucet] to another trial,” the Supreme Court judges ruled. “The abuse she suffered and the protracted nature of these proceedings have taken an enormous toll on her.” Only one judge, Morris Fish, dissented, calling the judicial stay “drastic”; he argued instead that Ms. Doucet should be tried again. But that will not happen."

Reviewing:

NS Supreme Court acquits Ms. Doucet
Supreme Court of Canada overturns the acquittal, saying that the NS Supreme court had erred, as well as the NS Court of Appeal which upheld the acquittal.
Supreme Court of Canada found the defense of being a victim of duress was "not open to her in law"
Supreme Court of Canada ordered a stay of proceedings, meaning no re-trial

So in conclusion, the Supreme Court of Canada has said that her defense of duress was invalid, and even though her entire defense is hinged on that, she shouldn't be re-tried because "the proceedings have taken an enormous toll on her". Essentially, "awww, hasn't she suffered enough? I mean, sure she's guilty of conspiracy to commit murder, but she's been on trial for that crime, isn't that punishment enough?"

BalllsackTBaghard · 2013-07-03T18:27:31+00:00

[permanently deleted]

5th_Law_of_Robotics · 2013-07-03T12:32:17+00:00

If men who murder their wives and get away with it by lying about abuse you'd find every murdered woman was an abusive bastard.

MechPlasma · 2013-07-03T16:17:10+00:00

Yup, this is all true. After hiring a hit-man to kill her husband, a woman claimed she was abused, without proof or evidence, and the supreme court of the... district, I think, permanently stayed the case.

To be more specific, what happened is that she claimed that as her husband was abusive to her, she acted under duress. The prosecution's case was that Battered Woman Syndrome (ugh) is a separate defence that isn't even close to the definition of duress, so they didn't focus on proving he wasn't abusive (not that they didn't have some evidence. The very police themselves had audio evidence of her saying she wasn't abused at all).

So her defence was shot down.

And then the court decided that just because she used the wrong defence doesn't mean she should be punished. And because they... didn't want to put a recent abuse victim through another trial, I think, they let her go. "Staying the case". In this case, presumably permanent.

Which is something the court is never, ever supposed to do! The only reason they have that power is for things like preventing a crime from being prosecuted twice in separate courts, or to just temporarily suspend a case for whatever reason. It should never have been used to bypass a fair trial.

So yeah. Nova Scotia Supreme Court should be in big trouble for this.

goodinbed · 2013-07-03T15:54:22+00:00

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SentientWinter · 2013-07-03T20:45:22+00:00

Hahaha that girl is awesome.

Title	Woman tries to hire someone to kill husband. In court, claims "abuse!" and gets away with it scott-free.
Author	byuku
Upvotes	265
Comments	22
Date	July 3, 2013 12:00 PM UTC (13 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1hk8so/woman_tries_to_hire_someone_to_kill_husband_in/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/woman-tries-to-hire-someone-to-kill-husband-in.1169617 https://theredarchive.com/post/1169617

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