by Greg Marquis
Murder, sexual assault, and child-abuse trials, with their graphic testimony and evidence of human trauma, can be incredibly stressful to jurors. Yet the Criminal Code prohibits jurors from speaking to spouses, family, or friends during or after a trial about the evidence, the accused, the witnesses, or the judicial process. Graphic evidence, such as autopsy photos and videos taken by sex murderers, combined with the presence of the victim’s emotional relatives and friends, can take its toll on jurors and produce emotional problems similar to post-traumatic stress. Difficulties adjusting to family and work routine after trials can last for weeks or months. After the Paul Bernardo trial for the kidnapping, rape, and murder of two teenage girls, the presiding judge sought personal counselling. But jurors, because of the legal requirement for non-disclosure (which does not exist in many jurisdictions in the United States), may not be a good fit for traditional counselling. They are also forbidden from explaining how a jury comes to a particular decision—for example, identifying a pivotal moment or crucial piece of testimony. The philosophy behind the Criminal Code prohibition is to prevent jurors from being influenced or intimidated, and to protect the integrity of the trial, especially with the possibility of appeals.33
Given the length of the Oland trial, its high profile in the media, social media, and in everyday conversations in the community, the feeling of pressure and isolation among the jury must have been significant. Justice Walsh did not spend much time in his opening remarks warning the jury about what to expect. Jurors, no doubt, saw the solid front presented by the Oland family and the lack of visible supporters of the Crown in the courtroom. Lisa Oland’s confrontational outburst, not to mention media reporting on reactions to the verdict, many of which expressed surprise, must have been difficult for them. Added to this was the family’s continued public insistence—rare in New Brunswick court cases—that the jury had got it wrong. A few days after the ruling, the provincial government announced it was offering support for members of the jury. The details were not disclosed.
Oland’s lawyers filed a notice of appeal with the Court of Appeal on January 20, 2016. The brief stated that the jury verdict was “a miscarriage of justice” and alleged that Justice Walsh had erred in his jury instructions multiple times—for example, for neglecting to remind the jury that the Crown had failed to cross-examine their client on at least three key issues. The document also alleged that the judge had mistakenly permitted inadmissible evidence relating to Richard’s Oland’s iPhone and Dennis Oland’s jacket.34
On January 20, the defence also filed a notice of motion to argue before the provincial Court of Appeal that its client be released on bail pending the appeal. Affidavits of Dennis, Constance, and Derek Oland were provided to the court. Both the mother and the uncle declared that they possessed “unencumbered assets” of at least $1 million and would act as surety if the prisoner were released on bail. Derek noted that he was executive chairman of Moosehead Breweries Limited. Dennis Oland’s affidavit contained information that could have proven useful to the Crown in front of a jury, as it detailed more than a dozen trips taken after the murder and prior to his arrest in 2013. One of them was a trip to Maryland in March 2013 to “look at a boat.” In July, he flew to Baltimore to “pick up a boat and sailed it back to Rothesay.” Dennis, if released, planned to continue to act as a director of Far End Corporation and Kingshurst Estates Ltd.35
February 11, 2016, was the date of Oland’s sentencing hearing. The stakes were high as the maximum sentence (time served before being eligible for parole) for second-degree murder is twenty-five years. With second-degree murder, the trial judge has discretion not with the sentence but with the minimum years to be served before parole eligibility; judges ask juries for recommendations but these are not binding. In a somewhat unprecedented move, a large number of Oland supporters met for breakfast before court and planned to converge on the Law Courts in a show of solidarity with the convicted prisoner and his family. Not all the supporters, who trudged in a line through the snow, entered the building. Photos of the crowd in the falling snow outside the Law Courts appear to include Dorothy Shephard, the PC MLA for Saint John Lancaster (Lisa’s former employer). According to Larry Cain, a management consultant who organized the show of support, “They were gathered because they feel the same way that I do, that justice has not been served in this case.” The social prominence of the crowd inspired veteran lawyer David Lutz to describe the event as “the march of the 1 percent.”36
As a result of the large crowd outside, the courtroom was filled to capacity with many more people (including the author) having to sit or stand in the corridor. Spectators inside the courtroom included some well-known and well-connected residents of Saint John and Rothesay such as realtor Bob McVicar, who in 2004 had run in the Saint John riding for the PCs in the federal election, and the Honorable John Wallace, a Rothesay resident who practised law before being appointed to the Canadian Senate by the Harper Conservatives. Dennis, well dressed as usual, appeared for the first time in leg shackles. His daughter Hannah, apparently in her inaugural visit to court, sat in the first row with the family.
