Article content continued

Labelle said he will ask the Quebec Court of Appeal to order a delay in Czornobaj being required to begin serving the sentence until the higher court has heard an appeal of the jury’s verdict that found her guilty of two counts of criminal negligence causing death.

“Our position is that it was an accident and we need to go over again the legal criteria (for a criminal negligence conviction),” Labelle said.

On June 27, 2010, Czornobaj stopped her car in the left-hand lane of Highway 30, in Candiac, and got out to attempt to gather a small group of ducklings she had spotted on the highway. She left her car in the left-hand lane and the sight of her trying to gather the ducks (her plan was to put them in her car and drive them to her home) distracted drivers who looked toward her and then suddenly noticed her car when they turned their eyes back to the highway. André Roy, a 49-year-old man riding on his Harley-Davidson, was unable to stop in time and his motorcycle crashed into the back of the Honda Civic. His daughter Jessie, 16, was riding on the back of the motorcycle. The teenager was flung off the Harley, bounced off the back window of the Civic, and continued on in the air for several metres before her body struck a Jersey wall. At the same time, the impact of the crash pushed the Civic forward and it rolled over Jessie as she lay on the ground, causing more injuries. Roy died within minutes and his daughter died hours after being brought to the Montreal Children’s Hospital.