VANCOUVER– The B.C. Appeal Court has ordered a third trial for a woman twice convicted in the shooting death of her estranged husband.
Darlene Young is accused of shooting Frederick James Payton at his Falkland, B.C., home the evening of March 29, 2002.
At her second trial, which ended in January 2006, Young pleaded self-defence, saying she suffered from "battered woman syndrome" and that her husband verbally and physically threatened her during the couple's tumultuous nine-month marriage.
Young told the court that she shot her husband after he'd called her from a bar to say he was going to kill her.
Appeal Court Justice Kenneth Smith says the trial judge erred when he told jurors to focus on whether Payton was actually getting out of his kitchen chair to lunge at Young after the threat, instead of focusing on the couple's previous relationship.
Besides the second-degree murder convictions, Young has also twice been convicted of the attempted murder of her husband's friend, Donald Joseph Stewart, who was shot in right leg, right foot and left buttock. She's abandoned her appeal of that ruling.