Case Summary
On October 25, 1982, 21-year-old Laval student France Alain set out from her apartment in suburban Ste. Foy, near Quebec City, to get a bag of fig cookies and a litre of milk from a nearby store. On her way back, she was shot in the right hip with a single blast from a 12-gauge shotgun. She died from this wound in hospital.1
Police quickly singled out Benoît Proulx, who was a local radio announcer, as the primary suspect. They formed this opinion because Proulx and Alain had dated; the relationship had ended about a month before the murder.2 In addition, police found it suspicious that the location where Alain had been shot was close to Proulx’s workplace at the CHRC radio station.3
Despite focusing investigative attention on Proulx, police failed to find a murder weapon or evidence suggesting that he owned a firearm. Investigators also did not find evidence as to motive, Proulx’s having left work on the night in question, or that he had been at the crime scene.4 Proulx’s home was searched and he was interviewed by police on ten occasions, the last of which was covertly recorded.5
Evidently the police made little investigative progress in the years to come. In 1986, four years after the murder, coroner Pierre Trahan performed a two-week inquest into Alain’s death.6 During the inquest, the news was filled with pictures of police leading Proulx – often in handcuffs, and sometimes leg irons – into the court-like setting where the inquest was held.7
Upon concluding the inquiry, Trahan made the finding that “while police had legitimate reasons to suspect Proulx, the only evidence they had come up with was circumstantial and wasn’t enough to justify bringing criminal charges against him.”8 The Crown closed its file on Proux later that year, having determined that “there was no reliable identification evidence against [him] . . . or anyone else” in connection with Alain’s murder.9
Five years later, however, journalist André Arthur and John Tardif, “the then retired police investigator who had worked on the closed file”, appeared on CHRC and “broadcast sensational allegations linking [Proux] . . . to the murder”.10 This coverage referred to Proulx as the “only suspect in the killing”.11 Proulx sued Arthur and Tardif in defamation in 1991. These events predictably garnered fresh media attention.12
Soon after, retired civil servant Paul-Henri Paquet contacted CHRC, stating that he had information to share regarding the murder. CHRC put Paquet in contact with Tardif; Paquet told him that on the night in question, he had been near the crime scene and had heard a shot. He had then observed a bearded man with striking eyes, walking away from the scene. The man had been carrying what appeared to be a tennis racket; Paquet recalled seeing the handle sticking out from his bag.13 Paquet said that he had recently seen Proulx’s picture in the newspaper – more than eight years after the murder – and had realized that Proulx’s eyes were the same as those of the bearded man he had encountered on the night of Alain’s death.14
In response to this new lead, the file on Proulx was reopened and Tardif was re-hired to assist with the investigation.15 In March 1991, Proulx was charged with Alain’s murder.16
That fall, Proulx was tried before a jury on the charge of first degree murder.17 The Crown’s case was not strong. Paquet’s assertions that Proulx’s eyes matched those of the murderer fell apart under cross-examination.18 His identification was revealed to consist of: (A) his memory of a nighttime encounter lasting mere seconds, where he briefly observed a stranger, whom he had not looked in the eye very much, and moreover the man’s eyes were not open wide enough for Paquet to see much detail; and (B) a newspaper photo of a man whose likeness had frequently appeared there throughout the past eight years.19
Leaving aside this dubious evidence, much of the Crown’s case consisted of vague intimations that Proulx had murdered Alain due to complex psychological reasons. These were purportedly apparent from his covertly recorded police statement, in which he had unwisely speculated about the murderer’s motives.20 The prosecutor invited the jurors to read the transcript of this recording, and suggested that they replace the pronoun “he” with “I” wherever it appeared – as if Proulx had been “confessing.”21
In his defence, Proulx relied on his strong alibi evidence that he had been at work at the radio station during this time period. He had demonstrably accomplished all his tasks, including reading that evening’s radio broadcast.22 Nonetheless, the jury found Proulx guilty of first degree murder on November 10, 1991, after a two-month trial. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25 years.23
Proulx was released on bail pending his appeal.24 On August 20, 1992, the Court of Appeal released its decision, which was highly critical of the police and Crown. The Court acquitted Proulx on the basis that the jury’s verdict was unreasonable, and that the trial judge had erred in permitting the jurors to rely on evidence that ought to have been excluded – of note, the essentially worthless eyewitness identification.25
Proulx sued the Quebec Attorney General’s office after his acquittal. The case eventually made its way to the Supreme Court of Canada, which found in his favour. In its judgment, the Court held that “the charges brought against [Proulx] . . . were based on fragments of tenuous, unreliable and likely inadmissible evidence” that were “grounded in mere suspicion and hypotheses”.26 The Court found that the criminal proceedings against Proulx “were not based on reasonable and probable cause,” as is required by law.27
Moreover, the Supreme Court found that the trial prosecutor knowingly brought forth “flagrantly inadequate” eyewitness evidence, as demonstrated by his unwillingness to ask Paquet to identify Proulx in the courtroom.28 The Court admonished the Crown for this misconduct, stating that it had shown “flagrant disregard” for Proulx’s rights in the context of “tainted tunnel vision . . . fueled by motives that were clearly improper.”29 Specifically, the Court found that the “prosecutor’s decision to recruit . . . [Tardif] to assist in the resurrected prosecution file” – while Proulx’s defamation lawsuit against Tardif remained outstanding – evinced “malice in the sense of the prosecutor’s apparent indifference to the improper mixing of public and private business.”30 In sum, the “prosecutor lent his office to support a defence strategy in the defamation suit and, in so doing, was compromised by the retired police investigator’s apparent manipulation of the evidence and the irregularities that took place during the re-opened investigation.”31
The Supreme Court found that this “conduct constituted an abuse of prosecutorial power, and an attempt to mislead the court for the purposes of securing a conviction.”32 Proulx was awarded $2.3 million in damages and could at last close this chapter of his life.33 France Alain’s murder remains unsolved.