REGINA -- Saskatchewan's highest court has rejected an appeal from a man convicted of killing his wife.
David Woods of Saskatoon went to the Appeal Court after jurors convicted him in 2014 of first-degree murder in the death of Dorothy Woods.
She disappeared in November 2011 and her body was discovered nearly two months later in a culvert near Blackstrap Lake, a 40-minute drive south of Saskatoon.
Woods's lawyer James Streeton said Friday that he raised issues during an Appeal Court hearing last fall that should have led to a new trial or a second-degree murder decision.
He argued Woods's trial lawyer was ineffective and the judge erred in instructing the jury about text messages entered as evidence.
Streeton said the trial lawyer didn't provide an opening statement or effectively cross-examine the Crown's witnesses.
In the Appeal Court's unanimous decision, Justice Peter Whitmore wrote that the proposed errors of the defence lawyer were weighed against the large amount of incriminating evidence.
"The actions and inactions of trial counsel did not prejudice the appellant," Whitmore said.
"There was no miscarriage of justice."
Streeton said Woods is disappointed by the decision and is considering his options. Woods was given the automatic sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.
The trial heard the husband and wife were both having affairs and that Dorothy Woods wanted out of the marriage.
Jurors were told the men she was having affairs with received threatening text messages sent from her phone in the days following her disappearance. Court heard it was probable that Woods would have had access to his wife's phone.
Crown prosecutor Dean Sinclair told the Appeal Court the couple's relationship was strained and became worse when Woods discovered she had been sleeping with a black man and realized breaking up would have destroyed his finances.
