Case Summary
On December 4, 1961, Réjean Hinse, a 24-year-old plumber and pipefitter, sold a 1954 Cadillac that would change the course of his life.1 He sold the car to Laurent Beausoleil, who had plans – unbeknownst to Hinse – to commit an armed robbery with a group of associates in Mont-Laurier, northwest Quebec.2 On December 6, Beausoleil’s group was travelling to Mont-Laurier with the aim of conducting reconnaissance prior to the robbery; however, this did not come to fruition since the Cadillac broke down. The group left the car at a garage in nearby Lac-des-Écorces and arranged for alternate transport.3 Ultimately, the group committed the Mont-Laurier robbery on December 14, 1961. They held the Greniers, owners of a general store, at gunpoint in their own home.4 The group stole $4,000 from the Greniers and departed.5
A day or two later, Beausoleil met with Hinse and informed him that the Cadillac had broken down.6 Hinse went with Beausoleil to retrieve the car from the Lac-des-Écorces garage. Upon arrival, they were directed to the provincial police station, located in the Mont-Laurier courthouse. Since the recent robbery, Mr. Grenier had frequently attended at the police station, and thus happened to be in the courthouse at the same time as Hinse. Grenier thought that he recognized Hinse as one of the men who had robbed him, which he reported to police later that day.7
Police prepared a suspect line-up which had significant “irregularities”, notably that Hinse, who was placed in the centre, “was the only one dressed in clothes similar to those worn by the criminals.”8 The Greniers identified Hinse from the line-up as one of the men who had robbed them.9
Hinse was charged with armed robbery.10 At the time of his arrest, he expressed concern to his lawyer regarding how the line-up was conducted.11 Hinse’s trial began on November 27, 1963, before Justice Côté.12 The Greniers testified, as did police who claimed that Hinse had been in Mont-Laurier with Beausoleil in September 1961, a few months before the robbery.13
Hinse maintained his innocence and denied having been in Mont-Laurier, contrary to the officers’ account of events. He testified that he had been in Montreal at the time of robbery . He recounted a detailed itinerary for that date, including a visit to a pool hall and tavern, dinner with his girlfriend, Janine Hamel, and a late-night café stop.14 By the time of trial, Hinse did not recall the names of most people he had seen at the pool hall, and lacked contact information for a number of potential alibi witnesses whose names he did remember. This said, three witnesses corroborated parts of Hinse’s statement: a waiter employed at the tavern; a customer from this establishment; and Hamel, who confirmed that she was with Hinse on the evening of the robbery.15 Notably, Beausoleil did not give evidence.16
Justice Côté rejected Hinse’s alibi evidence, and instead relied on the police officers’ testimony that he had been in Mont-Laurier in September 1961.17 Hinse was convicted of armed robbery. On November 3, 1964, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison.18
Hinse could not afford counsel to appeal this outcome, and was denied legal aid.19 Nonetheless he took independent steps with the aim of rectifying his wrongful conviction. In 1966, while serving his sentence, Hinse was able to arrange for three of the perpetrators of the armed robbery to swear affidavits attesting to his innocence.20
Hinse was paroled on September 2, 1969.21 Both before and after his release from prison, he engaged in an intensive letter-writing campaign to a number of politicians and even the Queen, in which he asserted his innocence.22 He also applied to the Cabinet in 1971 for a pardon, but this application was rejected.23
Between 1967 and 1990, Hinse applied four times to the federal Minister of Justice to review his case.24 Each time, he included the affidavits that the perpetrators had sworn. His first application, made in 1967, was denied because the Minister believed that Hinse had received a fair trial, and moreover, he had not appealed his conviction.25 His second application, in 1980, was denied for purported vagueness.26 The third application, in 1981, was denied because the Minister took the view that there were no “exceptional circumstances” in Hinse’s case that would “justify . . . his intervention.”27 His fourth application, in 1990, was supported by a Quebec Police Commission review that had criticized the armed robbery investigation.28 Again Hinse’s application was dismissed, this time on the grounds “that the Court could be seized of [i.e., consider] the matter without [the Minister of Justice’s] . . . intervention.”29
Hinse therefore addressed himself to the Quebec Court of Appeal. He requested that the court consider his matter in light of the fresh evidence he had assembled from the true perpetrators, who had sworn that he was innocent. In 1994, the Court of Appeal received these statements, quashed Hinse’s conviction, and judicially stayed the proceedings against him.30
Hinse sought leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, hoping to be acquitted outright. The Court initially refused this request.31 He filed an application to the Court to reconsider its decision, which the Court also rejected.32 Hinse then brought a second application for reconsideration. In a rare move, the Supreme Court reversed its course regarding Hinse’s matter, allowing his appeal, setting aside the stay of proceedings, and acquitting him on January 21, 1997.33
Hinse subsequently reached an out-of-court compensation settlement with the Province of Quebec for $4.5 million.34 In 2011, a trial judge awarded him an additional $5.8 million, on the basis that the Ministers of Justice had demonstrated “negligence without parallel” and “institutional inertia” in their handling of Hinse’s applications for ministerial review of his conviction.35 However, in 2013, the Quebec Court of Appeal overturned this further award, finding that there had not been “wrongful conduct” on the part of the Ministers of Justice and Cabinet.36 In 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada agreed with the Court of Appeal. It found that the Ministers’ rejection of Hinse’s requests fell within the umbrella of “true policy decision[s]” – meaning that the government could only be held liable if the Ministers had acted in “bad faith” or with “serious recklessness”, which in the Court’s view Hinse failed to demonstrate.37