Gregan still did, however, talk about the issue of remorse and the extent to which witnesses or reports indicated that Jacquard did or didn’t demonstrate remorse. He pointed to the testimony of Dr. Scott Theriault from the East Coast Forensic Hospital who said abuse victims tend to shut down emotionally or become detached from events. And when asked the same questions over and over again – as Jacquard has been asked about his remorse during his more than 17 years of incarceration – people also tend to become desensitized. Still, the lawyer said, the evidence pointed to a time in May 2000, long before this application to review his parole eligibility, where Jacquard had thought about writing a letter to Wilkinson, but didn’t know if it would add to her grief.
After being sent to prison following his conviction, Jacquard spent just over a year in maximum security before being transferred to medium security at Dorchester in 1995 and then to minimum security at Westmorland in 2006. His lawyer noted he had not had any violent offences while at the institutions and that he had received many escorted temporary absences over the years that allowed him to do work at a halfway house and a food bank. Jacquard was also described by one witness as “the best worker he had” when referring to a construction program for inmates.
The court had also been told, through defence testimony and evidence, that Jacquard was a low risk to reoffend and doesn’t fit the typical mould of a convict.
The Crown, however, depicted things in a different light. Crown attorney Darrell Carmichael told the jury that while there was evidence put forward by the Crown and defence that was not in dispute, “make no mistake, there are major areas of disagreement.”
The most important area of disagreement, he said, is that the Crown does not accept Jacquard’s story about the crime. The Crown does not accept Jacquard’s suicide-turned-to-murder version of the events and neither did the jury that convicted him in 1994 he said. That jury convicted him of first-degree murder, which is a planned and deliberate act.
“That book is closed,” said Carmichael, who pointed to parts of the evidence that spoke to the murder being a deliberate or planned act. He said Jacquard had told one person that he was “going to pay back” the person who had abused him. He had not told his mother or stepfather where he was that weekend. At the apartment he had told Wilkinson that if anyone called asking for him, she was not to tell them that he was there. He was quiet and withdrawn. He had loaded four rounds in the shotgun.
“You do not get to shoot yourself four times if you’re going to commit suicide,” he said.
And when he went to a friend’s house after the shooting, where he told his friend to call the police so he could turn himself him, when his friend asked him if he had gone to Hurlburt’s apartment to shoot him, Carmichael said Jacquard had nodded in the affirmative.
He committed one murder that night, said the Crown, and could have just as easily committed two murders had Wilkinson not survived her injuries – a fact that was not to Jacquard’s credit.
And the Crown maintained Jacquard feels no real remorse. On the surface, Carmichael said, Jacquard looks good – he’s a good worker, a model prisoner. Does he deserve to have his parole eligibility changed because of that? No, he said.
And as for Jacquard’s low risk to violently reoffend as cited to the court – a 17 per cent risk within seven years and a 31 per cent risk within 10 years – the risk is not so low in the Crown’s opinion.
Sandy Hurlburt, the Crown said, wasn’t present to speak for himself. If he was a bad man up until the time Jacquard was 16 years old, maybe he had become a better man in the four years between that and the shooting. Maybe he could have become better if he had had more time and not been killed, Carmichael said.
Referring to the grave impact the shooting had, and continues to have, on Wilkinson, Carmichael said to the jury, on a comparison scale between Wilkinson or Jacquard, “Why should you tip the scale any further in Mr. Jacquard’s behalf?” he asked.
So while outside the courtroom members of Jacquard’s family embraced one another and rejoiced the jury’s decision, a short distance away another group of people sat quiet, wondering what impact the decision will have on the surviving victim of Jacquard’s crime.
Wilkinson continues to be fearful of Jacquard, although he says he has no intention of returning to Yarmouth if he is eventually released on parole. Instead he plans to start fresh in Moncton and then eventually move out west. And while testifying on the stand last week, he told Wilkinson that she had nothing to fear from him.
Justice Coady also pointed out that if the National Parole Board does grant Jacquard parole, it can put stipulations on where Jacquard cannot reside if he is released from prison.
