After pleading guilty to manslaughter in the 2009 shooting murder of his wife, Canadian judge Jacques Delisle received a one-day jail term. Before this, Delisle had spent nearly nine years behind bars for first-degree murder for the shooting death of his 71-year-old wife, Marie Nicole Rainville, in their Quebec estate. He said he gave his suicidal wife a loaded gun, but he denied pulling the trigger and said he wasn’t even in the house when it happened.
On Thursday, he entered a manslaughter plea after being freed for three years following a second murder trial that he faced in 2021 due to concerns about the forensic evidence that had convicted him. Even though they thought he would have been found guilty of murder again had he gone to trial, the prosecution blamed his advanced age for the plea agreement, which permitted him to be sentenced to time served plus one extra day.
Delisle has always said he was innocent of any wrongdoing concerning his wife’s 2009 death at home from a gunshot wound to the head. He made history as the first judge in Canada to face murder charges, and the case generated widespread media attention across the country.
At trial, forensic examination of the gunshot was crucial in determining whether she had committed suicide or if Delisle had fired the shot. After his wife confided in him about her plans to end her life as a result of her depression and disability caused by a stroke, the judge acknowledged having given her the pistol. However, he pleaded with her not to use it to kill herself.
Following his retrial in 2021, Delisle was granted bail while he awaited his second trial, which was postponed many times. Thursday, after three years of waiting for a retrial, he finally got his wish—according to his attorney—when he pled guilty to manslaughter.
