Toforest Johnson: Major (Welcome) Development: (But he is not yet free and exonerated as he surely must be. HL); His death sentence has been commuted as Governor Ivey cites 'thin' evidence, as Eduardo Medina reports, noting that: "Mr. Johnson’s conviction largely relied on the testimony of a woman, Violet Ellison, who said during his trial that she had heard him confess to the crime during a three-way phone call. Ms. Ellison received a $5,000 reward from the state for her help. That information was not initially disclosed and was revealed to Mr. Johnson’s lawyers two decades later. His lawyers also noted that no physical evidence had ever linked him to the crime. Mr. Johnson’s lawyers say jurors never heard from witnesses who could have corroborated his whereabouts during the crime."

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Ty Alper, one of Mr. Johnson’s lawyers, said in a statement Tuesday that his team was “grateful to Governor Ivey for diligently reviewing Toforest’s case and taking action to spare an innocent man from execution.” Since the 1970s, more than 75 people have been executed in Alabama, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, which collects data on executions. Only a handful of states have had more executions in that time, including Oklahoma, Texas and Missouri. Mr. Alper said it was up to the courts to overturn Mr. Johnson’s conviction and grant him a new trial. His case is now pending in a county court. “We will keep fighting until he is home with his family,” he said."

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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "In 2014, Jeff Wallace, who was the lead prosecutor in Mr. Johnson’s case, acknowledged in a court hearing that the case against Mr. Johnson was “not very strong because it depended on the testimony of Violet Ellison,” records show. Six years later, Mr. Wallace announced his support for a new trial for Mr. Johnson. Ms. Ellison had also served as a key witness for the state in other criminal cases around the same time that Mr. Johnson’s case was pending. One resulted in an acquittal, and the other was dismissed before trial. “A thorough review and investigation of the entire case leaves no confidence in the integrity of Johnson’s conviction,” Mr. Carr wrote in a 2024 brief expressing his support for a new trial, noting that “the interest of justice” demanded it. “The foundation of this conviction has disintegrated,” he added."

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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "Mr. Johnson’s case gained national attention after becoming the subject of a popular podcast released in 2023. Danny Carr, the district attorney in Jefferson County, helped spur a re-examination of the case in 2020 when he voiced concerns about the prosecution and asked for a new trial."

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STORY: "Alabama Man’s Death Sentence Is Commuted as Governor Cites Thin Evidence," by Reporter Eduardo Medina, published by The New York Times, on October 20 2026 on October 20, 2026.  (Eduardo Medina is a Times reporter covering the South. An Alabama native, he is now based in Durham, N.C.)

SUB-HEADING: "Toforest Johnson’s conviction in the 1995 killing of a sheriff’s deputy relied on the testimony of a woman who was paid a $5,000 reward by the state for providing information.

GIST: :Gov. Kay Ivey of Alabama on Tuesday commuted the death sentence of a 53-year-old man convicted in the 1995 killing of a sheriff’s deputy, citing “not enough direct evidence to carry out the most serious punishment.”

It is the third time that Ms. Ivey, a Republican, has commuted the death sentence of a prisoner. Alabama has executed 27 prisoners since she became governor in 2017.

The man whose death sentence was commuted on Tuesday, Toforest Johnson, was convicted of capital murder in 1998 in connection with the killing of William G. Hardy, a deputy in Jefferson County, Ala., who was fatally shot while working a security job at a Birmingham hotel.

Mr. Johnson has maintained his innocence. He said he was at a nightclub on the night of the shooting in July 1995.

Mr. Johnson’s conviction largely relied on the testimony of a woman, Violet Ellison, who said during his trial that she had heard him confess to the crime during a three-way phone call. Ms. Ellison received a $5,000 reward from the state for her help. That information was not initially disclosed and was revealed to Mr. Johnson’s lawyers two decades later. His lawyers also noted that no physical evidence had ever linked him to the crime.

Mr. Johnson’s lawyers say jurors never heard from witnesses who could have corroborated his whereabouts during the crime.

Ms. Ivey said Mr. Johnson would be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

“My decision is not a determination of innocence,” Ms. Ivey said, “but a recognition that the circumstances of this case justify commuting his death sentence.”

Ms. Ivey’s decision came weeks after the botched execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee, which renewed debates about the effectiveness of lethal injections and about capital punishment.

Mr. Johnson’s case gained national attention after becoming the subject of a popular podcast released in 2023. Danny Carr, the district attorney in Jefferson County, helped spur a re-examination of the case in 2020 when he voiced concerns about the prosecution and asked for a new trial.

Steve Marshall, the attorney general of Alabama, declined to consider the request. Lawyers in the attorney general’s office wrote in 2022 that “Mr. Carr’s opinion that Johnson should receive a new trial is just that, his opinion.”

In 2024, Mr. Carr released the findings of a post-conviction review, which found several flaws in the investigation and prosecution of Mr. Johnson. For instance, credible witnesses placed Mr. Johnson elsewhere at the time of the killing, the review found, and Mr. Johnson had said he was at Tee’s Place, a nightclub across town.

In 2014, Jeff Wallace, who was the lead prosecutor in Mr. Johnson’s case, acknowledged in a court hearing that the case against Mr. Johnson was “not very strong because it depended on the testimony of Violet Ellison,” records show. Six years later, Mr. Wallace announced his support for a new trial for Mr. Johnson.

Ms. Ellison had also served as a key witness for the state in other criminal cases around the same time that Mr. Johnson’s case was pending. One resulted in an acquittal, and the other was dismissed before trial.

“A thorough review and investigation of the entire case leaves no confidence in the integrity of Johnson’s conviction,” Mr. Carr wrote in a 2024 brief expressing his support for a new trial, noting that “the interest of justice” demanded it.

“The foundation of this conviction has disintegrated,” he added.

Ty Alper, one of Mr. Johnson’s lawyers, said in a statement Tuesday that his team was “grateful to Governor Ivey for diligently reviewing Toforest’s case and taking action to spare an innocent man from execution.”

Since the 1970s, more than 75 people have been executed in Alabama, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, which collects data on executions. Only a handful of states have had more executions in that time, including Oklahoma, Texas and Missouri.

Mr. Alper said it was up to the courts to overturn Mr. Johnson’s conviction and grant him a new trial. His case is now pending in a county court.

“We will keep fighting until he is home with his family,” he said.""

The entire story can be reached at: 

https://www.google.com/?client=safari

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. 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. 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. FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."Lawyer Radha Natarajan: Executive Director: New England Innocence Project; FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true;

Devin Allen Bennett: Mississippi: Discredited Shaken Baby Syndrome, Death Row and Changing Science: A pathologist Dr. Steven Hayne and Odontologist Dr. Michael West case. (Need I say more?. HL)...Major Welcome Development: "On Wednesday, the Mississippi Supreme Court unanimously allowed him to go to the Rankin County Circuit Court to seek post-conviction relief based on what the court considered newly discovered evidence: recently undermined expert testimony in a California case. The evidence is laid out in a Sept. 14 letter from Bennett’s attorney Krissy Nobile from (sic) the state Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel. She wrote to the court about post-conviction relief granted for Jason Harley Moore, a California man who was convicted in 2014 for the death of his infant daughter from abusive head trauma, the updated term for shaken baby syndrome. “Mr. Moore, like Devin Bennett, was accused of child abuse after he sought medical care for his child,” Nobile wrote. “In both cases, the child’s condition followed a short fall from a bed, which was the explanation both men provided, and which treating doctors rejected as insufficient to explain the child’s condition.” (Justice Reporter Mina Carpuz( Mississippi Today) in story headed, "

