Quebec City police officer found guilty of dangerous driving causing death

A Quebec City police officer has been found guilty of dangerous driving causing death for her role in a 2015 collision that killed a 38-year-old motorcyclist.

"I've been waiting for justice for seven years. I had justice," said the victim's mother, Marlene Drolet, who was at the courthouse Monday.

Const. Isabelle Morin had been acquitted in 2018 after a 10-day trial, but that verdict was overturned by the Quebec Court of Appeal in 2021. A new trial was ordered.

Morin appealed to the Supreme Court, but her case was not heard.

At the time of the collision, the northbound stretch of the Laurentian Highway was closed for construction work, leaving alternate lanes open on the southbound section of the highway.

Morin  was in the driver's seat of a police cruiser, heading north on the one lane open to traffic on the southbound side of the highway. She pulled a U-turn between the orange cones separating traffic, in order to take the Georges-Muir exit on the other side of the highway.

That's when Jessy Drolet, driving a motorcycle, crashed into the side of Morin's cruiser.

In his 55-page decision, Judge Frank D'Amours, concluded Monday that Morin, a longtime veteran of the force, should have taken into account the risks associated with such a manoeuvre.

"A reasonable police officer placed in the same situation would have anticipated that vehicles could be traveling in the opposite direction, even at high speed, given that she was on a highway," D'Amours wrote.

"The same reasonable police officer would also have anticipated that if a vehicle were to arrive in the opposite lane she was trying to cross, the perpendicular position of a patrol vehicle would then have had the effect of obstructing that lane."

In such a case, collision then becomes highly probable and avoidance options are practically non-existent, the judge said.

D'Amours also believed that even if Morin had activated her patrol car's revolving lights, the officer could not expect a vehicle traveling in the opposite direction to anticipate that she was turning between two cones in front of him.

Police brotherhood pans decision

Drolet said she misses her son every day, and even more during the holiday season. She is asking for the maximum sentence of 14 years. Morin is expected to face sentencing in April.

"This is a very detailed decision, very well justified. It was the same evidence, but presented differently by the witnesses," said Guy Loisel, lawyer for the Crown.

However, Quebec City's police brotherhood isn't in agreement with the decision.

"This judgment will have repercussions on all our police officers. Society expects us to be perfect and flawless beings. The judgment will undermine the morale of the troops," said union president Martine Fortier.

Fortier said Morin would not have been charged were she not a police officer since she was not driving at a high speed or impaired. 

"Our police are reluctant to drive in an emergency. Sometimes, we have calls where the time factor is excessively important," she said.

"Are there police officers who are going to be hesitant to commit violations of the Highway Safety Code in order to get to a call more quickly at the risk of ending up on trial like that over a period of seven years and being found guilty? That is my fear."