Crown prosecutor Dennis Galiatsatos has filed an appeal seeking to have Richard Henry Bain’s parole eligibility increased to the maximum allowed for a second-degree murder conviction.
On Aug. 23, a jury found Bain guilty of the second-degree murder of Denis Blanchette, a stagehand who was working at the Metropolis nightclub the night of the 2012 provincial election. Blanchette was shot while Bain was set to go on a shooting spree inside the club where premier-elect Pauline Marois was delivering a speech to the Parti Québécois following its victory. Weeks after his arrest, Bain wrote a letter to a psychiatrist stating his intention that night was to kill Marois and as many members of the separatist PQ as possible. His semi-automatic rifle jammed after having fired one shot.
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The conviction came with an automatic life sentence and Bain’s parole eligibility could have been set anywhere between 10 and 25 years. During a sentence hearing on Sept. 9, Galiatsatos and Bain’s lawyer, Alan Guttman, could not be farther apart in their positions. Guttman requested the minimum while Galiatsatos chose the maximum. On Nov. 18, Superior Court Justice Guy Cournoyer decided Bain will have to serve 20 years before he is eligible for full parole. The judge said what Bain did was an attack on democracy and, for the most part, set aside the evidence presented at trial concerning Bain’s mental health.
On Dec. 16, Guttman filed a notice of appeal arguing the judge did not address Bain’s age, mental health and lack of a previous criminal record and requested that his client’s parole eligibility be set at 10 years.
Earlier this week, Galiatsatos also filed a notice of appeal but wrote that “the sentencing judge committed no errors in law or in principle in delivering his sentence.” The prosecutor wrote that Cournoyer was bound by precedent in making his decision and argues “the Quebec Court of Appeal has the ability to review, alter or depart from its own precedents. As such it is less fettered than the sentencing judge was in its application” of the sentence.
