The Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa, on Nov. 28, 2022.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
The Supreme Court of Canada has agreed to fast-track a review of a recent Ontario ruling that could jeopardize or delay one of the country’s largest murder trials: the prosecution of Kenneth Law, who is accused of selling a toxic salt online to 14 suicidal people.
The high court announced Thursday it would hear the appeal of a June Ontario Court of Appeal decision involving a nurse who was convicted on two counts of attempted murder for injecting insulin into herself, her mother and her 19-month-old daughter.
The case is unrelated to charges against Mr. Law, the 59-year-old former chef who is scheduled to start his jury trial next September on 14 counts each of counselling suicide and first-degree murder. The Crown alleges he shipped packets of poison to residents across the province seeking to harm themselves.
But a decision on the issues involved in the nurse’s appeal will have a direct impact on Mr. Law’s case.
The Supreme Court of Canada will decide whether a judge erred in the nurse’s case by distinguishing between charges of murder and charges of aiding suicide. The panel of Ontario Court of Appeal judges concluded merely giving someone a substance that was then used by that person to attempt suicide would not be enough to support a murder or an attempted murder conviction. Instead, the appeal court ruled, the Crown would need to demonstrate that an accused actively helped cause the suicide in a way that “overbore the victim’s freewill.”
In their submission to the Supreme Court, Crown lawyers have warned that the Ontario appeal court ruling could make it difficult to prosecute Mr. Law on the more serious charges of murder that he faces. Prosecutors representing the Attorney-General of Ontario launched a petition in September asking the Supreme Court for an urgent ruling on the circumstances under which homicide and counselling suicide may overlap.
The Supreme Court has not yet set a date for its review, but two of its recent expedited applications took less than six months from being accepted to being heard. Fast-tracking a hearing does not hinder the ability of other parties to present their arguments as intervenors.
Lawyers for Mr. Law plan to argue as intervenors in the nurse’s case that the murder charges against him should be dropped because the allegation of “assisting suicide is not murder or manslaughter,” according to a brief filed with the Supreme Court in October.
Mr. Law, whose online businesses were initially exposed by a Times of London newspaper investigation, has been accused of shipping 1,200 packages of poisonous substances to 40 other countries. Police forces in the United States, Britain, New Zealand and in Canadian provinces outside Ontario have launched their own investigations connected to suicides in those jurisdictions.
What we know about Kenneth Law, the Mississauga man charged with 14 murders
In their filings, the prosecutors pressing for a Supreme Court hearing say Canada needs consistent interpretations about the interplay of suicide and homicide, given how such cases have many implications, including, they say, in ones involving medical assistance in dying legislation.
Crown prosecutors argued the Court of Appeal ruling “introduced significant limitations on the potential liability of those who engage in actions that assist a suicide.”
Writing on behalf of the Attorney-General of Ontario, Crown lawyers Deborah Krick and Katie Doherty said the Court of Appeal decision “raises issues of national importance as the judgment fundamentally changes criminal liability in the context of self-induced death and may impact liability for other consequence based Criminal Code offences.”
Adam Weisberg, vice-president of the Ontario Criminal Lawyers’ Association, said this case will likely draw many interveners, including medical assistance in dying groups and civil liberties associations. It could take several months, Mr. Weisberg said.
Mr. Weisberg, who also is an adjunct law professor at York University, said Parliament intended the two offences to be separated in the Criminal Code of Canada with very different sentences.
“If the Supreme Court agrees with the Crown, there’s going to be a fundamental change in the law, and it’ll obviously have a serious impact on their prosecution, and theory, involving Mr. Law’s prosecution,” he said.
Mr. Law’s lawyer has maintained he will plead not guilty to all the Ontario charges. In a phone interview with The Globe and Mail shortly before he was arrested, Mr. Law confirmed he was selling this potentially toxic salt online but maintained he had not broken any laws and had no control over what his clients did with his products.
David Parfett, a British man whose 22-year-old son Tom killed himself in October, 2021, has said local police have told him the death was allegedly linked to Mr. Law’s businesses. British police won’t decide whether to lay their own charges against Mr. Law until the proceedings in Canada are finished, Mr. Parfett said.
On Thursday, Mr. Parfett said he is looking forward to Mr. Law’s trial because it will highlight how online platforms put children and young adults at considerable risk and bolster calls for more internet regulation.