The lawyer for Douglas Hales is going to apply for a mistrial.

Bob Hrycan said that a recent Supreme Court ruling on police stings fundamentally changes everything about the Hales case.

"When the law changes this significantly and this dramatically, it's almost impossible to re-visit the evidentiary landscape of a trial and re-jig that to conform to the new law, " he said.

Hrycan will make the formal application on September 22.

Today was supposed to be the day that accused killer Douglas Hales learned his fate.

Hales is charged with first-degree murder in the 2004 death of Daleen Bosse. Hales confessed to killing the young mother and then led undercover cops posing as criminals to her body.

This tactic – called a Mr. Big Sting – was cast into doubt by a Supreme Court decision in July. Just how the principles of the high court decision apply to the facts of the Hales case is what's being debated.

The lens is different

Bosse's family and supporters filled the courtroom in Saskatoon this morning. Justice Gerald Allbright spoke directly to the family, explaining why he was not delivering his ruling today.

He said the Supreme Court's ruling is a "paradigm shift" and that he's obliged to hear from both sides as to how it should apply to this case.

He said the three options are to simply go ahead and give his decision based on what he heard at trial; re-open the trial and let the lawyers try and apply the Supreme Court ruling to this case; or declare a mistrial.

Allbright said he would not simply give a decision.

Hales was charged in 2008 after telling undercover police officers posing as gangsters that he strangled Bosse, then set her body on fire.

After the arrest, Hales maintained he lied to police, embellishing his story to try and gain access to what he believed was a criminal gang trying to recruit him.

Hales's defence team maintains Bosse died from alcohol poisoning, and that the accused man panicked and set her body on fire after seeing her lifeless body.