Quebec man found not guilty in assisted suicide of uncle

From The Globe and Mail in Toronto. (Thanks to Bill for the tip about this story.)

ALMA, Que. — A Quebec man charged with helping his uncle to commit suicide was found not guilty Dec. 12 following a landmark trial.

Stéphan Dufour, 30, faced a jury trial on charges of assisting a suicide, one of a handful of people in this country to do so.

The jury had been deliberating since Tuesday after hearing evidence that in September of 2006, Mr. Dufour helped his uncle, 40-year-old Chantal Maltais, hang himself in a closet in his home in Alma, about 225 kilometres north of Quebec City.

Testifying on behalf of the defence, a Montreal psychologist told the nine women and three men jury that Mr. Dufour had the IQ of a child and was mentally handicapped. Mr. Dufour's family contended that he should not be held responsible for his actions, since he was under enormous pressure from his uncle to help the man take his life.

During his testimony, Mr. Dufour often broke down in tears and appeared unable to understand many of the questions put to him.

According to witnesses in the courtroom, Mr. Dufour expressed no emotion when the verdict was delivered, as though he failed to understand the full impact of what had just taken place. His mother, Nicole Maltais, expressed relief and said the time has come for society to take a hard look at how it treats people who can no longer live with the pain and suffering of their illnesses.

”Why is that we don't let animals suffer yet we allow human beings to suffer without helping them,” Ms. Maltais said after the verdict.

Mr. Dufour's brother, Yannick Dufour, said it is time for governments to take their responsibility on this crucial issue.

”Life belongs to nobody else but yourself. I should be able do what do what I want with my life,” he said.

During the trial the Crown alleged that Mr. Dufour set up a rope and a dog collar in a closet that Mr. Maltais was able to use to hang himself. He had even told his mother that he set up the rope in the closet because he couldn't take harassment any more.

When Mr. Dufour was asked why his mother had not taken the rope down, Nicole Maltais cried out to the courtroom to stop the interrogation saying that if there was someone to blame for her brother's death it was her.

The jury heard evidence that Mr. Maltais drank heavily, smoked up to an ounce of marijuana every two weeks to alleviate the pain and had tried to commit suicide twice before, once by taking a large dose of drugs.

Mr. Maltais had suffered from polio since childhood and had serious co-ordination problems. His heath had deteriorated over the previous 10 years so that he was confined to a wheelchair, had to eat through a straw and was in constant pain.

For months, he had been pressing his nephew to help him commit suicide.

Mr. Dufour lived alone in an apartment in downtown Alma, but his nephew often visited to take care of him and help with menial chores. For more than a year, Mr. Maltais harassed his nephew to put an end to his life. Three weeks before the suicide, he demanded that his nephew kill him with a knife. Mr. Dufour said he could not do that because he loved his uncle too much.

Mr. Dufour explained during his testimony that when he refused to meet his uncle's demands, Chantal Maltais would become aggressive and bang his head against the wall until he fell unconscious.

Had he been found guilty, Mr. Dufour would have faced a maximum sentence of 14 years in jail. The Crown has yet to decide whether it will appeal the verdict.