DLM
01-26-2005, 07:53 AM
Police, Crowns target wrongful convictions
TRACEY TYLER
Tor.Star LEGAL AFFAIRS REPORTER
Stung by a string of high-profile wrongful convictions that have eroded confidence in Canada's justice system and shattered the lives of innocent people, prosecutors and police across the country are mounting an effort to prevent miscarriages of justice.
Meeting in Ottawa yesterday, Canada's federal, provincial and territorial justice ministers released a comprehensive report on how to combat the problem. A group of senior prosecutors and police chiefs are behind the report, which calls for "a change in attitude" among all players in the justice system.
The report cites problems that arise "time and time again" in cases of wrongful conviction: police tunnel vision, mistaken eyewitness identification, the use of jailhouse informants and misleading testimony or incompetence on the part of forensic scientists.
But it also suggests dramatic new approaches, such as vigorous prosecution of jailhouse informants who give false testimony, and even a suggestion that prosecutors bear some responsibility if they see an accused person is not receiving an adequate defence.
The report also recommends setting up a system that would allow defence lawyers to have DNA evidence tested independently from government labs — which work mainly for the prosecution.
Federal Justice Minister Irwin Cotler hailed the "landmark" report, promising it will have an impact not only in Canada, but around the world.
The job of putting the report into action has now been handed to a permanent group of senior prosecutors across the country.
Each province has already started to review policies and practices in light of the recommendations, said Daniel Bellemare and Rob Finlayson, co-chairs of the working group that produced the report.
The group was established two years ago after an inquiry into the case of Thomas Sophonow, who was tried three times in Manitoba for a 1981 murder he didn't commit.
Yesterday's report was released almost 10 years to the day Guy Paul Morin walked out of the Ontario Court of Appeal an innocent man. Morin, tried twice and wrongly convicted for the 1984 murder of 9-year-old Christine Jessop, was exonerated by DNA evidence and acquitted in 1995.
It also comes as the Ontario appeal court prepares for a rehearing of the Steven Truscott case. Truscott, now 60, was convicted of the rape-murder of 12-year-old Lynne Harper of Clinton, Ont. in 1959.
An inquiry into three wrongful convictions in Newfoundland is also underway.
As useful as inquiries may be, they usually come many years after the fact and the goal of those working in the justice system should be preventing wrongful convictions in the first place, the report says.
What is "startling" however, it says, is that "some problems, themes and mistakes arise time and time again."
The problems can be traced to the conduct of police, Crown attorneys, defence lawyers, judges and forensic and, often, mind-set has a lot to do with it, it says.
Lawyer James Lockyer, who has represented numerous wrongly convicted Canadians, called yesterday's report a giant step in the right direction."
Lockyer said he hopes the report will be studied in particular by Ontario prosecutors, who he said have been "extremely" resistant to the notion that any innocent person might have been imprisoned wrongly.
"Far too often, they fight every suggestion of a wrongful conviction as if the very existence of institutions is at stake," he said. "It's very depressing."
The report also recommends what would amount to some drastic policy changes, if implemented.
For example, it suggests that jailhouse informants who give false testimony should be "vigorously and diligently prosecuted" in order to deter like-minded inmates from coming forward and ruining other lives.
The Crown's case against Morin was based heavily on the testimony of two jailhouse snitches — Robert Dean May and a man known only as Mr. X. Neither was ever charged with perjury.
The report also makes the unusual suggestion that guidelines should perhaps be developed to tell Crown attorneys what their responsibilities should be if they suspect an accused person is not being effectively represented by a defence lawyer at trial.
It also calls for several educational measures, including an Internet-based resource centre carrying information about how to prevent miscarriages of justice and a regular newsletter about wrongful convictions.
The report calls for police and prosecutors to convene a national forum where, among other things, representatives of both the Crown and defence could come and hear the wrongly convicted tell their stories.
Plans for such a forum are already underway, a justice department official said yesterday.
It is expected to take place in Manitoba in the fall.
Edgar MacLeod, chief of the Cape Breton Regional Police Service and president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, welcomed the report, saying in a statement that his association takes the issue of wrongful convictions "very seriously."
"The many police services we represent are committed to doing their part to prevent any future miscarriage of justice," said MacLeod, whose base is home to the infamous case of Donald Marshall, wrongly convicted of murder in 1971.
Michael Bryant, Ontario's attorney general, said justice ministers "have a consensus on the desire to pursue the report further."
He also pointed to work already under way in Ontario.
"As a result of recommendations from the Morin inquiry ... we in Ontario have implemented at the level of law enforcement, at the level of prosecution and through the courts, improvements to learn lessons of the past," Bryant said.
Speaking yesterday from Saskatoon, where an inquiry into David Milgaard's wrongful conviction for the 1969 rape and murder of a nursing student got underway this month, Lockyer pointed to a drawback of the report — it is silent about uncovering victims of miscarriages of justice who are sitting in jail.
There should, for example, be a national study undertaken of all homicide cases from the past 20 years which have been largely dependent on testimony from jailhouse informants, he said.
