When Bill Reid, the then chief of the Saint John Police Force, announced that Richard Oland’s death was a homicide, he told the assembled reporters: “We do not want to make a mistake. We want to be able to prove this case without a shadow of a doubt.” By the time the Crown and the defence wrapped up their respective cases, public opinion was divided. Some were convinced Dennis Oland was guilty; others believed equally strongly in his innocence. Still others were not so sure. To some of those who believed Oland was most likely the killer, the trial’s disclosure of procedural errors on the part of police left room to doubt the integrity of the Crown’s case. To others to whom Dennis Oland just didn’t seem like a murderer, his inexplicable lapses of memory raised uncomfortable questions about his claims of innocence. Despite the purported finality of the verdict and sentence, a shadow of doubt hangs over the case. Even now, the final outcome remains unclear.
In theory, the verdict is the last word in a criminal trial, and sometimes it is. But in the Oland case, nothing is simple. Was the protracted investigation the result of police reluctance to investigate a member of one of New Brunswick’s most prominent families, as many assumed, or did the police’s single-minded focus on Dennis Oland botch the investigation? Could the man who completely lost control when he heard the guilty verdict have committed such a violent and impulsive crime and then betrayed nothing to the people who saw him immediately afterwards, including his wife and aunt? Was the defence so focused on exposing the flaws in the investigation and confident that jurors would believe Anthony Shaw heard the sounds of murder between seven thirty and eight p.m. — after Dennis Oland left the office — that it failed to mount a decisive challenge to testimony that placed the missing iPhone in Rothesay when Dennis Oland admitted he was at the Rothesay wharf? What might have happened if the defence had called other witnesses to support its case?
Arguably, the missing iPhone factored more than the bloodstained jacket in the guilty verdict. If the jury concluded the only logical explanation for the cellphone’s disappearance from the office was that the killer took it, and that it was in the vicinity of the Rothesay tower when the final text message was transmitted at 6:44 p.m., that would defeat Shaw’s testimony about what time he believed he heard the noises. It would point to the murder occurring at around six thirty, as the Crown submitted — and that, in turn, would point to Dennis Oland as the killer, since he was alone with his father at that time.
From there, the rest of the evidence falls into place. Dennis Oland’s claim to have worn a navy blazer would become a lie instead of a mistake, and everything else he did that night would appear sinister, not scatterbrained: the four trips around the block and the wrong turn up Princess Street, the nine-minute wait in his parked car until Robert McFadden and his son left the office, the walk south from his father’s office when he left the first time instead of north, to his car. It also made the second trip back into the office — a critical witness-box admission after his own lawyers’ security-footage timeline made no sense without a second trip to the office — seem like a trip to commit murder.
Oland’s lawyers sought to have his conviction quashed and either an acquittal entered or a new trial ordered. “The verdict of second-degree murder was an unreasonable verdict in law and not one that a reasonable jury, properly instructed, could judicially have arrived at,” Alan Gold, Gary Miller, and James McConnell argued. Jury decisions are difficult to appeal, because juries don’t provide explanations of how they arrive at their verdicts. The defence cited as grounds for appeal Justice John Walsh’s “misdirection or non-direction” to the jury on certain evidence and his decision to admit certain pieces of evidence, including the forensic results from the contentious brown sports jacket and Richard Oland’s cellphone records, particularly the “alleged cell tower implicated by a particular transmission at 6:44 p.m.” They objected to Walsh’s characterization of Richard Oland’s non-responsive cellphone as “inconsistent” with Anthony Shaw’s evidence “when in fact it was not ‘inconsistent’ unless one fallaciously ‘begged the question’ and assumed such non-response was due to Richard Oland in fact being dead at the time of the non-response.” Walsh “erred” when he concluded that Oland’s “mistaken statement” about which jacket he wore on July 6 and in having clothing, including the brown sports jacket, dry cleaned were “events capable in law of amounting to ‘after-the-fact conduct,’” Oland’s lawyers asserted. They further alleged that Crown prosecutor P.J. Veniot “engaged in speculation” on several issues during his closing arguments “notwithstanding a complete absence of evidence in support of such extravagant claims” and despite the Crown’s failure to raise these issues when it cross-examined Dennis Oland.
