The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that New Brunswick’s top court was wrong to deny Dennis Oland bail while he awaited appeal of his second-degree murder conviction in the death of his father.
Dennis Oland spent about 10 months in custody before he was released on bail just one day after his successful conviction appeal at the New Brunswick Court of Appeal, where his conviction was quashed and a new trial was ordered.
In October of last year, Oland walked freely down the steps of the courthouse in Fredericton, holding hands with his family.
The decision from the Supreme Court panel, which was delivered by Justice Michael Moldover, says that keeping Oland in detention was unwarranted and that the N.B. Court of Appeal made a mistake in not intervening. Justice JC Marc Richard, of the provincial appeal court, said in his decision that releasing Oland on bail pending his conviction appeal would shake the public’s confidence in the justice system.
“I am respectfully of the review that detaining Mr. Oland on the public interest criterion was clearly unwarranted in the circumstances,” the decision reads.
Justice Moldaver says that aside from the seriousness of the crime, the murder of Richard Oland in July of 2011, Oland was an ideal candidate for bail and there’s weight to the argument that if he couldn’t qualify for release then no one convicted of a similarly serious crime would be.
“That cannot be right,” Justice Moldaver writes. “Parliament did not restrict the availability of bail pending appeal for persons convicted of murder or any other serious crime and courts should respect this.”
The trial judge’s finding that the crime gravitated more towards manslaughter than first degree murder was an important one that the appeal judge overlooked, the SCC says.
“This finding was an important because it served to lessen Mr. Oland’s degree of moral blameworthiness, therby attenuating the seriousness of the crime and hence the enforceability interest. In my view, the cumulative effect of these considerations ought to have tipped the scale in favour of release.”
Justice Moldaver also says that the appeal judge made a legal error and the fact that Oland’s grounds of appeal were “clearly arguable” was enough to pass the “not frivolous” criteria.
The decision says had Dennis Oland not been released on bail, the Supreme Court of Canada would have ordered it.
Appeal judgment rendered today #SCCAppeal https://t.co/Bia76BIEgm pic.twitter.com/Y413UC2Tjr
— Supreme Court Canada (@SCC_eng) March 23, 2017
