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Canada’s justice minister has ordered a new trial for a Quebec man convicted of four murders, who was released from prison after concerns were raised about the fairness of his initial trial.
Daniel Jolivet spent 33 years behind bars before he was granted bail, pending the outcome of a federal review into a possible miscarriage of justice.
On Friday, Sean Fraser ordered a new trial, saying he had reasonable grounds to conclude that a miscarriage of justice likely occurred in Jolivet’s 1994 conviction.
“My decision does not decide guilt or innocence, as that will rest with the courts,” he said in a news release.
“Our responsibility is to make sure Canadians can trust their justice system, and that means, in rare cases, returning cases to the courts for new information to be considered.”
Quebec’s Crown prosecutor’s office said it would analyze the evidence to determine whether it would proceed with the case. The prosecution said Jolivet “once again benefits from the presumption of innocence regarding the alleged offences.”
Canada’s justice minister has ordered a new trial for Daniel Jolivet, who was convicted in 1994 of four murders in Brossard, Que. Jolivet has been out on bail since the end of 2025 and has always maintained his innocence.
Decision ‘means freedom,’ Jolivet says
At the Montreal courthouse alongside his lawyer on Friday afternoon, Jolivet said the decision “means freedom.”
“It means finally I got what I wanted: a decision from the justice minister ordering a new trial,” he said, adding he hopes the Crown prosecutor’s office will decide to go ahead with the proceedings and not drop the charges.
Wiping away tears, Jolivet said in the meantime, he’ll go fishing and focus on taking care of himself. The years he spent incarcerated have taken a toll, he said. As has the time since his release, waiting to see if he would be sent back to prison.
His lawyer, Nicholas St-Jacques of Project Innocence Quebec, said Jolivet “wants to tell the world he’s not the person who committed the crime.”
“For the victim of a miscarriage of justice, it is very important to hear the words ‘acquittal’ or ‘you are acquitted,’ because these people have been fighting all their life,” St-Jacques said.
Jolivet has steadfastly proclaimed his innocence. He was released from prison on bail in December 2025.
Seeking bail became possible in October 2025, when the federal government announced there were reasonable grounds to believe a miscarriage of justice may have occurred.
Jolivet was convicted in 1994 of two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of second-degree murder in the shooting deaths of two men and two women.
The deaths occurred two years earlier, in Brossard, Que., a suburb of Montreal.
Jolivet initially succeeded in having the verdict overturned on appeal, but the Supreme Court of Canada reinstated the convictions in 2000.
He made multiple attempts to have the case reviewed by the federal justice minister, but was denied until 2025.
Daniel Jolivet continuously pleaded his innocence for four murders he was convicted of in the 1990s. Now, the federal Justice Department’s criminal conviction review group is investigating his case for a potential miscarriage of justice.
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