With files from Bruce Campion-Smith
TRACEY TYLER
Tor.Star LEGAL AFFAIRS REPORTER
Stung by a string of high-profile wrongful convictions that have eroded confidence in Canada's justice system and shattered the lives of innocent people, prosecutors and police across the country are mounting an effort to prevent miscarriages of justice.
Meeting in Ottawa yesterday, Canada's federal, provincial and territorial justice ministers released a comprehensive report on how to combat the problem. A group of senior prosecutors and police chiefs are behind the report, which calls for "a change in attitude" among all players in the justice system.
The report cites problems that arise "time and time again" in cases of wrongful conviction: police tunnel vision, mistaken eyewitness identification, the use of jailhouse informants and misleading testimony or incompetence on the part of forensic scientists.
But it also suggests dramatic new approaches, such as vigorous prosecution of jailhouse informants who give false testimony, and even a suggestion that prosecutors bear some responsibility if they see an accused person is not receiving an adequate defence.
The report also recommends setting up a system that would allow defence lawyers to have DNA evidence tested independently from government labs — which work mainly for the prosecution.
Federal Justice Minister Irwin Cotler hailed the "landmark" report, promising it will have an impact not only in Canada, but around the world.
The job of putting the report into action has now been handed to a permanent group of senior prosecutors across the country.
Each province has already started to review policies and practices in light of the recommendations, said Daniel Bellemare and Rob Finlayson, co-chairs of the working group that produced the report.
The group was established two years ago after an inquiry into the case of Thomas Sophonow, who was tried three times in Manitoba for a 1981 murder he didn't commit.
Yesterday's report was released almost 10 years to the day Guy Paul Morin walked out of the Ontario Court of Appeal an innocent man. Morin, tried twice and wrongly convicted for the 1984 murder of 9-year-old Christine Jessop, was exonerated by DNA evidence and acquitted in 1995.
It also comes as the Ontario appeal court prepares for a rehearing of the Steven Truscott case. Truscott, now 60, was convicted of the rape-murder of 12-year-old Lynne Harper of Clinton, Ont. in 1959.
An inquiry into three wrongful convictions in Newfoundland is also underway.
As useful as inquiries may be, they usually come many years after the fact and the goal of those working in the justice system should be preventing wrongful convictions in the first place, the report says.
What is "startling" however, it says, is that "some problems, themes and mistakes arise time and time again."
The problems can be traced to the conduct of police, Crown attorneys, defence lawyers, judges and forensic and, often, mind-set has a lot to do with it, it says.
Lawyer James Lockyer, who has represented numerous wrongly convicted Canadians, called yesterday's report a giant step in the right direction."
Lockyer said he hopes the report will be studied in particular by Ontario prosecutors, who he said have been "extremely" resistant to the notion that any innocent person might have been imprisoned wrongly.
"Far too often, they fight every suggestion of a wrongful conviction as if the very existence of institutions is at stake," he said. "It's very depressing."
The report also recommends what would amount to some drastic policy changes, if implemented.
For example, it suggests that jailhouse informants who give false testimony should be "vigorously and diligently prosecuted" in order to deter like-minded inmates from coming forward and ruining other lives.
The Crown's case against Morin was based heavily on the testimony of two jailhouse snitches — Robert Dean May and a man known only as Mr. X. Neither was ever charged with perjury.
The report also makes the unusual suggestion that guidelines should perhaps be developed to tell Crown attorneys what their responsibilities should be if they suspect an accused person is not being effectively represented by a defence lawyer at trial.
It also calls for several educational measures, including an Internet-based resource centre carrying information about how to prevent miscarriages of justice and a regular newsletter about wrongful convictions.
The report calls for police and prosecutors to convene a national forum where, among other things, representatives of both the Crown and defence could come and hear the wrongly convicted tell their stories.
Plans for such a forum are already underway, a justice department official said yesterday.
It is expected to take place in Manitoba in the fall.
Edgar MacLeod, chief of the Cape Breton Regional Police Service and president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, welcomed the report, saying in a statement that his association takes the issue of wrongful convictions "very seriously."
"The many police services we represent are committed to doing their part to prevent any future miscarriage of justice," said MacLeod, whose base is home to the infamous case of Donald Marshall, wrongly convicted of murder in 1971.
Michael Bryant, Ontario's attorney general, said justice ministers "have a consensus on the desire to pursue the report further."
He also pointed to work already under way in Ontario.
"As a result of recommendations from the Morin inquiry ... we in Ontario have implemented at the level of law enforcement, at the level of prosecution and through the courts, improvements to learn lessons of the past," Bryant said.
Speaking yesterday from Saskatoon, where an inquiry into David Milgaard's wrongful conviction for the 1969 rape and murder of a nursing student got underway this month, Lockyer pointed to a drawback of the report — it is silent about uncovering victims of miscarriages of justice who are sitting in jail.
There should, for example, be a national study undertaken of all homicide cases from the past 20 years which have been largely dependent on testimony from jailhouse informants, he said.
With files from Bruce Campion-Smith