Listen to this article
Approximately 3 minutes
The audio version of this article was created using text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.
The Supreme Court of Canada has reinstated a woman's conviction for attempting to kill her mother by injecting her with insulin.
In his decision released on Friday The Supreme Court rejected an argument that jurors in the woman's case should have been instructed on the difference between attempted murder and assisted suicide.
In June 2019, a neighbor found a woman (a nurse identified only as BF due to a publication ban), her mother and BF's 19-month-old daughter unconscious in their home. All three were given insulin.
Emergency responders found five empty insulin pens and a handwritten note at the scene.
The child was seriously injured
BF and her mother made a full recovery. The child was seriously injured.
At BF's trial, the Crown argued that an ongoing dispute over child custody gave the woman motive to commit the crimes.
The defense suggested that B.F.'s mother. could inject insulin into herself, her daughter and her grandson.
The jury found B.F. guilty of attempted murder of her mother and daughter.
The Ontario Court of Appeal dismissed B.F.'s appeal. on her conviction for attempting to kill her child – a decision upheld in a Supreme Court ruling on Friday.
The Provincial Court of Appeal upheld B.F.'s appeal. for the attempted murder of her mother and ordered a new trial on that charge. It was assumed that B.F. could have given insulin to her mother, who could then have injected herself in a suicide attempt.
The jury is ready to determine guilt: the trial
In its decision, the Supreme Court stated that the sentence of B.F. of attempted murder of her mother should be reinstated because the jury was properly prepared to determine her guilt.
Because BF was not charged with assisted suicide and it is not part of attempted murder in this case, the jury did not have to consider whether she was guilty of that crime, Judge Michelle O'Bonsavin wrote for the majority.
Judge O'Bonsawin also said there was “no sense of reality” in the scenario in which BF helped her mother self-administer insulin with the intention of killing herself.
Therefore, the trial judge was right not to consider this scenario in his instructions, she added.
“The issue of the legal connection between attempted murder and assisted suicide has no bearing on the appeals,” she wrote.
