The Supreme Court of Canada overturned the acquittal of a woman, on Friday, January 18, 2013 for the attempted murder of her husband in 2008, but ordered that she not have to stand trial again. In other words, they ruled that it was wrong to declare her not-guilty, but also added a special order that she not be given a new trial anyway.
Nicole Ryan had tried to hire a hit man to kill her allegedly abusive husband, and was arrested in 2008 for trying to arrange her husband’s murder. She had been part of an RCMP sting operation and was arrested after she approached an undercover RCMP officer and agreed to pay him $25,000 to kill her husband.
All the judges said they did not accept the woman’s claim that she had acted under “extreme duress” when she attempted to take out a contract on her husband’s life. The court said that such a defense can only be used in limited circumstances.
The Supreme Court said she will not have to face another trial even though a majority of judges ordered a rare stay of proceedings, saying that it would be unfair to put the woman through another trial.
“The abuse she suffered and the protracted nature of these proceeding(s) have taken an enormous toll on her,” the judges wrote in a statement. “It is an exceptional situation that warrants an exceptional remedy.”
She is now free to go on with her life with no criminal record. That’s right. A woman who tried to have her husband murdered is now free. Not only is she free, but she is not going to be re-tried in court because she is apparently too delicate to go through it again. Am I missing something here? Did someone forget that this delicate flower of a woman did in fact try to have a contract killer murder her husband? And since when did the toll that court proceedings may take on someone give them a free pass from being re-tried for attempting to murder someone? Apparently this only applies to middle-class white women.
The judges also referred to the “disquieting” fact that the police had failed to respond to the woman’s several calls for help in dealing with her estranged husband’s so-called “reign of terror.”
In its decision, the Supreme Court called out the behavior of the local police, saying it was “disquieting” that the RCMP had set up a sting operation for Ryan instead of helping protect Ms. Ryan from her husband.
At a press conference in Halifax, Nicole Ryan said that she was “relieved” and hoped that she could “re-establish my life.” She has already gone back to teaching at her former job in a Claire High School.
She choked back tears when asked if she still feared for the life of her daughter. “Yes” she said.
Ms. Ryan hasn’t had any contact with her daughter in almost five years, ever since her former husband, Michael Ryan got custody of the child, who is now 12, in March of 2008.
In court, Ms. Ryan claimed she had been under extreme duress and acted out of fear for her life and her daughter’s life.
She testified in court that the abuse by her husband was verbal and physical and lasted for many years. She testified that on one occasion, he had held a pistol to her head and had called her a “weak soldier.”
When she brought up the subject of divorce with him, she said his response to her was that he would “destroy” her and their child. She said she tried on numerous occasions to get police to intervene, and said that she did not believe the police would be able to stop her husband from carrying out his threats of violence.
Now, it should be pointed out here that, according to her own testimony, Ms. Ryan had at least $25,000 available to her in order to pay for a hit man, as well as the ability to come and go from her home freely. This begs the question as to why she never fled the home with her daughter in order to seek safety.
If she feared for her life that much then would it not have been best to leave the home with her daughter and file divorce proceedings from a safe location? Why did she feel that the only solution was to have her husband murdered? She obviously had the means to escape if her situation were truly as horrific as she claims it was. So why didn’t she? Why did she choose to stay and endure such abuse and terror?
These are important questions that should be addressed.
And what about medical records? Were there any medical professionals that could attest to her claims of abuse? So far I cannot find anything to indicate that there were. All we have is Ms. Ryan’s testimony that he was an abusive and violent man. Yet, as abusive and violent as she claims he was, he is the one with full custody of their daughter.
I find it hard to believe that any Canadian court would award a legally documented violent and abusive parent the full custody of a child that they had purportedly threatened with physical harm on multiple occasions.
While two lower courts had accepted Ms. Ryan’s defense of “extreme duress”, Friday’s new ruling made it clear that the duress defense can only be used in situations where “a person commits a crime in response to a specific threat”. There must be a threat of death or bodily harm and “no safe avenue of escape,” the Supreme Court said.
This means the court found she was not responding to a specific threat for which she had no safe avenue of escape. In fact, she had plenty of opportunity to leave and seek safety with her daughter.
The ruling disappointed the interveners in the case. The Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies and the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund had hoped the court would address the self-defense issue because, according to Kim Pate, executive director of the Fry society, “We still have a lack of clarity about the law of self-defense”.
“It’s still not clear what would the next woman be able to do, to defend herself. Should she just be shot, herself? Should she be murdered and her child murdered with her?”
Well, I can safely say that what she cannot do is hire a hit man to have her husband murdered because she will not take responsibility for herself and leave when she has ample means at her disposal to do so.
*Update: Michael Ryan tells his story, and how the courts would not even let him speak despite his desire to do so, in the following YouTube video.–DE