According to the pre-sentence report, both Dennis’s wife and mother gave him a positive assessment and did not report on any anger issues. Once again, Constance hinted at the entire family’s stress caused by a husband who could be “very difficult and controlling.” Dennis supposedly had never experienced “emotional turmoil” or had any mental-health interventions and had served on the board of organizations such as the Canadian Automobile Association and the YMCA. The pre-sentence report stated that Oland was reporting an annual income of $50,000 a year and that “his financial affairs are in order.” He told the probation officer that “he cannot express any remorse for this matter presently before the Court as he is innocent.”37 The report stated that Dennis was receiving $50,000 a year as a director of his father’s two companies and $40,000 a year as a co-trustee of the estate. According to one lawyer, being convicted of murdering the owner of a business may not preclude a person from being a director of their company. What this means is that if Dennis loses his appeal bid, or wins the right to a new trial and is convicted again, he could help direct Richard Oland’s companies from behind prison walls.38
Victim Services contacted the following persons, all of whom declined to submit a victim-impact statement: Constance Oland, Jacqueline Walsh, Lisa (Oland) Bustin, Lisa (Andrik) Oland, Andru Ferguson, Derek Oland, Jane Toward, Lesley Oland, Emily Oland, Hannah Oland, Henry Oland, Maureen Adamson, Robert McFadden, and Diana Sedlacek. Interestingly, Derek Oland, Jane Toward, and Diana Sedlacek initially were interested in completing the document but changed their minds. Two individuals did file statements: Preston Chiasson and John Ainsworth. Neither man read his statement in court. Ainsworth expressed compassion for the Oland family, the victim’s co-workers, “Maureen and Bob,” and especially for the victim himself for “the undeserved horror he must have experienced.” He described his relationship with the victim as amicable. The trauma of the murder had an impact on not only Ainsworth, but also his family, his employees, and his friends. He also spoke of lost time and claimed that the association of 52 Canterbury with this brutal crime “doesn’t enhance business; rather [it is] detrimental to the bottom line, to my livelihood.” He wrote that it was “demoralizing that thirty-plus years of my toil has been relegated to being inextricably linked to someone else’s brutal actions.” Chiasson, who had responded to Maureen Adamson’s call for help on July 6, 2011, filed an even bleaker statement. He reported that he had known Oland for twenty years and felt helpless that he could not help him that day. Chiasson claimed he had experienced PTSD and depression following the murder. His personal relationships had suffered and he experienced nightmares and sleep problems. His statement was a simple but eloquent reminder of the collateral damage the murder of one person can inflict.39
A total of seventy-three character letters were filed with the court prior to se
ntencing but Justice Walsh excluded a number of them as inappropriate after the Crown objected. This included a letter by Larry Cain, the friend of Dennis’s who had organized the show of support. Some of the letters criticized not only the jury’s finding, but also specifics of the police investigation. The judge noted his displeasure at the language of a number of letters which questioned the verdict, noting that this was highly inappropriate: “It’s upsetting to me as a judge that people would do that,” Walsh stated, reminding the court that a trial was not a popularity contest. The Crown objected to ten letters, and after the noon break the defence withdrew seven of them. Yet, a number of the remaining letters also alluded to a wrongful conviction and probably should have been removed.40
The list of relatives, friends, neighbours, and associates who submitted letters included Derek Oland and his sons, Andrew and Patrick, Pat Darrah, uncle Jack Connell, Reverend James W. Golding (former RNS chaplain), Reverend Michael Leblanc, Wallace Turnbull (a former judge and RCS old boy), and people known in business circles, such as Bill McMackin, Derek Riedle, Stephen Carson, Bob McVicar, and Chris and Troy Northrup. Carson, CEO of Enterprise Saint John, described his friend Dennis as a “community leader.” Uncle Derek, using Moosehead letterhead, described his nephew as “a credit to the Oland family.” Despite the judge’s displeasure, some editorializing on the case did slip through, for example when Andrew Oland told the judge that he did not believe Dennis had killed Richard. Lisa (Andrik) Oland’s letter spoke of a special effort by her husband to help a young father of five who needed an expensive treatment for cancer outside of Canada. The letter also disputed the perception that Dennis was “the spoiled boy who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.” More