Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Romeo Phillion: Canada; A song commemorating the Canadian who was wrongly convicted of a 1967 murder and spent 31 years in prison before being exonerated on April 29, 2010, his 71st birthday - and who throughout his incarceration maintained his innocence and so never sought parole. Link to two other songs composed to protest wrongful convictions that occurred in Canada;


SONG: "Romeo" composed by  Rob Currie, a professor of law at the Schulich School of Law,  published by Dal News.

GIST: 'Romeo' conveys the story  of Romeo Phillion, a Canadian who was wrongly convicted of a 1967 murder and spent 31 years in prison before being exonerated on April 29, 2010, his 71st birthday. Throughout his incarceration, Phillion maintained his innocence and so never sought parole. “It is an appalling, complex story and a terrible tragedy, and it really hit me hard,” says Prof. Currie, who watched a W5 episode about Phillion about a decade ago. “I’ve always been interested in folk music as social commentary, and this story cried out for a song. I worked on it for years before I finally finished it.” After recording “Romeo,” Prof. Currie sent it to Toronto-based AIDWYC (The Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted), which in turn contacted Phillion, who listened to it. “He said he liked it,” says Prof. Currie, who plans to donate a portion of the royalties to AIDWYC to help raise awareness of wrongful convictions. “I hope to meet him someday. Sadly, Romeo Phillion passed away on November 2, 2015,  after spending  31 years in prison and five years on parole. Wikipedia.The entire 'Dal News' story can be found at:
http://www.dal.ca/news/2015/09/08/law-prof-pens-song-about-wrongly-convicted.html

Listen to 'Romeo at: https://soundcloud.com/rob-currie-4/5-romeo

See previous post of this Blog at the link below: Romeo Phillion: May he rest in peace. Wrongfully imprisoned for 32 years, he has died at 76. Toronto Star reporter Jacques Gallant does justice for the wrongfully convicted man with a memorable 'lead.'..."The justice system is not infallible. Romeo Phillion knew that better than most. Wrongfully convicted of murder in 1972, he would spend almost 32 years in prison — a life robbed by the failure to acknowledge what is not so surprising today: that confessions can be false; that evidence is sometimes withheld; that the courts can get it wrong."
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2015/11/romeo-phillion-may-he-rest-in-peace.html

See also a previous post of this Blog featuring songs composed to commemorate the wrongful convictions  of victims of the former doctor Charles Smith including  Maria Shepherd and Tammy Marquard. 
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2016/02/maria-shepherd-exoneration-9-broken.html

PUBLISHER'S NOTE:

I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located  near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site.

The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:

http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith

Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:

http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html

Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com

Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.