None of alleged trial errors raised by Rafferty on appeal occurred: Appeal Court
TORONTO — Ontario’s top court rejected all the arguments raised on appeal by the man who killed eight-year-old Victoria Stafford, ruling that the performance of the trial judge who handled the original case was “exemplary.”
The detailed written ruling released on Wednesday came just over a week after the Court of Appeal for Ontario orally dismissed Michael Rafferty’s appeal on the day it was argued in Toronto.
“The trial judge made none of the errors that the appellant has raised. On the contrary, his handling of a difficult trial was, in our view, exemplary,” the court wrote in the ruling laying out its reasons for dismissing the appeal.
Rafferty was sentenced to life in prison in 2012 in the kidnapping, sexual assault and first-degree murder of the Woodstock, Ont., girl.