Claude Paquin woke up Thursday as a free man for the first time in more than 40 years after being acquitted of the 1978 first-degree murder of a couple.
“I lived through hell,” he told CTV News.
Paquin was sentenced to life in prison in 1983 and his appeal was unsuccessful. He spent 18 years behind bars, then couldn’t go further than 50 kilometers from his home for another 20 or so years.
Paquin stood trial with two other people who were also accused of first-degree murder, one of whom had the charge lessened to being an accessory after the fact.
On Wednesday, Quebec’s Crown prosecutor’s office declined to try him for a second time for the murders of Ronald Bourgouin and Sylvie Revah.
Paquin said he was innocent from the start and spent years trying to prove it.
Now 81, he said he’s “ready to start a new life” with his name wiped clean.
Case hinged on ‘questionable’ testimony
In 2008, when Paquin got parole, he reached out to Project Innocence Quebec, which offers legal support for the wrongfully convicted.
Nicholas St-Jacques, a criminal defence lawyer with the organization, said there were several red flags in Paquin’s case. So, lawyers started speaking to witnesses and Paquin’s co-accused, looking at court documents and gathering evidence that there was a miscarriage of justice.
It took about 10 years to put everything together and in 2020, Paquin’s lawyers put in a retrial request with the ministry of justice.
What stood out to lawyers, said St-Jacques, was that the case hinged almost entirely on the testimony of Bernard Provençal, a well-known police informant.
But lawyers started noticing contradicting claims in Provençal’s testimony, as well as in the book he later published. There were also disparities between Provençal’s version of events and that of Paquin’s co-accused, who denied that Paquin had ordered and orchestrated the murders.
Paquin’s lawyers got information that strongly suggested the informant was given money and favours from police for his testimony, which wasn’t disclosed to Paquin’s defence team at the time.
“You have to dig a little bit … just the fact that you have that type of witness and there’s nothing else around, that’s a red flag,” said St-Jacques, who called Provençal a “very questionable and unreliable witness.”
‘Enormous’ consequences
St-Jacques said while the court’s decision Wednesday was a win for Project Innocence Quebec, it was mainly for Paquin.
He said it’s impossible to understand the psychological impact of wrongful convictions, especially when it takes a person’s freedom away for most of their lives. For 41 years, Paquin was known as a murderer.
“It’s a life-changer for him,” said St-Jacques.
“Not in the sense that he’s going to do a lot of different things in his life at 81 years old, but that he said all his life he was innocent and now not only he says it, but the court says it.”
Though St-Jacques said most miscarriages of justice are corrected in the Court of Appeal, with cases like Paquin “we’re reminded we all have a responsibility” to make sure the legal system works correctly.
“This situation is not unique … the consequences on these individuals are enormous and we cannot fully repair them afterwards,” said St-Jacques.
Canada Justice Minister Arif Virani, who decided a miscarriage of justice likely took place in Paquin’s case, said “a fair justice system must be compassionate and balance the needs of victims while guarding against potential miscarriages of justice.”
“All people living in Canada should have confidence that the justice system is there to protect them and that it can be trusted.”