Prosecutors had previously said the decision could complicate many cases including the Kenneth Law prosecution that goes on trial this spring.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
The Supreme Court of Canada has restored a Toronto nurse’s attempted-murder conviction while saying it need not clarify when murder charges can be laid against people who provoke apparent suicides.
“The question of the legal relationship between attempted murder and aiding suicide has no bearing” on the case at hand, Supreme Court Justice Michelle O’Bonsawin wrote in the majority decision.
“I decline to conclusively resolve this abstract legal issue in this appeal.”
The ruling, released Friday, focused on a 2019 case of a Toronto woman who used lethal quantities of insulin to inject herself, her mother and her infant daughter in a murder-suicide attempt.
The Supreme Court’s decision was being closely watched because of its potential impact on Kenneth Law’s case, Canada’s biggest multiple-murder prosecution. Mr. Law has been charged with the first-degree murder and aiding suicide of 14 Ontario residents between 2021 and 2023.
Supreme Court hears case that could jeopardize Kenneth Law prosecution for murder
In 2024, the Ontario Court of Appeal ordered a new trial for the nurse on an attempted-murder conviction.
That decision, released 18 months ago, prompted prosecutors to push for an expedited Supreme Court hearing. They argued that the appellate-court decision could complicate the Law case and others.
But the Supreme Court overturned the Ontario Court of Appeal on narrow grounds. The majority said the trial judge had instructed the jury properly, and that the appellate court was wrong to open up larger legal fronts by raising questions about whether the suspect’s mother could have tried to end her own life.
“The Court of Appeal unnecessarily complicated this matter by holding that the jury needed to be instructed on the distinction between attempted murder … and aiding suicide,” the Supreme Court ruling said.
Police and prosecutors say Mr. Law was an online vendor of lethal substances who catered his products to people seeking suicide. Authorities say he shipped 1,200 packages globally, including 160 within Canada.
Kenneth Law, accused of selling deadly substances online, says rights violated in prison
Mr. Law only faces criminal charges in relation to the 14 deaths in Ontario. If convicted of any of the murder charges he now faces, he would receive a life sentence whereas if he is convicted of any aiding-suicide counts, he would face up to 14 years in prison.
“The Court of Appeal introduced significant limitations on the potential liability of those who engage in actions that assist a suicide,” Crown lawyers Deborah Krick and Katie Doherty wrote in their application for a Supreme Court hearing.
Prosecutors and defence lawyers involved in the Law case had no immediate comment Friday about the impact the Supreme Court ruling could have on this spring’s scheduled trial.
But some observers say it may now be very difficult for prosecutors in Ontario to continue pursuing murder charges against Mr. Law.
“I think there’s a real question about whether it’s viable now,” Frank Addario said in an interview with The Globe and Mail.
Mr. Addario intervened in the top court case for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. He said the Supreme Court ruling doesn’t challenge a legal test that the Ontario Court of Appeal imposed on prosecutors seeking murder convictions during the nurse’s attempted murder ruling.
“The point is, they didn’t disturb the portion of the Court of Appeal judgment in Ontario that says murder and suicide are distinct, and if you don’t overbear the victim’s free will, it’s aiding suicide,” he said.
“The Crown invited the Supreme Court to find that advanced forms of assisting suicide could be murder – and they just declined that invitation,” Mr. Addario said. “So, it leaves intact the Court of Appeal decision that they’re two distinct offences.”
Friday’s ruling was preceded by a May hearing at the top court where Crown lawyers said murder cases will be difficult to prove if a prosecutor has to establish that a deceased suicidal person’s will was overborne by someone else.
“What we need to keep the focus on is the state of mind of the accused,” Ms. Doherty said at the time.
The government ministry that oversees prosecutors is not commenting on the case.
“We are reviewing the decision and have no further comment,” said Paola Floro, spokeswoman for the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney-General.
Three Supreme Court judges dissented from the majority decision released Friday.
“A new trial is necessary on the charge of attempted murder,” Justices Andromache Karakatsanis and Mary Moreau wrote.
Chief Justice Richard Wagner joined these two judges in saying that the trial judge should have had the jury consider whether the grandmother could have injected herself with lethal levels of insulin.
The dissenters wrote that it was therefore appropriate to consider whether attempted murder was the appropriate charge; and, in addition, all the resulting questions about when aiding suicide can also constitute murder.
“Where the accused manipulates or induces the deceased into taking their own life, such that the deceased’s actions can no longer be seen as a fully autonomous and independent choice, the accused’s participation in the suicide may rise to the level of culpable homicide.”