BACKGROUND:  From a previous post on this Blog: (July 24, 2026): "Two and a half years later, a jury found Bennett guilty of capital murder and felonious child abuse and sentenced him to death. The medical examiners responsible for Brandon's autopsy—doctors Steven Hayne and Michael West, a pathologist and an odontologist who often worked together—presented evidence that the fatal injuries resulted from a kind of nonaccidental trauma that, at the time, was considered a sound medical diagnosis. Their autopsy report, written by Hayne, cited "changes consistent with concurrent shaken baby syndrome." Hayne and West reached this conclusion because the classic "shaken baby syndrome triad"—bleeding around the brain, bleeding behind the eyes, and brain swelling—were evident in Brandon. At the time, the triad was considered solid evidence of shaken baby syndrome. Bennett has been fighting to prove his innocence since 2002."

https://draft.blogger.com/blog/posts/120008354894645705?blogID=120008354894645705#allposts

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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Dr. Bonnie Woodall, the pediatrician working in the UMMC emergency room, evaluated Brandon’s injuries and ordered tests. She consulted the chairman of neurosurgery, Dr. Andrew Parent, who also examined the infant. They diagnosed the infant with shaken infant syndrome. Both doctors testified as medical experts at Bennett’s 2003 trial. Prosecutors argued he shook Brandon and threw him on the ground, relying on shaken baby syndrome and the autopsy performed by the late pathologist Dr. Steven Hayne and Dr. Michael West, a Hattiesburg dentist who billed himself as a bite mark expert. Hayne and West have been involved in a number of cases that have been overturned, including other shaken baby syndrome cases and ones with bite mark evidence.   Woodall testified that Brandon’s injuries were consistent with shaken baby syndrome, but also that bruises on the infant could have been from resuscitation and transportation. Similarly, Parent testified that shaken baby syndrome was the most likely diagnosis based on retinal hemorrhages he found in Brandon, a majority of which are associated with shaken baby syndrome. Following testimony, Bennett was convicted and sentenced to death in February 2003."

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PASAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "In appeals and post-conviction, his attorneys have argued that Bennett is “factually innocent” based on changes in scientific consensus about shaken baby syndrome and short fall injuries.  In Moore’s case in California, the court found testimony of the prosecution’s medical witnesses has since been “undermined by scientific developments since trial and, thus, constitutes false evidence[.]” In early September, the California appeals court sent his case back to the trial court for the prosecution to decide whether to re-try or release him.  That case cites how in 2020, the American Academy of Pediatrics acknowledged that “short falls can be fatal and that there is no pattern of injury unique to” abusive head trauma. "

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PASSAGE THREE OF THE DAY: "Nobile listed Moore’s case as one of nine in recent years “emphasizing the scientific unreliability of the (shaken baby syndrome) hypothesis.”  Others in Mississippi have been convicted of murder in shaken baby syndrome deaths, including Tasha Shelby, who is serving life in prison without the possibility of parole for the death of her fiance’s son, and Jeffrey Havard, sentenced to death and later resentenced to life without parole for the death of his girlfriend’s infant daughter. Some of their attorneys have raised issues with the science – or lack thereof – behind the diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome. "

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STORY: "Changing science behind shaken baby syndrome may give death row inmate a reprieve,' by Mississippi Justice Reporter  Reporter Mina Corpuz, published by Mississippi, published on October 1, 2026. (Mina Corpuz is Mississippi Today’s justice reporter, covering criminal justice, courts, and legal issues. She joined the newsroom in 2022 after reporting on public safety at the Clarion Ledger and working for several Massachusetts newspapers. Her work focuses on how systems affect incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people, crime victims, and families. Mina’s reporting has contributed to award-winning coverage of the Jackson water crisis and earned honors from the Women for Progress of Mississippi and the New England Newspaper & Press Association. She lives in Hattiesburg."

GIST: "Mississippi death row inmate Devin Allen Bennett is expected to appeal his 2003 conviction for his infant son’s death linked to shaken baby syndrome.

On Wednesday, the Mississippi Supreme Court unanimously allowed him to go to the Rankin County Circuit Court to seek post-conviction relief based on what the court considered newly discovered evidence: recently undermined expert testimony in a California case.

The evidence is laid out in a Sept. 14 letter from Bennett’s attorney Krissy Nobile from (sic)  the state Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel. She wrote to the court about post-conviction relief granted for Jason Harley Moore, a California man who was convicted in 2014 for the death of his infant daughter from abusive head trauma, the updated term for shaken baby syndrome.

“Mr. Moore, like Devin Bennett, was accused of child abuse after he sought medical care for his child,” Nobile wrote. “In both cases, the child’s condition followed a short fall from a bed, which was the explanation both men provided, and which treating doctors rejected as insufficient to explain the child’s condition.”

In August 2000, Bennett was watching his son, Brandon, who Bennett said fell from a carseat and onto the floor, hitting his head and side, according to court records. The child initially appeared stable, his father said, but his breathing later changed and stopped. Bennett told local law enforcement he tried to wake up Brandon and then took him to a hospital. From there, Brandon was transferred to the University of Mississippi Medical Center, where he died.

Dr. Bonnie Woodall, the pediatrician working in the UMMC emergency room, evaluated Brandon’s injuries and ordered tests. She consulted the chairman of neurosurgery, Dr. Andrew Parent, who also examined the infant. They diagnosed the infant with shaken infant syndrome.

Both doctors testified as medical experts at Bennett’s 2003 trial. Prosecutors argued he shook Brandon and threw him on the ground, relying on shaken baby syndrome and the autopsy performed by the late pathologist Dr. Steven Hayne and Dr. Michael West, a Hattiesburg dentist who billed himself as a bite mark expert.

Hayne and West have been involved in a number of cases that have been overturned, including other shaken baby syndrome cases and ones with bite mark evidence.

Woodall testified that Brandon’s injuries were consistent with shaken baby syndrome, but also that bruises on the infant could have been from resuscitation and transportation. Similarly, Parent testified that shaken baby syndrome was the most likely diagnosis based on retinal hemorrhages he found in Brandon, a majority of which are associated with shaken baby syndrome.

Following testimony, Bennett was convicted and sentenced to death in February 2003.

In appeals and post-conviction, his attorneys have argued that Bennett is “factually innocent” based on changes in scientific consensus about shaken baby syndrome and short fall injuries.

In Moore’s case in California, the court found testimony of the prosecution’s medical witnesses has since been “undermined by scientific developments since trial and, thus, constitutes false evidence[.]” In early September, the California appeals court sent his case back to the trial court for the prosecution to decide whether to re-try or release him.

That case cites how in 2020, the American Academy of Pediatrics acknowledged that “short falls can be fatal and that there is no pattern of injury unique to” abusive head trauma.

Nobile listed Moore’s case as one of nine in recent years “emphasizing the scientific unreliability of the (shaken baby syndrome) hypothesis.”

Others in Mississippi have been convicted of murder in shaken baby syndrome deaths, including Tasha Shelby, who is serving life in prison without the possibility of parole for the death of her fiance’s son, and Jeffrey Havard, sentenced to death and later resentenced to life without parole for the death of his girlfriend’s infant daughter. Some of their attorneys have raised issues with the science – or lack thereof – behind the diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome.

Generally, there are time limits to appealing a conviction and people can’t file additional motions raising claims that have already been decided or brought up. The state Supreme Court found exceptions in Bennett’s case when it allowed him to seek post-conviction relief in the trial court."

