TORONTO — An Ontario man accused of sending lethal substances to people who later took their own lives will be pleading not guilty to upgraded murder charges, his lawyer said Friday.
Kenneth Law was charged last month with 14 counts of second-degree murder, and his lawyer confirmed those have now all been upgraded to first-degree murder.
Law's case was set to return before a Newmarket, Ont., court on Tuesday, but defence lawyer Matthew Gourlay said that will likely not take place as scheduled since the case is now proceeding by direct indictment.
A direct indictment means there will be no preliminary inquiry, and the case will instead go directly to trial in Superior Court.
Law is also facing 14 charges of counselling and aiding suicide, to which he is also expected to plead not guilty.
Police have said all charges against Law relate to the same 14 alleged victims, who were between the ages of 16 and 36 and died in communities across Ontario.
Investigators have alleged that Law, 58, ran several websites that were used to sell sodium nitrite and other items that can be used for self-harm, shipping them to people in more than 40 countries.
They believe more than 1,200 packages were sent out globally, and about 160 were sent in Canada.
Adam Weisberg, a Toronto-area defence lawyer and vice-president of the Criminal Lawyers" Association, said it will be interesting to see what theory of liability for murder the prosecution puts forward.
"I would say that it's a completely novel application of the murder provisions to try to cover suicide-related conduct," said Weisberg, who is not involved in the case.
Establishing a causal link between Law's alleged actions and the deaths is likely to be difficult because the act was carried out by the victims on their own, he said.
Occasionally, there are cases involving drug deaths where the person who trafficked the drugs is charged, and possibly even convicted, of manslaughter on grounds that trafficking is an illegal act and there are foreseeable risks due to the dangerous nature of the substance, he said.
But the substance Law is alleged to have sold is not illegal, so it's unclear what unlawful act would be invoked if that was the prosecution's strategy, he said.
"It's going be an interesting case to watch and see what evidence may or may not exist that is grounding this theory (for murder)," he said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 26, 2024.
Paola Loriggio, The Canadian Press