than one letter suggested that Dennis was a peacemaker of sorts who tried to restore harmony within a family affected by tensions between his father and his uncle. Turnbull, a “sometime confidant of Dick’s,” had practised law in Saint John starting in 1964 before being appointed to the provincial Court of Appeal in 1993. He retired from this position in 2013, two years after the murder. One letter reminded the judge that the victim “was disliked or even despised by many people.” In the morning, Walsh ruled that the letters from the Oland children would be placed under a publication ban to protect their privacy, but that the issue could be revisited in the hearing scheduled at the request of the CBC. The letters revealed a very positive relationship between Dennis and his children. The letter from his stepson, Andru Ferguson, was also extremely positive. The fact that sister Lisa did not submit a letter was noted by many in the community.41
Constance Oland’s handwritten letter to the judge was more than five pages long. It may have contained information that Mrs. Oland would have relayed to court if she had testified. She described her family as having transitioned from “a very happy time in late June 2011, into a living hell.” She found out from “a very peculiar phone conversation” with Robert McFadden at 12:30 P.M. on July 7 that her husband was dead. Two weeks earlier, the family had gathered to celebrate her cousin Marg Bourne’s one-hundredth birthday. Her letter mentioned that Dick had been fond of Marg and also of Constance’s uncle Gordon Fairweather, and that he had believed his son’s personality was similar to that of Fairweather, a long-serving PC MP and an esteemed public figure. Constance explained that Dennis had been exposed to family history through his relatives and that led her to discuss the camp logbook, which belonged to her brother Jack Connell. The treasured family heirloom was described as the object of Dennis’s visit to his father’s office.42
On June 25, 2011, Constance, Dick, and visiting relatives socialized with Dennis and Lisa and were shown photos of the couple’s recent visit to England where Dennis had been working on genealogy. The next morning, Dick left on his fishing trip, but, according to his wife, father and son planned to discuss family history later. Her husband returned from fishing “in a great mood and went out to dinner that night with the relatives that were still at our house.” She explained that on the evening of July 6, when Dick did not show up at home, she assumed he had travelled to St. Stephen to attend “a Ganong meeting.” At the time, Ganong Brothers Ltd. was “in a dire financial position and Dick had put money into the company.” She thought her husband had stayed over in St. Stephen after the meeting. After the conversation with McFadden, Constance was visited by the SJPF at roughly 2:00 P.M. The family was in “total shock” at the news of Dick’s death but travelled to police headquarters. Connie and her daughter “sat in a small room” with a police officer who would not tell them anything about the death: “That night, this very same individual tried to get us to go home and leave Dennis behind.” When the women replied that they would wait until Dennis was finished speaking to the police, the officer, Rick Russell, “proceeded to jump up and down, got red in the face.” The family finally left at around 11:00 P.M. “with a very low opinion of the Saint John Police dept.”43
Constance went on to describe the days, weeks, and months that followed as a “nightmare” for the family, with her four oldest grandchildren suffering particularly. She defended the character of her son, claiming that he had a “caring personality and stood up for the ‘underdog’.” She gave him full marks as a parent who taught his children to sail, showed patience when helping them with homework, and helped them with their frustrations. Constance stated that Dennis “was more of a father to his stepson Andru than Andru’s biological father.” The letter concluded: “Dennis Oland is a good man and did not kill his father. I believe that in your heart you know this as well.”44
The prosecution obviously had other ideas. Crown Attorney Pat Wilbur, citing the brutality of the crime, called for twelve to fifteen years before minimum parole eligibility. One New Brunswick case cited as precedent was the 2008 conviction of Adam Wade Nash for the second-degree murder of his brother. The victim had been shot in full view of their teenaged nephew, and the convicted man appeared to show no remorse. Defended by Gary Miller, Nash had been sentenced to a minimum of twenty years before parole eligibility. The appeal court later reduced this to twelve years. In 2011, the three second-degree murder convictions in Saint John, of Jason Getson, Joseph Paul Irving, and Frederick Cormier Jr., resulted in sentences of twenty, twelve, and ten years respectively before parole eligibility. Dennis Oland, as he was objecting to his conviction, expressed no remorse, according to the pre-sentence report.45
