Guy Turcotte has been formally charged, for a second time, with the murder of his two children.
The former cardiologist made a brief appearance in a St. Jerome courtroom on Thursday, one day after the Court of Appeal ordered a new trial and overturned his not criminally responsible verdict for killing his own children in 2009.
In his first trial Turcotte was found not criminally responsible for the murders of his two children, but the Court of Appeal ruled that the judge presiding over the case made an error in judgement when instructing the jury, and so ordered a new trial.
Turcotte admitted drinking methanol and then killing his children because he did not want them to find his body. The only decision for a jury was to decide whether his state of mind allowed him the capacity to know what was right or wrong.
Turcotte spent 46 months in the Pinel Psychiatric Institute before he was freed and deemed not a danger to anyone else.
On Wednesday he surrendered to police after the appeals court overturned the 2011 decision, because of perceived legal errors, and authorities issued a warrant for his arrest.
He was back in a prisoner's box Thursday for a brief appearance at the courthouse in Saint-Jerome, Que., north of Montreal.
Turcotte did not utter a word in the chamber and is scheduled to return to court Jan. 10, when a date will be set for a new trial. There will be no preliminary hearing.
"Until then, he will be detained," prosecutor Rene Verret said outside the courtroom.
"When a person is charged with murder he has to be detained, unless the defence presents a request before a Superior Court judge...
"We have not received such a request, but if we receive a request like this then we will have to debate (it) in front of a judge."
Verret, who did not work on Turcotte's 2011 trial, said he did not know when the trial would actually begin. He hoped it would start sometime in 2014.
"When the trial will be fixed on Jan. 10 we will be ready to proceed," he said.
The Crown prosecutor also said he had not received any notice the defence might appeal Wednesday's ruling to the Supreme Court.
Turcotte did not enter a plea Thursday. Verret said he was not obliged to.
Members of the defence team did not speak with reporters outside the courtroom.
Inside the chamber, Turcotte's ex-wife, Isabelle Gaston, stared at him from the third row of the gallery as he stepped into the prisoner's box.
The 41-year-old Turcotte did not look in her direction and, for the most part, looked toward the floor during his appearance.
She endured painful testimony about the deaths of her children by attending his original trial and subsequent hearings.
The jury heard that Turcotte drank washer fluid later in the evening of the killings in what he said was a suicide attempt.
The prosecution argued a not-criminally-responsible verdict should be reserved only for cases of mental illness, not ones where a suicide attempt might have triggered an after-the-fact blackout.
The appeals court verdict sided with such critics.
"The burden of proof was on the accused to show that he was suffering from an incapacitating mental illness -- distinct from the intoxication symptoms -- and it was the jury's job to decide," the ruling said.
"But the judge did not remind jurors of that distinction."
In the decision, the court conceded that the judge had a difficult role and wasn't helped by the fact the prosecution argued its points in a way that was "sometimes confused."
Still, according to the appeals-court ruling, "his instructions (to the jury) were deficient, which necessarily had a major impact on the verdict."
Gaston, the mother of the two slain children Anne-Sophie and Olivier, fought to have the original verdict overturned. She was in the courtroom on Thursday.
"They are the persons that I always keep in mind. The persons, my love for them is a like a light that brings me to the good direction," said Gaston.
Turcotte will be back in court on Jan. 10, 2014 for the next stage in his trial unless he decides to apply for bail. Should he decide to request bail he may have an earlier court date.
-With a file from The Canadian Press
