New trial ordered for Toronto couple convicted of murdering four-year-old son after judge's comments led to 'miscarriage of justice:' Ontario's top courtA new trial has been ordered for a Toronto couple found guilty of killing their four-year-old son after Ontario’s top court ruled that the judge who proceeded over the initial 2017 trial demonstrated bias when he told lawyers for the accused that their clients were “f****ed” and urged them to consider pleading guilty to a lesser...
While the appeal court acknowledged that the facts of the case are “horrific,” they concluded that there was a “miscarriage of justice” after finding a “reasonable apprehension of bias” on the part of the trial judge, Ontario Superior Court Justice Todd Ducharme. The three-judge panel also found that the appellants were “excluded from part of their trial” during multiple in-chamber meetings with counsel.
Both in-chambers meetings were initiated by Ducharme. During the first meeting, the trial judge told defence counsel that the two accused were “f****ed” if the case went to trial, encouraging all parties to resolve the case with guilty pleas to second-degree murder. “When the trial judge addressed the appellants directly, he risked undermining their solicitor-client relationships,” the decision read.
“Looking at the entirety of the events, reasonable and informed members of the community would conclude that the trial judge would not be impartial in his dealings with the appellants, who he had already decided were ‘child killers,’ and not ‘two innocent people in the jaws of the criminal justice system.’”
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