WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS DO HAPPEN!
Canadian
High-profile cases where the courts got it wrong
The wrongful convictions
of Donald Marshall Jr., David Milgaard and Guy Paul Morin have
spotlighted what
many call the failure of the Canadian justice system. Advocates say many
convicts who were
ultimately exonerated watched their applications languish for years in
the federal review
board. On June 8, 2000, then justice minister Anne McLellan announced
plans to try to
avoid such cases from happening again. Her proposed changes, since enacted
in Section 690 of the Criminal Code of
Canada, enable the minister of justice
to use his or
her discretion to
respond to persons who believe they have
been wrongfully convicted.
Based on the
U.K. experience, the organization believes these represent a small percentage
of
actual numbers of the wrongly convicted in Canada.
Here are some of the high-profile cases:
James
Driskell
Driskell was found
guilty in 1991 of the 1990 murder of Perry Harder in Winnipeg. He was
sentenced to life
imprisonment. The RCMP said three hair samples found in Driskell's van were
Harder's, and that
evidence convicted him. Later test results from Forensic Science Services in
the U.K. found none of the hairs belonged to
Harder. Driskell was granted bail in November
2003 while the
Justice Department investigated the case. The inquiry's final report, released
Feb. 15, says the
jury in Driskell's trial was "seriously misled" on issues including
the reliability
of a key Crown witness. The report also said
the failure of the Crown to disclose information
to the defence was "careless
indifference."
Romeo
Phillion
Phillion was
sentenced in 1972 to life imprisonment for the murder of Ottawa firefighter
Leopold
Roy. In May 2003 – 30 years into Phillion's
sentence – a group of law students from York
University announced they would apply to the minister
of justice to secure Phillion's exoneration
. The group spent
four years studying the conviction. In July 2003, Phillion was released on
bail.
Thomas
Sophonow
On June 8, 2000,
Winnipeg police announced DNA evidence cleared Thomas Sophonow in
the killing of
doughnut shop clerk Barbara Stoppel. Authorities said they had a new suspect in
the 1981 murder for
which Sophonow was tried three times and spent nearly four years behind
bars. The Manitoba
Court of Appeal acquitted him in 1985. On Nov. 5, 2001, Manitoba Justice
Minister Gord
Mackintosh released a report by retired Supreme Court judge Peter Cory with 43
recommendations. Cory said Sophonow should
receive $2.6 million in government compensation
(50 per cent from
the City of Winnipeg, 40 per cent from the Manitoba government and 10 per
cent from the federal government) for his
wrongful murder conviction.
David
Milgaard
Milgaard was
sentenced in 1970 to life imprisonment for the 1969 murder of Saskatoon nursing
aide
Gail Miller. Milgaard spent 23 years in
prison. The Supreme Court of Canada set aside his conviction
in 1992. He was subsequently cleared by DNA
evidence five years later. In 1999, the Saskatchewan
government awarded Milgaard $10 million for
his wrongful conviction. In the same year, Larry Fisher
was found guilty of the rape and stabbing
death of Gail Miller.
Donald
Marshall Jr.
Marshall was
sentenced in 1971 to life imprisonment for the murder of Sandy Seale. He spent
11
years in prison before being acquitted by the
Nova Scotia Court of Appeal in 1983.
Guy Paul
Morin
Morin was sentenced
in 1992 to life imprisonment for the murder of nine-year-old Christine Jessop.
He was exonerated
in 1995 by DNA testing.
Simon
Marshall
After serving six
years in prison for crimes he didn't commit, Simon Marshall of Ste-Foy, Quebec
received the highest compensation in
provincial history. In December 2006, the Quebec government
awarded the 24-year-old $2.3 million in
compensation for his wrongful conviction on charges of
sexual assault. An inquiry also revealed
multiple breaches in police conduct during the
investigation that
led to his conviction. In 1997, Marshall was arrested and charged with 15
counts
of sexual assault. The mentally handicapped
Marshall, who was dubbed the Ste-Foy Rapist,
confessed to the
crimes, and was released in 2003. Soon after his release, Marshall was arrested
on three more
counts of sexual assault. Again, he confessed, although DNA tests eventually
showed he was not guilty. Using the same DNA evidence,
Quebec City police Chief Daniel
L'Anglais found Marshall had not committed
the crimes for which he had already served time.
It was later found
that DNA evidence first collected in the investigation that led to Marshall's
1997 conviction was never tested.
William
Mullins-Johnson
Mullins-Johnson was
convicted in the 1994 slaying of his four-year-old niece. He spent more
than 12 years in prison for first-degree
murder, partly on the now-questionable testimony of
a discredited
pathologist.
However, Crown
prosecutors called for the Sault Ste. Marie man's acquittal, which was
granted by the Ontario Court of Appeal on
Oct. 15, 2007.The Crown apologized in the
Toronto courtroom for all the hardship
caused. "I wish to extend our sincere, profound
and deepest apology to Mr. Mullins-Johnson
and to his family for the miscarriage of
justice that occurred," lawyer Michal
Fairburn said.
Steven
Truscott
In 1959, Truscott
was sentenced to be hanged at age 14 for a schoolmate's murder,
becoming Canada's youngest death-row inmate.
After the original
conviction, Steven Truscott spent four months in the shadow of the
gallows until his death sentence was commuted
to life imprisonment. Paroled in 1969,
Truscott disappeared into an anonymous
existence in a southern Ontario city.
On
Aug. 28, 2007 — 48
years later — the Ontario Court of Appeal unanimously
overturned
Truscott's conviction and acquitted him, declaring the case "a miscarriage
of justice"
that "must be quashed." The
judges went on to say, however, that "the court
is not satisfied that the appellant has been
able to demonstrate his factual innocence."
In July 2008, the
Ontario government announced it would pay Truscott $6.5 million in
compensation for his ordeal.
Erin Walsh
It took a jury just
one hour to find Walsh guilty of the 1975 second-degree murder of
Melvin (Chi Chi)
Peters in Saint John, N.B. The prosecution saw it as an open-and-shut
case and Walsh received a life sentence with
no parole before 10 years. Walsh's appeals
to the New Brunswick Court of Appeal were
dismissed in July and November 1982. But
in December 2006, his lawyers sought a review
of the murder conviction from the federal
government after new evidence came to light.
In February 2008, Minister of Justice Rob
Nicholson ordered a
review of the murder conviction because of the new evidence,
suggesting a
miscarriage of justice likely occurred. A month later, the New Brunswick
Court of Appeal
acquitted Walsh of the crime and overturned his conviction. Walsh, a
native of Ontario
who had maintained his innocence for more than 32 years, was dying
of colon cancer and
wanted his name cleared.
Anthony
Hanemaayer
In 1987, Hanemaayer
was charged with assault in connection with a knifepoint attack on
a 15-year-old girl.
The Toronto resident pleaded guilty part way through his trial and was
sentenced to two years less a day in jail.
Hanemaayer said in a later interview with CBC
News that he
accepted a plea bargain on the advice of his then-lawyer, who warned he
could receive a long prison sentence. In 2006, convicted murderer and rapist Paul
Bernardo confessed
to the crime during a jailhouse interview. The Association in Defence
of the Wrongly Convicted learned of the
confession and took up the case. Hanemaayer,
now 40 and living in London, Ont., took his
case to the Ontario Court of Appeal and
was acquitted on June 25, 2008