A date for Dennis Oland’s new second-degree murder trial in the death of his father Richard Oland won’t be set until the new year.
While the Crown said that they were prepared to set trial dates the defence wanted to have the matter set over, and it has been set over by about a month’s time until January 3. Both sides are still waiting for the written decision from the Court of Appeal to overturn Oland’s conviction and order the retrial.
The 48-year-old Oland did not attend the proceedings at the Court of Queen’s Bench.
Oland’s defence lawyer Gary Miller spoke very briefly with media outside of the Saint John courthouse and was asked if the summer or fall of next year sounds doable when it comes to a new trial.
“That’s difficult to say right now,” Miller said. “We haven’t heard anything from the Crown with regard to how they’re proceeding this time and whether it’s going to be the same cast of witnesses or not.
“We need to know all of that before we can set realistic trial dates.”
The Crown said that they’re looking at in the range of at least January 2018 for the start of a new trial. Miller said that was a possibility.
“We’ll see in the next few months how things unfold.”
Oland was freed on bail back on October 25 of this year after the New Brunswick Court of Appeal quashed his conviction and ordered a new trial on the basis of what was deemed to be an error in the trial judge’s instructions to the jury.
Oland was convicted of second-degree murder in late December of last year following a lengthy and high-profile trial that began in September in Saint John and the case travelled to Fredericton multiple times for hearings at the New Brunswick Court of Appeal.
UNB Saint John professor and author Greg Marquis wrote a book about the murder and the trial called Truth & Honour.
Marquis says he’s now trying to add an updated chapter which would contain all the details of the events that have transpired in the case since the summer — which includes an appearance from Oland before the Supreme Court of Canada.
“Then with a new trial, whether it’s in 2017 or 18, or god forbid 2019. I’d be covering that to write a second book,” he says.
“There’s huge public interest [in this case] and people still have strong views…I think there’s still interest in Saint John and New Brunswick and other areas as well.”
