The Supreme Court of Canada has confirmed an order for new trials for first -degree murder for an Ontario woman and three others who were convicted in an attack against their parents.
Jennifer Pan was sentenced in 2015 to life imprisonment without probation for 25 years for first degree murder, and the life of murder attempt, for a 2010 attack that left her mother dead and her father with a serious head wound.
His three coacked were convicted of the same positions.
In his ruling on Thursday, the Supreme Court said there should be new trials for first degree murder for the four, but affirmed the convictions for attempted murder.
On November 8, 2010, three armed intruders entered the home of the Pan family in Markham, Ontario, took the parents to the basement and shot them both in the head and shoulders. Jennifer Pan, although it was not damaged, was tied to a railing above with a cord.
The crown theory at the trial was that Jennifer, who had a difficult relationship with her parents, arranged that they were killed with the help of others.
The four defendants were sentenced in the First Degree on Murder Court and Murder attempt.
Two years ago, the Ontario Court of Appeals ordered new judgments about first degree murder sentences.
The judge of first instance made an error in jury instructions: Court of Appeals
The Court of Appeals said that the judge of first instance made an error by suggesting to the jury only two scenarios for the attack, one in which the plan was to kill both parents and another in which the plan was to commit an invasion of the house, in the course of which the parents received a shot.
The Court of Appeals said that the judge should have presented the possible second -degree murder verdicts and involuntary homicide to the jury in the death of the mother of bread.
The crown appealed to the Supreme Court, seeking to restore convictions for first -degree murder.
Each of the defendants presented cross appeals arguing that the error of the judge of first instance when instructing the jury also contaminated the murder attempts and requested new judgments about those positions.
Jennifer considered her parents, and especially her father, as strict and controller, said the Supreme Court in her ruling.
She lied to them about graduating from high school, attending what is now the Metropolitan University of Toronto, completing a pharmacy title of the University of Toronto, offering volunteer at the Hospital of Nursing Children and working in a pharmacy, the court said.
“She created false diplomas, transcripts, graduation photos and payments to maintain the facade,” said the court.
The Superior Court considered that the judge of first instance made an error at the end that there was no air of reality to the theory about a plan to kill only the father.
Writing for the majority in the Superior Court, the president of the Supreme Court Richard Wagner said that the jury could have had a reasonable question that the mother was one of the planned objectives of the plan, while accepting the objective inferences required to condemn the accused of second degree murder or involuntary homicide.
While there was a strong evidence that supports the crown theory that both parents were objectives, there was no indisputable evidence that contradicts the idea that the plan was just to kill the father, Wagner wrote.
As a result, there was an air of reality to the crimes of murder and homicide in the second degree and “they should have stayed with the jury,” he wrote.
The Supreme Court rejected the argument that there should be new judgments about the attempt of murders.