The entire story can be read at: 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=j&url=https%3A%2F%2Fshare.google%2FKFQcqUMvif88lXHAa&uct=1768517461&usg=EG0c7XTT7b6dxxCvYp34rVvak-A.&opi=98421741

-----------------------------------------------

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Excerpt from letter from Devin Bennett's lawyer to the court, referred to in this post. with a valuable list of  key cases emphasizing the scientific unreliability of the SBS hypothesis......... "The Moore decision is another decision in the long line of key cases recently decided, most notably in 2024, 2025, and 2026, emphasizing the scientific unreliability of the SBS hypothesis. These include:

• State v. Nieves) 302 A.3d 595 (NJ. Super. Ct. App. Div. 2023).

• State v. Butts) No. 22AP-763, 2023 WL 4883377 (Ohio Ct. App. Aug. 1, 2023).

• Ex parte Roark) 707 S.W.3d 157 (Tex. Crim. App. 2024).

• People v. Lemons, 22 N.W.3d 42, 2024 WL 3543728 (Mich.July 25, 2024).

• State v. Joshua Burns) No. 14-22070-FH, Circuit Court for the 44th Judicial Circuit,

Livingston County, State of Michigan, Order to Vacate Conviction and Dismiss Charge

(Nov. 20, 2024).

• Ex parte Robert Leslie Roberson) III; Cause No. WR-63,081-03, 2025 WL 2877824 (Tex.

Crim. App. Oct. 9, 2025).

• Smith v. State, 922 S.E.2d 6, 2025 WL 2918738 (Ga. Oct. 15, 2025) (Smith III) .

• State v. Nieves, 262 N.J. 161, 345 A.3d 1127 (Nov. 20, 2025).

• In re Moore, No. D086215 (Cal. Ct. App. Sept. 8, 2026)

Because the impact of junk science knows no jurisdictional boundary, Bennett properly

filed his petition in 2025. See Smith v. State, 922 S.E.2d 6, 16 (Ga. 2025) (" [A] prudent defendant predicating [a post-conviction] motion on scientific developments would wait until he is confident in the materiality of those developments' before presenting the new evidence to the court. "Bennett now deserves an evidentiary hearing on his post-conviction claims."

------------------------------------------------

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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. 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. 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. FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."Lawyer Radha Natarajan: Executive Director: New England Innocence Project; FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true;

Seasonal break ended: Back in action! Shaken Baby Syndrome; (Flawed Pathological Evidence); Jennifer Gaskin: Ontario: Wonderful (but long overdue) News: 'A giant leap forward.' She has been totally, unequivocally exonerated by the Ontario Court of Appeal in a decision on her 2002 manslaughter conviction which Lawyer James Lockyer (Innocence Canada) says "may be the beginning of the end of shaken baby syndrome, at least in Canada." Indeed, as the CBC Canadian Broadcasting System reports (Canadian Press Reporter Paola Loriggio), on September 29, 2026: "Jennifer Gaskin pulled her mother into a long and tearful hug after Ontario's top court found that she had been wrongfully convicted of manslaughter in the death of her 2 1/2-month-old son Joeseph based on now-discredited science. On her other side stood her daughter, with whom Gaskin was reunited a day earlier for the first time since they were separated by child welfare services a day after Joeseph's funeral. Outside the downtown Toronto courthouse, Gaskin said she finally felt free after decades branded as a monster. "Now that this is over, I'm hoping that I won't feel like people still look at me that way, because I won't look at myself that way," she said. "Now I'm just going to live my best life." Though it took a long time, the court eventually "made it right," she said."

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: Nota Bene: Here is the  link to the very important Ontario Court of Appeal decision in the Jennifer Gaskin case - which hopefully will help put an end to shaken baby syndrome prosecution in Canada - and now joins landmark decisions in other jurisdictions  (featured in this Blog) which have recognized SBS as BS! (And can be found in this Blog);  As set out at the outset of the decision: " This is another in the sad litany of cases of wrongful convictions based on the discredited “shaken baby syndrome” as the cause of a child’s death brought about, in part, by unreliable expert evidence. Although this was not one of disgraced pathologist Dr. Charles Smith’s, this case took the same flawed approach to the applicable forensic science. This court has set aside convictions in many such cases including R. v. Mullins-Johnson, 2007 ONCA 720, 87 O.R. (3d) 425; R. v. Sherret-Robinson, 2009 ONCA 886; R. v. C.M., 2010 ONCA 690; R. v. C.F., 2010 ONCA 691; R. v. Kumar, 2011 ONCA 120, 268 C.C.C. (3d) 369; R. v. Marquardt, 2011 ONCA 281; R. v. Brant, 2011 ONCA 362; R. v. Shepherd, 2016 ONCA 188; R. v. Blackett, 2018 ONCA 119; and R. v. Doyle, 2023 ONCA 427, 428 C.C.C. (3d) 293.

https://coadecisions.ontariocourts.ca/coa/coa/en/item/24514/index.do?q=%22Jennifer+Gaskin%22

Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;

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QUOTE OF THE DAY: "One of Gaskin's (Innocence Canada)  lawyers, James Lockyer, said the court referring to shaken baby syndrome as discredited science "was really a giant leap forward in the jurisprudence" and will make it easier to argue future cases on the issue. "It was an important day. It may be the beginning of the end of shaken baby syndrome, at least in Ontario, potentially in Canada," he said outside the courthouse. It took a while for Gaskin's challenge to move forward in part because her team was "waiting for the science to change," and because the experts retained to review her case were busy, Lockyer said. At one point, Gaskin moved to a different city without telling her lawyer her new address or phone number, forcing them to deploy a private investigator to find her, he said." (Jennifer Gaskin was also represented on the case by   Toronto  Lawyer Jack Gemmell. HL);

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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Gaskin's case is "another in the sad litany of cases of wrongful convictions based on the discredited 'shaken baby syndrome' as the cause of a child's death brought about, in part, by unreliable expert evidence," the Appeal Court said in its ruling. "The fresh evidence shows that Ms. Gaskin's conviction is unsustainable. She is the victim of a miscarriage of justice," Justice Peter Lauwers said. "As this court has stated in similar cases, it bears repeating that it is profoundly regrettable that, because of what has been shown to be flawed pathological evidence, Ms. Gaskin was wrongly convicted."

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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY:  'Mother a 'victim of a miscarriage of justice,' judge says.'..."Gaskin's case is "another in the sad litany of cases of wrongful convictions based on the discredited 'shaken baby syndrome' as the cause of a child's death brought about, in part, by unreliable expert evidence," the Appeal Court said in its ruling. "The fresh evidence shows that Ms. Gaskin's conviction is unsustainable. She is the victim of a miscarriage of justice," Justice Peter Lauwers said. "As this court has stated in similar cases, it bears repeating that it is profoundly regrettable that, because of what has been shown to be flawed pathological evidence, Ms. Gaskin was wrongly convicted." Gaskin's case is "another in the sad litany of cases of wrongful convictions based on the discredited 'shaken baby syndrome' as the cause of a child's death brought about, in part, by unreliable expert evidence," the Appeal Court said in its ruling."

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PASSAGE THREE OF THE DAY: "Gaskin was convicted in 2002 after two medical experts testified the child had died as a result of shaken baby syndrome. Significant concerns about that medical evidence emerged years later after a coroner's review found major flaws in the work of Dr. Charles Smith, who conducted more than 1,000 child autopsies during his tenure as the head forensic pathologist at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. Significant concerns about that medical evidence emerged after a coroner's review found major flaws in the work of Dr. Charles Smith, who conducted more than 1,000 child autopsies during his tenure as the head forensic pathologist at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. (Yan Theoret/CBC) That led the Ontario government to launch an inquiry into pediatric forensic pathology, then a review of shaken-baby cases from the mid-1980s to the mid-2000s. Joeseph's case was eventually examined by an international panel of medical experts. The panel found there was uncertainty regarding the cause of Joeseph's death and the timing of his injuries, court heard. "The fresh evidence shows that Ms. Gaskin's conviction is unsustainable. She is the victim of a miscarriage of justice," Justice Peter Lauwers said. "As this court has stated in similar cases, it bears repeating that it is profoundly regrettable that, because of what has been shown to be flawed pathological evidence, Ms. Gaskin was wrongly convicted."

