March 17, 2006 – Terry Pedwell, Canadian Press
OTTAWA — The Supreme Court of Canada has rejected an appeal by a former RCMP officer who gunned down his ex-girlfriend during a wild car chase in Montreal.
Lawyers for Jocelyn Hotte had argued that he should get a new trial because his jury never had a chance to consider a controversial defence known as mental disorder automatism.
But the high court refused Friday to overturn a Quebec Court of Appeal decision to uphold Hotte’s conviction for the first-degree murder of Lucie Gelinas.
No reason was given for the decision, which was made by a seven-member panel without hearing arguments from Crown prosecutors.
The decision is an indication that it will be more difficult to use the automatism defence in future cases involving people who can’t prove defined mental disorders, suggests Hotte’s lawyer.
“We hoped that the Supreme Court would actually say that the automatism defence would apply when you had factors that did not include dissociation or psychosis,” said Nellie Benoit.
“But apparently they didn’t want to intervene. They just said that the Court of Appeal ruling stays.”
Hotte, who once served on a VIP squad that guarded former prime minister Jean Chretien and other dignitaries, was convicted four years ago of slaying Gelinas.
The evidence showed Hotte, who had been trained to shoot on the move as part of his police duties, fired 15 pistol shots at a vehicle driven by Gelinas during a high-speed chase along a Montreal expressway.
He killed her and wounded three male passengers, earning additional convictions on three counts of attempted murder.
Justice John Gomery, known for his high-profile inquiry into the sponsorship scandal, was the presiding judge in the original trial.
In passing sentence, Gomery called Hotte a narcissist who “only thinks of himself,” showed no remorse, and had tarnished the reputation of the RCMP and shaken public confidence in the police.
The convictions were upheld by the Quebec Court of Appeal in a 2-1 split decision last year.
The Supreme Court heard another case involving the automatism defence this week.
In the case of Rita Graveline, her lawyers argued that her acquittal for killing her abusive husband should stand, because she suffered from “non-insane automatism.”
Graveline was acquitted of second-degree murder by a 12-member jury after testifying that she couldn’t remember shooting her spouse in August 1999.
Her lawyers had argued that, after 31 years of physical and psychological abuse, Graveline was in a state of “dissociative amnesia” when she shot her husband while he slept.
Quebec’s Court of Appeal ordered a new trial after prosecutors argued that the judge in the original trial mistakenly instructed the jury to consider whether Graveline was in a state of automatism brought on by suppressed rage.
The high court reserved judgment in that case Tuesday without indicating when a decision would be handed down.
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