Presentation :
Documentary filmmakers and authors for television, Nathalie Roy and Yves Thériault are truly passionate about legal and criminal stories. They plunged with great happiness for the first time into the creation of a play. They identified the major pleadings that could be used for the show, in addition to editing them. Nathalie and Yves have chosen the most powerful excerpts, which best reflect the spirit of each of the pleadings. They did so with the greatest respect for the eminent jurists who argued with rigor, foresight and empathy. Committed to helping the public better understand the workings of our justice system, Nathalie and Yves are delighted to be able to do so, once again, by collaborating on this unprecedented project that is Verdict.

The legalization of abortion:
In the early 1970s, a doctor of Polish origin, a survivor of the Holocaust, aroused public opinion by performing illegal abortions in his private clinic in Montreal. Women's rights advocate, Dr. Henry Morgentaler says, "If I help women have children at the time in their lives when they can give love and affection, they won't become rapists or killers. And they will not build concentration camps. »
In March 1973, in Toronto, Dr. Morgentaler declared on national television that he had performed 5,000 abortions in the past five years.
Anti-abortion groups are protesting across the country. “Morgentaler is an assassin. Why kill the unborn ?" can we read on the placards of the demonstrators. This will lead the state to raid the doctor's clinic and accuse him of performing illegal abortions, a crime punishable by life imprisonment.
Prosecuted before the courts, Dr. Morgentaler was defended by one of the most renowned defense lawyers of the time, Me Claude-Armand Sheppard, who espoused his cause with great conviction.
On November 9, 1973, at the end of a highly publicized trial, Mr. Sheppard delivered a thoughtful plea before a jury of eleven men and one woman, whom he tried to convince to acquit his client.

The rights of the LGBTQ+ community:
At the turn of the millennium, a Montreal couple who campaigned for gay rights embarked on a crusade to have same-sex marriage legalized in Quebec.
To make their union possible, the federal law must be modified, as well as certain articles of the Civil Code of Quebec.
It is the formidable family law lawyer, Me Anne-France Goldwater, supported by her colleague Me Marie-Hélène Dubé, who begins the proceedings before the Superior Court of Quebec.
“Nothing in the law defines love. These two men suffered years of prejudice and harassment. They invested themselves in their community and now they will do something for themselves: they will celebrate their love publicly. Not in a parade, or holding signs, but just saying, we're like you,” Goldwater said at the time.

In the fall of 2001, the civil trial, which pitted them against the governments of Quebec and Canada, as well as numerous religious pressure groups, opened at the Montreal courthouse.

Me Goldwater has her clients testify, who tell their touching love story. She then goes on to make a fiery plea, destroying one by one the arguments of religious groups and attacking the Canadian Constitution.

Anti-Indigenous Racism:
The discovery of the bodies of more than two hundred Indigenous children on the grounds of a former residential school in British Columbia in 2021 plunged Canada back into a dark chapter in its history. This tragedy, and others like it, have brought to light how this system of residential schools has had a detrimental effect on generations of Indigenous nations.

Thousands of children have been torn from their families and their culture, to be sent to schools run by the Church, in order to be assimilated there. They have too often been mistreated and abused there. Today, the wounds are still raw and the distrust of Aboriginal people towards institutions remains very real.
The tragedy that occurred in September 2020 at the Joliette hospital, when Joyce Echaquan, an Atikamekw mother died in total indifference, is one of the manifestations of this tragedy.

The insults towards Ms. Echaquan, uttered by members of the nursing staff and published on social networks, led to a public inquiry by coroner Géhane Kamel, a few months later.
Me Jean-François Arteau, prosecutor for the Conseil de la Nation Atikamekw, invested himself body and soul in denouncing the racism suffered by the mother of seven children. During his final representations before the coroner, in June 2021, he pleaded for a true reconciliation of all peoples.

Police interventions:
Was Basil Parasiris justified in shooting a policeman on the morning of March 2, 2007 when he broke down the door of his home with eight of his colleagues?
This is the question you will have to answer, dear viewer. During this last case, you will have the opportunity to put yourself in the shoes of a juror, after hearing excerpts from the arguments of the two lawyers.

You will hear in turn, the text of one of the most remarkable litigants of his generation, Me Jacques Larochelle, and that of a seasoned and tenacious Crown prosecutor, Me Joëlle Saint-Germain.
For the defense, Me Larochelle argued that the accused only protected his family by firing four bullets with his Magnum 357 revolver, causing the death of officer Daniel Tessier. He believed he was unlawfully attacked and would not have realized that the man pointing his gun at him was a police officer. He did so to save his life, that of his wife and children.

For the prosecution, Me Saint-Germain pleaded that Basil Parasiris intended to cause the death of the police officer when he decided to pull the trigger of his revolver. According to the lawyer, several other options were available to him, but he did not consider them.

And you, dear public, what will be your verdict?