TORONTO — The Crown has quietly appealed the acquittal of Jimmy Wise on charges of second degree murder and manslaughter in the death of a Chesterville man whose decomposed remains were found in a culvert near Morewood in 2014.
Wise was 77 years old when a jury found him not guilty last Dec. 7 in the alleged killing of Raymond Arnold Collison, who had gone missing in 2009.
The matter is now headed to the Ontario Court of Appeal, confirms Jason Pilon, assistant Crown attorney who prosecuted Wise in his recent trial.
Pilon says the Crown’s Toronto law office filed an appeal with the court on Jan. 6. “The bigger question is the status of that appeal, and quite frankly, I don’t know,” he says. “It’s before them, and like many others, it will be slotted into a time when everybody’s ready. But at present, I haven’t been notified of any other date.”
“The Crown has appealed, saying there were errors, and the Crown is asking that those errors, individually or cumulatively, are sufficient to warrant, among other things, a retrial,” says Pilon.
Should the Court of Appeal order a new trial for Wise, the former Dundas Manor resident would still have recourse to the Supreme Court of Canada to appeal the Crown’s appeal, before any new trial would occur.
Pilon says he is not part of the appeal process, though he may become involved again as Crown if a new trial is ordered.