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STORY: "Woman convicted of killing her baby in 2002 acquitted amid new medical research," published by The CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Association) on September 29,  2026;

SUB-HEADING: "Experts said Jennifer Gaskin's son died of shaken baby syndrome, but new research disputes finding,"

SUB-HEADING: "Jennifer Gaskin was convicted in 2002 in the death of her 2 1/2-month-old son Joeseph after two medical experts testified the child had died as a result of shaken baby syndrome. She was acquitted Tuesday amid new expert testimony."

 
GIST: "An Ontario woman sobbed in court Tuesday as she was acquitted in the death of her infant son after more than two decades labelled as his killer. 

Jennifer Gaskin pulled her mother into a long and tearful hug after Ontario's top court found that she had been wrongfully convicted of manslaughter in the death of her 2 1/2-month-old son Joeseph based on now-discredited science.

On her other side stood her daughter, with whom Gaskin was reunited a day earlier for the first time since they were separated by child welfare services a day after Joeseph's funeral.

Outside the downtown Toronto courthouse, Gaskin said she finally felt free after decades branded as a monster.

"Now that this is over, I'm hoping that I won't feel like people still look at me that way, because I won't look at myself that way," she said. "Now I'm just going to live my best life."

Though it took a long time, the court eventually "made it right," she said.

Mother a 'victim of a miscarriage of justice,' judge says

Gaskin's case is "another in the sad litany of cases of wrongful convictions based on the discredited 'shaken baby syndrome' as the cause of a child's death brought about, in part, by unreliable expert evidence," the Appeal Court said in its ruling.

"The fresh evidence shows that Ms. Gaskin's conviction is unsustainable. She is the victim of a miscarriage of justice," Justice Peter Lauwers said.

"As this court has stated in similar cases, it bears repeating that it is profoundly regrettable that, because of what has been shown to be flawed pathological evidence, Ms. Gaskin was wrongly convicted."

One of Gaskin's lawyers, James Lockyer, said the court referring to shaken baby syndrome as discredited science "was really a giant leap forward in the jurisprudence" and will make it easier to argue future cases on the issue.

"It was an important day. It may be the beginning of the end of shaken baby syndrome, at least in Ontario, potentially in Canada," he said outside the courthouse.

It took a while for Gaskin's challenge to move forward in part because her team was "waiting for the science to change," and because the experts retained to review her case were busy, Lockyer said. At one point, Gaskin moved to a different city without telling her lawyer her new address or phone number, forcing them to deploy a private investigator to find her, he said.
Shaken-baby syndrome 'junk science,' lawyer says

Lockyer said he doesn't know how many other shaken-baby cases there may be, but Innocence Canada, a national organization that aims to help clear people wrongfully convicted of crimes, is working on "more than one."

"It was a hypothesis that was used frequently in courtrooms and it wasn't properly refuted by the defence and people got convicted because of shaken baby syndrome when it never really had any validity," he said, calling it "junk science."

Gaskin was convicted in 2002 after two medical experts testified the child had died as a result of shaken baby syndrome.

Significant concerns about that medical evidence emerged years later after a coroner's review found major flaws in the work of Dr. Charles Smith, who conducted more than 1,000 child autopsies during his tenure as the head forensic pathologist at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.

Significant concerns about that medical evidence emerged after a coroner's review found major flaws in the work of Dr. Charles Smith, who conducted more than 1,000 child autopsies during his tenure as the head forensic pathologist at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. (Yan Theoret/CBC)

That led the Ontario government to launch an inquiry into pediatric forensic pathology, then a review of shaken-baby cases from the mid-1980s to the mid-2000s. Joeseph's case was eventually examined by an international panel of medical experts.

The panel found there was uncertainty regarding the cause of Joeseph's death and the timing of his injuries, court heard. His head injuries had been mischaracterized as bruising when they were in fact infarcts, or strokes, and it wasn't clear whether they had caused the boy's death, the panel found.

Gaskin's legal team later retained three more experts to look over the file.

Court heard the three experts couldn't rule out the possibility of an inflicted injury, but found Joeseph — a premature baby who spent the first two months of his life in hospital — could also have died from sudden unexpected infant death, previously known as sudden infant death syndrome.
Crown offers 'deepest sympathies' after acquittal

The Crown agreed that the new findings should be admitted as fresh evidence and Gaskin should be acquitted, offering her its "deepest sympathies."

"As of today, the original expert evidence supporting the conviction of the appellant at trial has been wholly undermined and placed in grave doubt," the Crown said in its written submissions.

"The investigation of infant death is complex, involving forensic examination and external and internal dissections — none of which were available at the time of the appellant's conviction."

Gaskin, who served 18 months of her nearly two-year sentence in prison, laid out the impact of her conviction in an affidavit that was read out in court.

"As I have always said, I did nothing to cause Joeseph's death, yet I have been branded as a killer for all these years," she said.

"I could never grieve for Joeseph properly. I lost my other two children ... I did not see them grow up and that has hurt a lot. For 20 years, I missed them and wondered how they were."

Gaskin had not yet been convicted when her children, a daughter roughly a year older than Joeseph and a son born while she was on bail, were taken by child welfare services, she said outside court Tuesday. She didn't have the chance to hold her son after he was born, she said.

They got in touch recently through social media and Gaskin met her daughter Monday at the hotel where they were both staying, she said. Her son was set to attend court as well but fell ill and had to turn back, court heard.

While nothing can make up for the time she lost with her children, Gaskin said she looks forward to bonding with them from now on.""

The entire story can be read at:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/shaken-baby-woman-disputes-conviction-9.7362079

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. 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. 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. FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."Lawyer Radha Natarajan: Executive Director: New England Innocence Project; FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true;

September 27: Jennifer Gaskin: (Ontario); Note from publisher: (Seasonal break): I am unable to report on the very important 'Jennifer Gaskin' shaken baby syndrome case (an Innocence Canada case) which will be before the Ontario Court of Appeal on Tuesday, September 29th. Courtroom 2; I expect there will be coverage on the Toronto Star, CBC, and The Globe and Mail at the links below, - and in their print versions.Back in three weeks. Harold Levy : Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.

JENNIFER GASKIN CASE: TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29: OSGOODE HALL; COURTROOM 2;

A NOTE FROM PUBLISHER HAROLD LEVY TO THE READERS OF THE CHARLES SMITH BLOG:

Dear Readers:

I have to take  a 'seasonal break' for the next three weeks, effective today;

So I will be unable to report for you on the Jennifer Gaskin case, - a very important Innocence Canada case - which is coming up in my absence on Tuesday September 29, at the Ontario Court of Appeal, in Courtroom 2.

PUBLISHER'S NOTE:

As Marco Chown Ovid reported in the Toronto Star, "Jennifer Gaskin was convicted of manslaughter after her baby, Joeseph, died and doctors said they found evidence of shaken baby syndrome. More than a decade later, Gaskin has been allowed to appeal her conviction after a review of all shaken baby deaths identified her case as one where the evidence was “of concern.”

