Jurors deliberating at the Lac-Mégantic criminal negligence trial emerged for the first time Monday since they began deciding the fate of three former railway employees accused in the deadly train disaster.
Crown and defence lawyers filed into the Sherbrooke, Que., courtroom in anticipation after hearing jurors had given Superior Court Justice Gaetan Dumas an envelope.
Instead of a verdict, however, jurors asked Dumas for a dictionary and for clarification on various judicial matters.
The jurors, who have been sequestered since Thursday, are deciding the fate of Tom Harding, Richard Labrie and Jean Demaitre. The three are charged in connection with the July 2013 tragedy in which 47 people were killed when a runaway train carrying crude oil derailed and exploded.
Using a dictionary was a non-starter, as lawyers on both sides quickly agreed that wouldn’t happen.
“It’s consistent in all trials that dictionaries are not (provided),” said Charles Shearson, one of Harding’s lawyers. “We ask the jurors to derive the definitions through the evidence presented at trial.”
Jurors also sought an explanation about the legal concept of “reasonable doubt, and the difference between a ”reasonable person” and a ”reasonable and prudent person.”
They told the judge in their letter that further clarification “would allow us to harmonize our common comprehension.”
Defence and Crown lawyers debated in front of Dumas while jurors were out of the room.
Dumas was expected to call the 12 jurors into the courtroom later Monday to provide them with an answer.
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Shearson said the jurors’ questions on reasonable doubt and other matters indicate they are taking their job seriously.
“These are concepts that are hard to map out for an individual who is not in the judicial system on a daily basis,” he said.
“It’s hard to speculate but it tells us they are taking their task seriously and they are seeking to clearly understand the principles that underlie both the criminal justice system as a whole and that underlie criminal negligence.”
Harding was the train’s engineer, Labrie the traffic controller and Demaitre the manager of train operations at the time of the tragedy.
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All three can be found guilty of criminal negligence causing the death of 47 people, while jurors have the option of convicting Harding on one of two other charges: dangerous operation of railway equipment or dangerous operation of railway equipment causing death.
The maximum sentence for a conviction on criminal negligence is life imprisonment; for dangerous operation of railway equipment causing death it is 14 years; and for dangerous operation of railway equipment it is five years.
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