It must be a huge relief for the members of a jury when an eight-week trial ends, but even so, it's not often that half-a-dozen jurors dissolve into tears and sobs in the courtroom immediately after announcing their verdict. Yet that's exactly what happened at the end of the David and Collet Stephan trial, and it gives us an opportunity to discuss how Canada's legal system may be failing jurors.

So far at the trial, none of the prosecution's doctors has claimed that they could have definitively diagnosed meningitis from the symptoms Ezekiel exhibited at the time. None has claimed that Ezekiel could definitely have been saved, even if he had received aggressive treatment.

Serious illnesses like meningitis need be treated by someone with actual medical training.