The review of criminal convictions in Ontario involving "shaken baby" cases was a recommendation made by Justice Stephen Goudge, in his inquiry into many of disgraced pathologist Charles Smith's abominable cases.

Since I cannot be present to report on the hearing our readers should find extensive coverage of the Court of Appeal hearing on the Toronto Star, The Globe and mail and the CBC, at the links below.

Toronto Star.
https://www.thestar.com/

Globe and Mail.globeandmail.com
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

CBC...
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada

Back in three weeks!

In the meantime please continue to send me notes of interesting decisions and developments which will be of interest which are of interest to our readers."

I will catch up on my return.

Best wishes: 
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.

Marlys Edward: Publisher's Note; A tribute: A phenomenal lawyer, counsel, a fighter for the wrongfully convicted, and a very wise friend - to whom I could turn for advice during those terrifying moments in a criminal case when everything seems to be going wrong - and the subject of many posts on this Blog. In one of my favourites, Kirk Makin, then the Justice Reporter at The Globe and Mail, referred to Marlys in a story headed, "Legal Aid funding raised as a cause of wrongful convictions in Ontario where veteran lawyers are boycotting Legal Aid Plan." This prompted me to write in that post, "Not surprisingly, Marlys, who I got to know, if not to treasure, was one of those veteran lawyers - and there she was, one of the leaders in the battle to ensure that people who could not afford to pay for a lawyer would still be able to defend the criminal charges." As Kirk, author of a monumental book on the Guy Paul Morin case - a notorious Canadian miscarriage of justice - quoted Marlys in his story, "MS. EDWARDH SAID WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS MAY RESULT FROM THE GROWING IMBALANCE BETWEEN THE RESOURCES AVAILABLE TO THE CROWN AND THE DEFENCE. “I SEE THIS AS THE STRAW THAT BREAKS THE CAMEL’S BACK,” SHE SAID. “WE HAVE NOT HAD MEANINGFUL LEGAL AID REFORM. I THINK THERE ARE VOICES FROM THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL’S OFFICE THAT PERCEIVE ADEQUATELY FUNDING THE DEFENCE AS BEING PART OF A SOFT-ON-CRIME AGENDA. THIS IS MISCONCEIVED AND IT’S MISGUIDED, BUT THERE IS NO OTHER EXPLANATION.” That was Marlys. Very strong. Very powerful. So very committed. Marlys lived an extraordinary life, which that same Kirk Makin captured in a tribute to Marlys he wrote 'special' to the Globe and Mail. It is the subject of this post. (A celebration of Marlys' life was held Saturday); Harold Levy: Publisher. The Charles Smith Blog.

PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Ms. Edwardh died of cancer on July 14, leaving a legacy as a pioneering legal lioness who busted her way into the male preserve of law and became one of the most skilled criminal lawyers the country has seen."

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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "In the early 1980s, Ms. Edwardh helped mastermind Dr. Henry Morgentaler’s fight to strike down the country’s anti-abortion laws. She would also prevail in the landmark 1991 case of R. v. Swain, establishing the right of mentally ill defendants to control their own defence. She led a successful courtroom battle to end a prohibition on midwifery in Ontario and, in four highly publicized cases over the years involving nurses accused of murdering hospitalized babies under their care, she eviscerated shoddy police evidence. Charges were eventually dropped or dismissed in each of the cases."

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PASSAGE THREE OF THE DAY: "A fierce opponent of the death penalty, she regularly took on the cause of those facing execution abroad, often on a pro bono basis. She was instrumental in achieving the exoneration of Maher Arar, a Syrian national who had been deported from the U.S. with Canadian complicity as a suspected terrorist. She was similarly entrenched in correcting the notorious wrongful murder convictions of Steven Truscott and Guy Paul Morin."

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PASSAGE FOUR OF THE DAY: "Ms. Edwardh’s life partner was an ebullient Toronto forensic psychiatrist, Graham Turrall, who died in 2024. They shared a love of travel and sailing. Her calm resolve was in evidence on a flight the couple took to Muskoka, Ont., from Toronto Island. The landing gear on their small plane jammed. For three hours, as the skies emptied of other planes, they circled overhead. Ms. Edwardh located a flight manual, deduced that a hydraulic line had leaked, and took over the controls as the pilot crawled back to work on it. At her urging, he utilized wine the couple had brought as a makeshift lubricant.  It was vintage Marlys Edwardh: “There is a problem; don’t panic,” Ms. Reisler said. “Study it. Read anything available. Make informed decisions.” The plane landed safely – with Ms. Edwardh in the co-pilot’s seat – in a wall of fire retardant foam."

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STORY: "Marlys Edwardh, pioneering lawyer, helped turn wrongful convictions and make systemic changes,: Special.  to The Globe and Mail. Published on July 22, 2026

SUB-HEADING: "Marlys Edwardh holds a feather at a ceremony opening a superior court at the Wagmatcook First Nation in Cape Breton. Ms. Edwardh died of cancer on July 14.

GIST: "It would not be the most legally significant battle ever waged by Marlys Edwardh, but it surely had the most shocking result.

Late in the evening on May 24, 1987, Ms. Edwardh’s client, Kenneth Parks, drove 20 kilometres to his in-laws’ home, bludgeoned his mother-in-law to death with a tire iron, seriously injured his father-in-law and then turned himself in to the police. All the while, Ms. Edwardh contended before a Toronto jury, her client had been in a deep dream state and was unaware of his gruesome deed. A seemingly impossible defence, yet thanks to Ms. Edwardh’s peerless preparation and courtroom skills, Mr. Parks became the first person ever acquitted of murder based on a defence of sleepwalking.

In a career that spanned four decades, Ms. Edwardh pushed the legal envelope time and again. She played a pivotal role in exposing police corruption and rolling back repressive laws. She helped correct a skein of wrongful convictions and was a leader in Charter of Rights litigation in its fledgling years.

Born in Lethbridge, Alta, on March 6, 1950, Marlys Anne Edwardh’s parents – Mel and Kay Edwardh – were teachers with a passion for social justice. The family moved to Toronto when she was eight. Her father imbued in his daughter a belief that women should accept no limits on their aspirations. Her mother force-fed Ms. Edwardh books about utopian and dystopian systems, creating in her profound views of right, wrong and the perils of unbridled state power. 

Mesmerized by these duelling heaven and hells, Ms. Edwardh’s guiding light became the fearless advocacy of unpopular ideas and the role an individual can play in righting wrongs. Inquisitive, headstrong and unwilling to accept dogma of any kind, in her early adolescence she obsessively questioned the existence and nature of God. 

She dragged her father from church to church, denomination after denomination, searching for one that might supply the answers she required. Mr. Edwardh finally posed a question: “Marlys, how would you live your life differently if you knew whether God did or didn’t exist?” It was a pivotal moment. “I was finally free of the need for proof from God,” Ms. Edwardh recalled in a 2002 eulogy to her father. “The values of community, family, respect, tolerance and service made the answer to the question irrelevant.”

Above all, Ms. Edwardh loathed racism and the evils done to Indigenous people. In her father’s eulogy, Ms. Edwardh memorably described racism as “the worm that eats and destroys reason and fairness.” By the age of 12, she was attending Vietnam War protests. At 15, she and her older sister Joey marched through Selma, Ala., led by Martin Luther King Jr. 

She attended Carleton University in Ottawa, graduating in 1971. A campus firebrand, Ms. Edwardh was inexorably drawn toward a future in law. Her father queried which attracted her more – the law or justice? Decidedly, it was justice. “The search for reason, liberty and fairness was not enough,” Ms. Edwardh recalled in a speech. “The bar was to be set higher by the struggle to eradicate their enemies.”

