Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Convicted murderer Luka Magnotta to drop his appeal

CBC
Convicted murderer Luka Magnotta will withdraw his applications for an appeal, according to Radio-Canada.

He has asked to be present in the Court of Appeal tomorrow morning via video conference.

A jury in Montreal found the 32-year-old guilty of first-degree murder, committing an indignity to a body, publishing obscene material, mailing obscene material and criminal harassment in December.

Magnotta admitted to committing the acts, but his lawyer argued he should have been found not criminally responsible because of mental health issues.

The appeal was filed with the Quebec Court of Appeal by Magnotta's Toronto-based lawyer Luc Leclair on Jan. 15. It cites judicial error in jury instruction and that the "verdicts are unreasonable and unsupported by the evidence and the instructions."

Leclair had also put forward further reasons for a leave to appeal, which require the court's permission before proceeding.

He said there were errors in jury instruction and the judge should not have allowed an email Magnotta sent to a journalist at the U.K.-based Sun newspaper into evidence. Leclair also said the judge failed to dismiss a member of the jury "despite the existence of a reasonable grounds of a reasonable apprehension of bias."

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