MONTREAL – Suzanne Coupal brings a new twist to the term “hanging judge.”
In the case of this Quebec jurist, the hanging refers not to harsh criminal justice – but to vivid and dynamic paintings.
The gregarious former Crown prosecutor who has sat on the criminal court bench for 20 years will be putting down her gavel next month and will instead focus her passion on her artwork.
In her two decades as a judge, Coupal has handled some of Quebec’s most spectacular trials, including that of serial killer William Fyfe and of remorseless sexual predator Daniel Lesiewicz, whom she sentenced to 12 years in jail in March.
She also rendered tough sentences in the federal sponsorship scandal against former ad men Jean Lafleur and Benoit Corbeil, saying in her judgment against Corbeil that Canadians are outraged by political corruption.
Coupal also handed out what prosecutors said was the first jail sentence against a video pirate when she sent prolific movie-snatcher Geremi Adam to the slammer for a couple of months in 2010.
She also oversaw some of the proceedings where notorious Hells Angels kingpin Maurice (Mom) Boucher and sex-offending boxing champ Dave Hilton Jr. were in the prisoner’s box.
But now she says she’s cleared her docket and is getting ready for a new phase of her life.
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“I’m leaving the bench because I did what I had to do in criminal law and younger people are coming too,” she said in an interview at an art gallery, where her second solo show was being exhibited until Saturday.
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“I just want to take the time and reflect on what I experienced as a judge.”
Coupal says she might also write a second book. She has already co-authored a crime book, a work of fiction, with another judge.
While Coupal recognizes that some of the cases she has ajudicated have been headline-grabbers, she says she doesn’t see one as more of a standout than another.
“Not when you have a victim in front of you,” she said.
“Some are more spectacular as you say but, for me, it’s an accused and a victim so for me it’s always the same thing.
“Some were harder in law, some were harder in an emotional way but it was always, for me, a new case every day,” Coupal said. “Fyfe, the man who killed five women, that was not an easy one but there’s a lot like that.”
She belies the image of a stern jurist as she stands amid her abstract paintings, smiling brightly and talking enthusiastically about how she came to painting.
Coupal says she didn’t think some of the horror she heard in the courtroom influenced her work but allowed that painting was often a welcome refuge after a tough week of hearing cases.
Coupal took up art in earnest 15 years ago but said the seeds of interest were planted way earlier, in her childhood growing up in the town of St-Lambert on Montreal’s south shore.
“It was always important in our house to do arts – music, painting, dance.”
Her mother also painted and two legends of Canadian art – Marcelle Ferron and Jacques de Tonnancour – lived nearby.
Coupal says she is heavily influenced by the artists of the avant-garde Automatiste movement, who drew heavily on surrealism to create a style of abstract art that looks like it was done spontaneously and without preconceptions.
Their paintings, like Coupal’s, are often slashes of bold colour across a canvas that leaves the work more open to interpretation by the viewer than a photorealistic portrait or landscape.
The Automatistes included legends such as Paul-Emile Borduas and Jean-Paul Riopelle.
Coupal says she also likes “street art” – where she finds artists put a different, dynamic spin on their work.
Her work is an explosion of rich colour and energy and that’s what she says she aims for: “expressing joy, expressing the sun, expressing love with colours.”
She says she might take another stab at sculpture, saying it would be interesting to work in marble, although the implication is she’s got a pretty open mind about what lies ahead.
“I try a lot of things,” she said with a laugh.
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