Ms. Edwardh obtained her law degree from Osgoode Hall Law School in 1974, and was plunged into an overwhelmingly male profession. With just three other female criminal lawyers in the country, courthouses had no women’s robing rooms. Women lawyers were viewed with skepticism, if not outright disdain.

“As the faces of hundreds of men, all wearing blue suits and ties, floated through my day, I soon realized my difficulty was that they all looked the same,” she observed in a 2002 speech to the Law Society of Upper Canada. 

Ms. Edwardh articled with noted civil rights crusader Clayton Ruby and went on to be his law partner, with the two operating out of a house with creaky floors and a rabbit warren of offices in Toronto’s Yorkville district. 

Ruby and Edwardh LLP became a magnet for talented, progressive young lawyers such as Melvyn Green, a retired judge and longtime friend of Ms. Edwardh. He said she had an impeccable feel for judges and was a master of preparation: “Her submissions were well-reasoned, well-organized, clear and driven by the sincerity of her delivery. She never talked down to the bench. She treated every judge as her peer, and each of them returned the respect.”

In the early 1980s, Ms. Edwardh helped mastermind Dr. Henry Morgentaler’s fight to strike down the country’s anti-abortion laws. She would also prevail in the landmark 1991 case of R. v. Swain, establishing the right of mentally ill defendants to control their own defence. She led a successful courtroom battle to end a prohibition on midwifery in Ontario and, in four highly publicized cases over the years involving nurses accused of murdering hospitalized babies under their care, she eviscerated shoddy police evidence. Charges were eventually dropped or dismissed in each of the cases.

Ms. Edwardh also worked as commission counsel at an inquiry into political corruption involving former federal Cabinet minister Sinclair Stevens, and at the Krever inquiry into the Canadian blood system, which had been contaminated with HIV and hepatitis C virus during the 1980s. Each helped set new standards for government conduct and public health. 

She represented Donald Marshall Jr., a Mi’kmaw man, at a public inquiry into his 1971 wrongful conviction for the murder of Sandy Seale, influencing important changes to curb systemic racism. 

With the Charter of Rights on the horizon, Ms. Edwardh spent a year at University of California, Berkeley in 1982, devouring programs in political science, civil rights and constitutional law. “Human rights and civil liberties were the oxygen she breathed,” said a close friend, Susan Reisler. Ms. Edwardh fought many a case for press freedoms, but she had no interest in building a personal media profile. Her public utterances were invariably connected to clients or causes. 

A fierce opponent of the death penalty, she regularly took on the cause of those facing execution abroad, often on a pro bono basis. She was instrumental in achieving the exoneration of Maher Arar, a Syrian national who had been deported from the U.S. with Canadian complicity as a suspected terrorist. She was similarly entrenched in correcting the notorious wrongful murder convictions of Steven Truscott and Guy Paul Morin.

A dedicated mentor to female lawyers, Ms. Edwardh was equally loyal to her clients. Her steadfast support was as vital as her legal ingenuity, Mr. Morin said. “Marlys was a ray of sunshine at a dark time in my life, bringing me comfort and hope,” he said. “She was not just a fabulous lawyer, but even more, a beautiful human being.” 

Ms. Edwardh brooked no arbitrary measures. Ms. Reisler recalls an incident when Ms. Edwardh insisted on parking behind a car that Ms. Edwardh believed was occupied by security officers who had her under surveillance on account of her advocacy for foreign nationals. She was intent on out-staring them. On another occasion, a tennis club official tried to order her off the court for wearing a coloured skirt. Ms. Edwardh threatened to play in her acceptably white underwear. “Marlys was utterly uncompromising on her principles,” Ms. Reisler said.

Holocaust survivor Ted Bolgar devoted his life to education

Ms. Edwardh’s life partner was an ebullient Toronto forensic psychiatrist, Graham Turrall, who died in 2024. They shared a love of travel and sailing. Her calm resolve was in evidence on a flight the couple took to Muskoka, Ont., from Toronto Island. The landing gear on their small plane jammed. For three hours, as the skies emptied of other planes, they circled overhead. Ms. Edwardh located a flight manual, deduced that a hydraulic line had leaked, and took over the controls as the pilot crawled back to work on it. At her urging, he utilized wine the couple had brought as a makeshift lubricant. 

It was vintage Marlys Edwardh: “There is a problem; don’t panic,” Ms. Reisler said. “Study it. Read anything available. Make informed decisions.” The plane landed safely – with Ms. Edwardh in the co-pilot’s seat – in a wall of fire retardant foam.

Ms. Edwardh adored Inuit artwork, travel and cigarettes. She rarely came across a dog without stopping to share a psychic connection. She was as disarmingly direct as she was personable. In her 2002 speech to fellow lawyers, she urged them not to be “preoccupied with counting billable hours and nothing more than a hired gun for sale to the highest bidders.”

Ms. Edwardh received the Order of Canada in 2010, as well as top honours from Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, the Law Society of Ontario’s Parliament and the Criminal Lawyers Association.

She leaves her son and stepsons Kyle, David and Ryan Turrall; her sister Joey Edwardh and brother-in-law Miguel Aravena; and niece and nephews Mel, Mischa, Jason, Matthew, Leslie, Neil, Scott and Christopher. She was predeceased by her brother Grant.'

The story can be read at: 

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: "Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. 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. 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. FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."Lawyer Radha Natarajan: Executive Director: New England Innocence Project; FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!

George Pitt: New Brunswick: From our 'Enough to make one weep' department: Question of the day? After 33 years in prison, why on earth is this man still in jail? A guest post by Ethan Scaletta, who notes: "Thirty-three years after six-year-old Samantha Toole was found dead on the banks of the Saint John River, the man convicted of murdering her, George Pitt, is still in prison, still insisting he is innocent, and still, as of this past August, being told by the Parole Board of Canada that he cannot go home. His case sits at the intersection of everything the Charles Smith Blog exists to examine: a wholly circumstantial prosecution, a demonstrably indifferent initial police response, a defence lawyer with a track record of freeing the wrongly convicted, DNA evidence that excluded the accused without identifying anyone else, and a parole system that treats a maintained claim of innocence as an obstacle to release rather than a legitimate position."

PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Readers of this Blog will recognize the shape of this story, because Saint John's police force has been here before, in a case now formally acknowledged by the force itself. In January 2024, Robert Mailman and Walter Gillespie were officially acquitted of a 1983 murder after serving decades in prison; New Brunswick's Chief Justice apologized to both men for what she called a miscarriage of justice, and federal Justice Minister Arif Virani had ordered a new trial after finding evidence calling into question the fairness of their original prosecution (Global News, 2024); both have since been exonerated. An external review commissioned by Saint John's police chief later attributed the wrongful conviction to “tunnel vision,” whereby investigators fixated on a theory early and then failed to pursue alternatives (Global News, 2025; CBC News, 2025). While this is not proof of anything in the Pitt case, it is a documented, admitted pattern from the same police force, in the same era. Moreover, it is precisely the kind of context that should inform how seriously untested exhibits, unpursued alternative suspects, and a case built without a stated motive are taken decades later."

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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "Notably, the Crown never offered the jury a motive. No usable DNA, semen, or other biological match tied Pitt directly to the assault; a used condom recovered from the scene was never sent for forensic testing at the time. In addition, officers interpreted Gloria's act of inviting them in to show a photo of Samantha for identification purposes as consent to search the property and immediately began collecting evidence, despite the absence of a search warrant. Items were collected but not removed from the property until a warrant could later be obtained. It is important to note that George Pitt's name was on the mailbox and that he was actively paying rent on Gloria Toole's behalf, and that he, who had prior disputes with officers of the police force, had not given consent to search what were mostly his own belongings."

