By Canadian Press

Quebec mother found guilty in deaths of daughters to appeal verdict

Apr 3, 2019 | 12:00 PM

MONTREAL — A Quebec mother convicted in the killings of her two young daughters will appeal the guilty verdicts.

Adele Sorella’s lawyers filed a motion today with the province’s Court of Appeal.

A jury found the 53-year-old woman guilty on March 5 on two counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of her daughters, Amanda, 9, and Sabrina, 8. The girls were found dead in the family home in Laval on March 31, 2009.

The jury rejected her defence seeking a verdict of not criminally responsible due to a mental disorder.

Sorella told the court she had little memory of the day when her daughters were found dead. And medical experts testified that Sorella experienced a dissociative episode the day of the killings.

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Sorella’s lawyers raise three arguments in support of the appeal: the guilty verdicts were unreasonable and not supported by the evidence; the rejection of the not criminally responsible defence was also unreasonable; and the trial judge erred in her instructions to the jury.

It was the second trial on the charges for Sorella. In 2013, she was found guilty of first-degree murder, but the verdict was overturned in 2017 when the Quebec Court of Appeal ruled the trial judge had erred in her instructions to the jury.

Sorella has been in custody since her conviction last month.

Sentencing arguments are scheduled for April 5 before Superior Court Justice Sophie Bourque, who presided over the trial.

A second-degree murder conviction carries an automatic life sentence with no possibility of parole for at least 10 years. Invited by the judge to offer sentencing suggestions, two jurors suggested she should be eligible for parole in 10 years while the other 10 jurors said it should be after 20 years.

The Canadian Press