‘Loose lips sink ships.’

Wartime propaganda posters urged citizens to keep their mouth shut; you just never knew who you were talking to. Pelletier and MacAskill didn’t get the telegram in Laval, a mistake they would come to regret at trial.

The prosecutor wouldn’t reveal the name of their key witness, a rare tactic in criminal trials and one that is typically overturned by the trial judge. The defence has a right to know what witnesses will be called and what they’re going to say but in this case the prosecutor refused and the trial judge rejected my motion to force the Crown to reveal his name, saying that it was clear the witness may not survive in jail if his name was released.

Three weeks into the trial the prosecution was nearing its close.

“One more witness m’Lord” and we all turned to see who it would be. The doors opened and a man strode in shackled and dressed in prison fatigues, surrounded on all sides by a phalanx of RCMP officers dressed in civilian clothes. Underscoring the tension, each of the police officers had one hand on the prisoner, the other under their civilian jackets on their weapons, safety off. We had been told that a man sitting at the back of the court in the gallery was the hitman we had been warned about early in the trial. Beside him, another four cops, all of them turned toward him. I’d never experienced anything like it.

“What is your name Sir?” the prosecutor began.

This was the witness the Crown lawyers had held back. He had been a cellmate of Pelletier and MacAskill and was about to testify that our clients had told him about the night they had killed two people in BC, in detail.  Obviously hearsay and inadmissible, you say. And you might be correct except for one small issue. Typically hearsay, is regarded as unreliable and not allowed into evidence in a criminal trial; what someone testifies what another person told them about what they had done is classic hearsay and this witness was about to do just that. But the rule against hearsay has exceptions, one of them being hearsay may be permitted if it is ruled to be a ‘declaration against interest’. The assumption is a defendant wouldn’t say inculpatory, things, negative things, about what he or she had done unless they were true.  Telling their cellmate about killing two people in BC was clearly a declaration against interest. Loose lips sink ships. They had not known of course that the woman in that car was still alive. They boasted how they had blown them both away, replaying the moment MacAskill had pulled the trigger and how they had to use the tire iron on the woman. His testimony was devastating. They had convicted themselves with their own words.

Most things in life are monetized and this kind of testimony was no exception. The witness had bargained his testimony in exchange for the Crown agreeing to drop over one hundred and twenty fraud related charges. He had spent months living the high life at fancy hotels and restaurants and nightclubs on dozens of stolen credit cards. The agreement called for him to testify against Pelletier and MacAskill, be given a new identity and a monthly allowance for the next two years. It was a stunning bargain which had been approved at the highest levels of the federal government.

He testified for two days and both lawyers tried to attack the obvious weakness suggesting that none of this had happened and that he had made it all up in order to secure his freedom. That was all we had. At the end of the second day he was escorted out of the courtroom, his protective legion having never left his side for a single minute. It was a scene out of a Bruce Willis movie, the witness in chains on the stand, one armed police officer at each corner of the witness box, unavoidable eye contact with the hitman at the back. If the witness had ever thought he had struck a good bargain with the prosecutor he must have thought otherwise as he was escorted out that day.

“Dead man walking.” the prosecutor leaned over and spoke quietly in my ear. I’ve never forgotten the echo of those words. Three months later that witness was dead, shot gangland style. He was a Dead Man Walking.

We couldn’t put our clients on the stand and we had enough facts to argue self defence so the decision was made to close our case. It didn’t take long for the jury to convict both men of first degree murder and attempted murder and an even shorter time for them to receive their mandatory life imprisonment.

But this remarkable case still had one more surprise waiting in the wings. I needed to meet with Rock in the holding cells after the verdict, so I waited in the courtroom, for the sheriff’s approval.

As I was waiting Rock’s girlfriend who had been present throughout the trial, approached me with a sealed packet of cigarettes,

“Could you give these to Rock for me?”

“No problem” I said, knowing they would be welcome. I found a sheriff and handed them over. A few minutes later the sheriff returned, a police officer with him.

“Come with us please,” the tone decidedly insistent. I was escorted to an interview room.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“You have tried to pass heroin to your client!” came the stern accusation. I laughed out loud which no doubt did not help my cause, in that moment.

“Are you crazy!? What are you talking about?”

It turned out that the sealed package of cigarettes was not sealed at all. When I gave the packet to the sheriff he had inspected it and the cellophane cover had slipped down. Inside he found twenty cigarettes. Twenty heroin cigarettes. The tobacco had been removed and carefully replaced with pure heroin. The sheriff was one of those who despised defence lawyers and everything we stood for and he had quickly jumped to the conclusion I was trafficking in heroin in this attempt to pass ‘cigarettes’.

My reaction must have infuriated him. There I was ‘dead to rights’ and I laughed at him, I was mocking him. And he was right, I was and he deserved it. Besides, I was exhausted. The trial was over and I had lost. It was time to go home.

Pelletier and MacAskill were returned to Quebec to serve their terms in Laval Penitentiary, one of Canada’s most notoriously dangerous prisons. Two years later Pelletier escaped with four other notoriously violent inmates at Laval. They were eventually recaptured but not before terrorizing a number of innocent victims. That also led to one of the most chilling phone calls I had ever received.

“Mr. Peyton?”

“Yes it is.” 

It was late at night and my wife and I were both sound asleep.

“My name is Inspector Ramsden with the RCMP Major Crimes Unit in Vancouver. You were the defence lawyer for Roch Pelletier weren’t you, back a couple of years on that first degree trial in Surrey?”

“Yes, I was Inspector. What’s this about?”

I had never shaken the dark feeling I had from the moment I first met Roch and this phone calling brought it all surging back. I was newly married and we were planning a family and I knew that I was flying close to the flame defending criminal clients at this level.

“Well Mr. Peyton, Pelletier has escaped from Laval in Quebec and I’ve been asked to make you aware. For your own safety.  I know he was convicted of first but did your relationship end up okay, with him?”

And there it was. The unstated risk I was taking defending a man like Pelletier. To assume his darkness would never ‘touch’ me had been naive from the beginning. Don’t get me wrong. I was an intense, committed and aggressive criminal lawyer and good at what I did but every once in a while in that line of work, you get reminded that it can wash over everything in your life. Everything important. And this was one of those moments.

“Far as I remember Inspector. I fought hard for him and we lost. Roch had been realistic about his chances from the beginning. So yeah, I think we’re good. Thanks for the heads up.”

“Okay, well good then. If you think anything is suspicious you have to contact the Kelowna RCMP immediately. Anything. I’ve transferred your file to Major Crimes in Kelowna and I’ll send you the direct contact.”

And with that, he was gone.

Mac leaned over,  half asleep, “Who was that honey?”

“Oh, nobody. I’ll tell you in the morning. Go back to sleep.”

I lay awake for the rest of the night.

Pelletier was recaptured after a few weeks on the lam and I was never contacted by him. Two years later I learned that Pelletier had been killed in Laval. Four months after that another call let me know that MacAskill had met the same fate in prison. 

Live by the sword.

It was without a doubt the most disturbing criminal trial I was ever involved in. Even the worst of us have redeeming values, even the worst of us seek relationships and family.

But not those two; Rock Pelletier and MacAskill were evil men, living evil lives, inevitably to die violent deaths.