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PASSAGE THREE OF THE DAY: "Once again, this new member and George’s parole officer were adamant that he needs to take the sex offender maintenance program to be considered for day parole. This result is puzzling for several reasons. Primarily, this very same parole board had stated that an offender does not need to admit to his/her index offence to be considered for parole. This is even more absurd given that George’s index offence is in fact first-degree murder and not sexual assault. Moreover, George has never been charged with a sex offence, nor has he taken a sex offender program, so this so-called “maintenance” program requirement seems redundant.   Not surprisingly, the Parole Board of Canada denied his application, basing their decision on the following factors: 

0:Refusal of sex-offender programming; 

0:Gaps in his release plan, including the board’s assessment that a proposed half-way house placement did not, on its own, amount to an adequate plan for safe reintegration, a concern the board weighed alongside his health; 
0Unresolved risk assessments that left the board unsatisfied he could be released without presenting what it called an “undue risk to society.” 
George Pitt is 61 years old and is in poor health. He is also bound to a wheelchair."

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GUEST POST: "The Case of George Pitt: A Wrongful Conviction That Refuses to Go Away,"  by Ethan Scaletta. (Ethan Scaletta is a student volunteer with Innocence Ottawa, a volunteer organization dedicated to investigating claims of wrongful conviction in Canada. He holds an Honours Bachelor of Social Science in Criminology and has spent just over a year working on George Pitt's case, reviewing trial transcripts, case files, and evidence alongside the Innocence Ottawa team, including Johanna Wellige and Judy Chan - work that has motivated him to pursue law school and a career as a lawyer.

GIST: "Thirty-three years after six-year-old Samantha Toole was found dead on the banks of the Saint John River, the man convicted of murdering her, George Pitt, is still in prison, still insisting he is innocent, and still, as of this past August, being told by the Parole Board of Canada that he cannot go home. His case sits at the intersection of everything the Charles Smith Blog exists to examine: a wholly circumstantial prosecution, a demonstrably indifferent initial police response, a defence lawyer with a track record of freeing the wrongly convicted, DNA evidence that excluded the accused without identifying anyone else, and a parole system that treats a maintained claim of innocence as an obstacle to release rather than a legitimate position.

The Crime: October 2, 1993

Samantha Dawn Toole, a six-year-old grade-one student with brown, shoulder-length hair and blue eyes, went missing overnight from her family's Bridge Street apartment in Saint John. Her mother, Gloria Toole, had left her with a babysitter the night before and, after spending a night out of heavy drinking, discovered Samantha gone the next morning. According to George, Gloria had informed the police that Samantha was afraid of the water and avoided going near it because of what she might see or find there – a detail made more disturbing by where she was located.

The Saint John Police Department's initial response was not one of urgency as one would expect when a child goes missing. Ms. Toole had to call police four times over a span of roughly two and a half hours before a city-wide alert was issued. Given that Ms. Toole lived in a low-income, social housing neighbourhood, the police were initially dismissive of her concerns. In fact, officers of the Saint John Police Department could be heard on the dispatch radio joking about the socio-economic conditions of the area rather than treating the call with the importance it demanded.

Several hours later, approximately five hours after she had gone missing, it was a neighbour, not the police, who found Samantha's body. She was lying face-up at the water's edge, fists clenched around seaweed, her face bruised, and a wrist fractured. Police and ambulance personnel performed chest compressions on her both at the scene and en route to hospital. She was not pronounced dead at the scene but the condition she was found in, including rigidity and a bluish discoloration to her skin, suggests she may already have been dead by the time she was located. Because a forensic time of death was never conclusively established, it remains an open - and unanswered - question whether a faster police response to her mother's first calls might have made a difference.

The Investigation and the Case Against Pitt

George Pitt was the boyfriend of Samantha's mother and had actively discussed plans to adopt Samantha; to him, she was his daughter. What came as a surprise to him was that, immediately upon her going missing, police focused on him alone as responsible for her disappearance, and to them, there was nothing he could do or say that would prove his innocence. The core of the Crown's case was circumstantial:
Pitt was found doing laundry at roughly 4 a.m. the night Samantha disappeared, a load that included a comforter and bedding.
Forensic examiners found a small bloodstain, roughly one square centimetre, on a bedspread linked to that laundry load, and a separate, larger bloodstain on the comforter whose origin could not be conclusively identified at the time.
Gloria Toole gave police a series of shifting statements over the course of a week: at first saying she knew nothing, then implicating Pitt directly, then later acknowledging her account may not have matched the physical evidence at the scene.
A family friend was found to have lied to investigators about his whereabouts the night before the killing.
Pitt did not testify at his own trial, later saying he believed the Crown's case was too weak to result in a conviction.

Notably, the Crown never offered the jury a motive. No usable DNA, semen, or other biological match tied Pitt directly to the assault; a used condom recovered from the scene was never sent for forensic testing at the time. In addition, officers interpreted Gloria's act of inviting them in to show a photo of Samantha for identification purposes as consent to search the property and immediately began collecting evidence, despite the absence of a search warrant. Items were collected but not removed from the property until a warrant could later be obtained. It is important to note that George Pitt's name was on the mailbox and that he was actively paying rent on Gloria Toole's behalf, and that he, who had prior disputes with officers of the police force, had not given consent to search what were mostly his own belongings.

The 1994 Trial and Conviction

Despite there being only circumstantial evidence against George, and weak circumstantial evidence at best, George was charged with Samantha’s murder. In 1994, after a 14-day trial, where the Crown presented no evidence beyond a weak circumstantial case linking George to the crime, a jury in Saint John convicted him of first-degree murder. Under Canadian law, that conviction carried a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment with parole ineligibility for 25 years.

The Appeals: R. v. Pitt (1996)

Pitt's conviction went to the New Brunswick Court of Appeal on two fronts; both resolved in 1996. On the first appeal, R. v. Pitt (1996a), there was an application to introduce fresh evidence, including an affidavit from a trial witness that altered her earlier testimony and implicated someone else. The witness, however, subsequently recanted key portions of her own affidavit. The Court of Appeal declined to admit it, finding it failed to meet the legal threshold required for new evidence on appeal.

The second appeal, R. v. Pitt (1996b) was decided on August 22, 1996, and was Pitt's substantive appeal against conviction. He argued the trial judge had erred in several of the jury instructions: on how to weigh circumstantial evidence, on witness identification, on jury unanimity, and on inferences of “consciousness of guilt” the Crown had invited jurors to draw from Pitt's post-disappearance conduct. The Court of Appeal rejected each ground and dismissed the appeal, leaving the conviction intact.

Renewed Scrutiny: 2004–Present

The case might have ended there had it not been revived a decade later by investigative reporter Gary Dimmock of the Ottawa Citizen. In a July 2004 feature headlined “Presumed Guilty,” Dimmock reported on a previously secret Correctional Service of Canada document showing that Saint John police had continued quietly investigating the murder for months after Pitt's conviction, and that the police chief at the time reportedly suspected someone other than Pitt (Dimmock, 2004).

