Justice Jack Walsh’s final instructions to the jury at Dennis Oland’s second-degree murder trial at the Saint John Law Courts interrupted by an afternoon power outage lasting about 10 minutes.
The power went out at about 1:50 in the afternoon and came back on just after 2pm but the trial did not resume until about an hour and twenty minutes after that because of an issue that arose with the recording system. Justice Walsh telling the jury after they returned to the courtroom the outage was unfortunate but we’ll get through it.
In his final instructions Justice Walsh reviewing evidence from the trial, which began on September 16, including the brown sports jacket seized from Dennis Oland’s home, the blood spatter at the crime scene and cell tower information.
Walsh reminding the jury that Dennis Oland is presumed to be innocent unless and until the prosecution proves his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. For a second-degree murder charge the prosecution has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Dennis Oland caused Richard Oland’s death, that Dennis Oland caused his death unlawfully and that Dennis Oland had a state of mind required for murder.
Richard Oland’s bludgeoned body was discovered on July 7, 2011 in his investment firm office at 52 Canterbury Street in uptown Saint John. His son Dennis Oland is accused of killing him.
The jury is sequestered and it’s expected that Justice Walsh will continue his final instructions to the jury as the trial continues on Wednesday morning at 9am at the Saint John Law Courts.
CHSJ News reporter Laura Lyall is covering the second-degree murder trial of Dennis Oland and is live-tweeting the proceedings. To follow along go to the CHSJ News Twitter page or the Wave News Twitter page.