It could take months before the transcript of the three-month-long trial, required for an appeal, was complete, and Oland’s lawyers sought to have their client released on bail in the meantime. They submitted affidavits from Oland, his mother, and uncle Derek Oland in support of his application, contending that he posed no flight risk (he had taken several trips out of the province and out of the country during the investigation and always returned) and pointing out that he abided by the conditions of his bail while he was awaiting trial. Connie Oland and Derek Oland offered to provide a surety, noting that their respective unencumbered assets totalled at least $1 million, and pledged to inform the police if Oland violated his release conditions.
One legal expert, Toronto lawyer Christopher Hicks, felt that Oland was “virtually assured” of getting bail. He had “arguable grounds,” including the admissibility of the jacket. “It’s not that money talks; it’s that merit talks,” said Hicks. But UNB associate law professor Nicole O’Byrne noted, “This is not a normal, everyday occurrence.” It’s rare for a convicted killer to be released on bail pending an appeal. Most convicted killers who appeal their verdicts do not seek bail. The defence found only thirty-four murder cases in Canadian legal history where bail was granted pending appeal: twenty-four second-degree cases, and ten first-degree cases. Recently, James Forcillo, the Toronto police officer convicted of attempted murder in the fatal shooting of eighteen-year-old Sammy Yatim, was granted bail pending his appeal. Forcillo, convicted on July 27, 2016, spent just one night in jail. If Dennis Oland’s application succeeded, it would be the first time in New Brunswick that a convicted murderer was granted bail.
On February 17, Justice J.C. Marc Richard of the Court of Appeal rejected Oland’s bail application. Richard described the case against Oland as “100 per cent circumstantial” and agreed that Oland’s appeal was not frivolous, he did not pose a flight risk, and he did not feel that releasing Oland would put the public at risk, but he also felt that approving the bail application would send the wrong message. He said citizens have confidence in the jury system and believe verdicts are reached after jurors hear all the evidence. The grounds for appeal, although arguable, would not “virtually assure a new trial or an acquittal,” Richard wrote in his fourteen-page decision. Releasing Oland while he awaited his appeal would undermine public confidence in the justice system, he concluded.
Oland’s lawyers promptly appealed the bail decision, but a three-member panel, which included the chief justice, declined to overturn Richard’s decision. In late April, Oland applied to the Supreme Court of Canada for a reversal of the New Brunswick court’s decision to deny him bail pending his appeal, tentatively scheduled to take place in late October 2016. The Supreme Court receives approximately six hundred applications for leave to appeal each year. Of those, only about eighty are granted. Oland’s lawyers argued his case is a “perfect and unique opportunity” for the highest court to “provide clear guidance” on the “public interest” component of bail pending appeal, a matter of “central importance to the administration of criminal justice” and requested an expedited hearing. The Crown contended that Oland’s case was not “a matter of national importance” worthy of the Supreme Court’s attention. On June 30, the Supreme Court announced that it would hear Oland’s appeal of the bail decision and instructed the registrar to schedule the hearing as early as possible in the court’s fall session. In early July, the Supreme Court announced it would hear the appeal on October 31. Subsequent efforts by Oland’s lawyers to move the date to October 4 proved unsuccessful. While he waits, Dennis Oland serves his sentence in an undisclosed federal penitentiary. Even if he loses his appeal, he could continue as co-director of his father’s companies from behind bars. Nothing in New Brunswick’s Business Corporations Act prevents it, according to commercial lawyer Andrew Costin. Directors can be disqualified if they’re convicted of fraud, are bankrupt, or of unsound mind, but not if they’re convicted of murder.
Just days after Oland’s conviction, the Saint John Board of Police Commissioners announced the New Brunswick Police Commission would review how the police handled the investigation. Local commission chair Nicole Paquet, who ordered the review, said it was necessary for the public’s confidence in the force, and important for the morale of the officers. Former Crown prosecutor Kathleen Lordon will lead the investigation. The Oland family has requested that the findings be publicly released. “We have more than earned the right to better understand how the system has failed us, and the public most definitely deserves to know what steps will be taken to prevent it from failing them,” declared a family statement. The investigation is suspended, pending Oland’s appeal.
Deputy Chief Glen McCloskey, in addition to the commission’s inquiry into the allegations made against him at the trial, is also the subject of a criminal investigation by Halifax Regional Police. He remains on active duty.