That reporting brought the case to the attention of Jerome Kennedy, a lawyer then affiliated with the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted (AIDWYC), now Innocence Canada, the organization associated with several well-known Canadian wrongful-conviction exonerations. Innocence Canada began working on George Pitt’s case in 2004. For several years, Jerome and other members of Innocence Canada, actively investigated George’s case, sought fresh evidence, visited George in prison several times, interviewed witnesses, visited the crime scene, and poured through trial transcripts, evidence and other documents. Jerome put together a comprehensive overview of the issues presented in George’s case, however, they were unable to find enough fresh evidence to substantiate an application for conviction review through the Criminal Conviction Review Group (CCRG) of the Department of Justice. Moreover, a group of Law students at the Faculty of Law, University of New Brunswick became involved in investigating George’s case. Under the supervision of then Professor Jula Hughes, the results of the students’ investigation helped in organizing the voluminous materials attached to the case but fell short of the fresh evidence bar. Innocence Ottawa became involved in investigating George Pitt’s case in 2023 and since that time, have continued searching through trial transcripts, and many boxes of evidence. They have attended two parole hearings for George at Dorchester Institution in New Brunswick and are hopeful that he soon sees his release - either to a half-way house, or as an innocent man.

The DNA Retesting: 2005–2006

In June 2005, the New Brunswick government agreed to have evidence from the crime scene, never previously tested, sent for up-to-date DNA analysis. This included four strands of hair recovered from Samantha's body, her nightgown, and body swabs. The results excluded Pitt. The DNA recovered from the tested items belonged only to Samantha herself, not to Pitt, and not to any other identified individual.

Who Is George Pitt? A Childhood Immersed in Institutional Failure

Regardless of George’s journey to prove his innocence, Pitt's own history is a case study in how New Brunswick's child-welfare and youth-justice systems failed a generation of vulnerable boys. Pitt was one of five children born to a father, described as violent and alcoholic. The family home burned down when George was seven. Rather than being placed in foster care, he was sent to an orphanage, where he claims to have been beaten and molested. He stopped attending school at eleven and was charged with truancy; after a second truancy charge, he was sentenced to three months in a youth facility outside Fredericton, the New Brunswick Training School at Kingsclear (Dimmock, 2005).

That single detail connects Pitt's story to one of the darkest institutional-abuse scandals in New Brunswick history. Kingsclear's guard, Karl Toft, pleaded guilty in 1992 to 34 sexual offences against boys in his care and later admitted to as many as 200 assaults spanning the 1960s to the 1980s (CBC News, 2007; The Globe and Mail, 2004). George Pitt was one of Toft's victims, raped at least fifteen times while detained there as a child (Dimmock, 2005). He has said that when he was released, he began drinking to cope, and that alcohol, drug use, overdoses, and suicide attempts followed through his adolescence and adulthood. By the time of his arrest for Samantha Toole's murder, Pitt had already been in and out of custody since the age of eleven and had lived largely on welfare (Dimmock, 2005).

George, as a result, has experienced ongoing struggles with mental health and physical harm during his incarceration for the Toole murder, struggles he attributes to what he describes as the system's refusal to seriously examine his wrongful-conviction claim.

Parole: Two Steps Back

More than three decades after Samantha Toole's death, George Pitt, now in his early sixties, applied for day parole. His first parole hearing was held in the fall of 2023. At that time, the Parole Board of Canada denied parole, but George was encouraged along the trajectory he was on, taking programs, and working toward release. However, his more recent parole hearing in June of this year was somewhat different. The first of the two sittings took place on June 19, and it seems a decision was made at headquarters prior to that hearing that George needed to take a “sex offender maintenance” program. This was a surprise to George and his supporters as he had never been accused nor convicted of a sex offence. George was adamant that he is not a child molester but was molested himself and it would be re-traumatizing for him to be forced to take such a program. He became visibly upset at this notion, and the hearing was adjourned to allow for a community assessment to be done; George was hopeful he would gain day parole and be moved to Hart House, a residential facility run by the John Howard Society.

A second hearing was scheduled for August 17th, and a different Parole Board member was present. Rather than an update, this hearing was run as an actual new hearing - repeating what was done in June. Once again, this new member and George’s parole officer were adamant that he needs to take the sex offender maintenance program to be considered for day parole. This result is puzzling for several reasons. Primarily, this very same parole board had stated that an offender does not need to admit to his/her index offence to be considered for parole. This is even more absurd given that George’s index offence is in fact first-degree murder and not sexual assault. Moreover, George has never been charged with a sex offence, nor has he taken a sex offender program, so this so-called “maintenance” program requirement seems redundant.

Not surprisingly, the Parole Board of Canada denied his application, basing their decision on the following factors:
Refusal of sex-offender programming;
Gaps in his release plan, including the board’s assessment that a proposed half-way house placement did not, on its own, amount to an adequate plan for safe reintegration, a concern the board weighed alongside his health;
Unresolved risk assessments that left the board unsatisfied he could be released without presenting what it called an “undue risk to society.”

George Pitt is 61 years old and is in poor health. He is also bound to a wheelchair. He

remains incarcerated, his conviction on the books, his innocence claim unresolved by any court, and his path to release complicated by the very fact that he continues to assert it. It seems as though the Correctional Service of Canada, along with the Parole Board of Canada is fearful of this frail, older man being released for reasons that remain unfathomable, although their basis may be found in the province’s familiar history of putting the wrong men behind bars for crimes they did not commit.

A Familiar New Brunswick Pattern

Readers of this Blog will recognize the shape of this story, because Saint John's police force has been here before, in a case now formally acknowledged by the force itself. In January 2024, Robert Mailman and Walter Gillespie were officially acquitted of a 1983 murder after serving decades in prison; New Brunswick's Chief Justice apologized to both men for what she called a miscarriage of justice, and federal Justice Minister Arif Virani had ordered a new trial after finding evidence calling into question the fairness of their original prosecution (Global News, 2024); both have since been exonerated. An external review commissioned by Saint John's police chief later attributed the wrongful conviction to “tunnel vision,” whereby investigators fixated on a theory early and then failed to pursue alternatives (Global News, 2025; CBC News, 2025).

While this is not proof of anything in the Pitt case, it is a documented, admitted pattern from the same police force, in the same era. Moreover, it is precisely the kind of context that should inform how seriously untested exhibits, unpursued alternative suspects, and a case built without a stated motive are taken decades later.

References

CBC News. (2007). Kingsclear report likely won't shed much light: Complainant. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/kingsclear-report-likely-won-t-shed-much-light-complainant-1.637813

CBC News. (2025, March 7). Exonerated New Brunswick men victims of police 'tunnel vision,' report says. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/mailman-gillespie-police-review-1.7477800

Dimmock, G. (2004, July 31). Presumed guilty. The Ottawa Citizen.

Dimmock, G. (2005, June 9). Hope at last, and a bid for freedom: Government reopens 12-year-old murder case following Citizen report. The Ottawa Citizen. http://ottawamenscentre.com/news/20050609_George_Pitt.htm

Global News. (2024, January 5). Police chief in N.B. orders review of force's involvement in wrongful murder conviction. https://globalnews.ca/news/10221852/saint-john-police-chief-mailman-gillespie-wronful-conviction-1983

Global News. (2025, March 7). 'Tunnel vision' of police blamed for wrongful murder conviction of 2 N.B. men. https://globalnews.ca/news/11070810/wrongful-murder-conviction-new-brunswick-men/amp

R. v. Pitt (G.W.), 179 N.B.R. (2d) 135 (N.B.C.A. 1996a).

R. v. Pitt (G.W.), 181 N.B.R. (2d) 126 (N.B.C.A. 1996b).

The Globe and Mail. (2004). RCMP to probe sex scandal at New Brunswick school. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/rcmp-to-probe-sex-scandal-at-new-brunswick-school/article1133098/

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. 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. 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. FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."Lawyer Radha Natarajan: Executive Director: New England Innocence Project; FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!