Although the Oland family and its many supporters obviously discounted the jury’s verdict, the defence emphasized the jury’s recommendation on sentencing. Miller, using various arguments such as Dennis being a good family man, tried to make the case for the minimum of ten years. One of the themes of the defence was “the sufferings of the Oland family.” Miller urged Walsh to “give him the kind of sentence that allows him to get home to his family as soon as possible.”46
When the court reconvened, Justice Walsh declared the Oland case a “family tragedy of Shakespearean proportions.” He explained that his sentencing decision was guided by the character of the convicted person, the nature and circumstances of the offence, and the recommendation of the jury. He also mentioned the underlying need to maintain public confidence in the justice system. In this case, there was no prior criminal record and no evidence of underlying mental-health issues; the prisoner was a well-educated professional and family man who had worked for CIBC Wood Gundy for a decade and was the trustee of an estate and a director of two companies. His lack of remorse was a neutral factor in this case. His character references were “glowing” and the letters from his children were “simply heart-wrenching.” In short, Walsh did not seem concerned about Oland’s chances for rehabilitation and reintegration post-sentence. The judge, guided by the jury, the only truth-finder in the process, reviewed the facts of the case and stated that Dennis, who was in a “desperate” financial state and in a dysfunctional relationship with a difficult parent, “simply lost it” and killed him in a fit of “pent-up rage.” Walsh also declared that Dennis had brough
t a weapon to the scene and had disposed of both it and the victim’s Cellphone. In closing, Walsh noted that the jury had unanimously recommended ten years and that the jury supposedly reflected “the values of the community.”47
Taking all factors into account, he agreed with the jury and pronounced that minimum parole eligibility would begin after ten years. On a day when almost everyone appeared to be thinking of the convicted murderer, Walsh reminded those present that Richard Oland, “who was slaughtered on his own office floor,” should not be forgotten. Oland was told to stand for the formal sentencing, which included a ban on owning firearms and a mandatory sample for the national DNA database. Dennis was relaxed at this point, and most of the family, with the exception of his mother, did not appear to be upset. After the prisoner was taken away, there were positive comments about the “fantastic” turnout of supporters, and Hannah and Lisa were smiling and chatting. Miller was even seen joking with former lead Crown John Henheffer. Perhaps the family and defence were buoyed by a feeling of optimism about the bail hearing scheduled for the next day in Fredericton.48 Following the sentencing, Senator Wallace spoke to the media outside the Law Courts, explaining that he was there as a friend of the Oland family: “It has been nightmarish for them and very painful for many, many in the community who they are so close to.”49
Oland was brought back to court a short time later for the final matter of the day: a hearing on the media ban applied to the preliminary inquiry, which included not only its proceedings but also exhibits, some of which had not been seen by the jury. David Coles, representing the CBC, was present and prepared to make arguments. Earlier, Walsh had placed a temporary ban on the character letters from Oland’s three children and stepson. The Crown was opposing release of photos of the victim’s head wounds and any autopsy images. The Crown conceded the release of the second half of the Dennis Oland interview, a move the defence supported, as, according to Gold, it indicated how the police had mistreated their client. Given that there were reporters in the room, this comment appeared to be aimed at the media. Despite the age of the children, the defence did not object to the release of their letters, but sections were redacted. With the exception of the photos mentioned above and the redactions, the record of the preliminary inquiry and pretrial hearings was opened up to media, which revealed certain details to the public in the days and weeks to follow. Having been scrupulously neutral during all proceedings to date, Walsh made a good-natured dig about Gold’s new interest in “public relations.” And Gold did say to reporters in the room, “There will be a time when we will talk.”50 The end of the ban allowed the media to report on evidence and issues raised in the preliminary inquiry of 2014 and the voir dire hearings of 2015, providing more fodder for those who believed either the police had fingered the wrong man or that the Crown had not proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt.
