Lawyers make final submissions in optician murder

Lawyers in the trial of a man accused of murdering a Halifax optician four years ago argued in court last week over whether he can be held criminally responsible.

The lawyers made final submissions Thursday in the first-degree murder trial of Cymon Cormier, who is accused of murdering Tony Nader at his workplace, Insight Optometry, on Dec. 30, 2021. Nader, 55 when he died, was known to Cormier, who turns 29 this year.

Cormier’s lawyer, Joshua Nodelman from Nova Scotia Legal Aid, argued Cormier is not criminally responsible, as his client suffers from schizophrenia and was operating under delusions when he stabbed Nader in his office.

The defence does not dispute that Cormier killed Nader.

Cormier may have been operating under a false assumption when he attacked Nader. The lawyers said that during the attack, Cormier made the unsubstantiated claim, “that man raped me.”

Nodelman’s arguments were partly based on expert testimony by defence witness Julian Gojer, a forensic psychiatrist.

Nodelman said Gojer’s testimony in this trial was sophisticated, relies on mainstream psychiatry and “has the hallmark of credibility.”

Both sides devoted significant time to the question of Gojer’s testimony. Crown attorney Erica Koresawa said his approach in previous trials showed “a pattern of unreliability.”

The prosecution’s expert witness was forensic psychiatrist Joel Watts. Nodelman said Watts’ testimony diagnosed Cormier with schizotypal and borderline personality traits, but not disorders.

Cormier was present for the trial, and he sat between two security guards. He has been in custody for three years while he awaits a verdict.

The spectator benches on the left of the court were full on Thursday. Thirteen people stayed for the whole session.

Koresawa maintained that Cormier’s delusions were not intense enough to absolve him from responsibility for the killing. She defined a delusion as a “fixed and false belief that’s not amenable to change.”

Cormier’s internet search history in the two months leading up to the killing was part of the evidence.

Both Nodelman and Koresawa mentioned a record of him trying to find out if Nader had raped him through internet searches. Koresawa said that Cormier only expressed certainty in this false belief while he attacked Nader. The prosecutors said this proved his false belief was not fixed.

Nodelman said the uncertainty in the internet searches is outweighed by the frequency of the searches, which had reached the point of “obsession” and had “totally taken control of his mind.”

Koresawa said that while Cormier reported hearing voices and receiving commands from them, they weren’t intense enough to make him not criminally responsible (NCR) because he recognized them as hallucinations. She cited Watts’ view that if you show insight into a false belief, it’s not at a delusional intensity.

“We submit that the NCR defence has not been established,” said Koresawa in her closing remarks. “Mr. Cormier should be found guilty of first-degree murder.”

Justice Christa Brothers will give her verdict on March 28.