Wednesday, March 22, 2023

(Part 2): Sorely flawed pathologist Charles Smith: (The namesake of this Blog): The damage he has wrought in innocent people's lives, and Ontario's criminal justice system, is well reflected in Canada's new Registry of Wrongful Convictions, as is evident from my friend and former Toronto Star colleague Jim Rankin, one of Canada's finest criminal justice reporters - in a story headed, "Canadian registry of wrongful convictions shines light on cases the headlines miss."... "A first-ever comprehensive Canadian registry of wrongful convictions shows 18 per cent of remedied cases were due to false guilty pleas and a third of all cases involved “imagined” crimes that never happened. Many of these cases involved disgraced former Ontario pathologist Charles Smith, known for “thinking dirty” about child abuse."..."Maria Shepherd was wrongfully convicted in a case where she entered a false guilty plea to manslaughter in the 1991 death of her 3-year-old stepdaughter on the advice of a lawyer, who advised that now-disgraced coroner Charles Smith’s evidence was solid and could land her more time in jail. She lauds the launch of the Canadian registry. “I’m happy and very grateful to the study group that has been able to bring these numbers together,” said Shepherd, who was finally acquitted in 2016 when the Crown pointed to new evidence that Smith’s opinion and testimony was “fundamentally flawed.” “It is long overdue that our system here in Canada keeps track of this to see where are we going wrong,” said Shepherd, who is a paralegal and advocate on wrongful conviction cases, and called the proportion of imaginary crimes and false guilty pleas “shocking.” “It’s really nice to know that exonerees will be able to not only get recognized on this registry, but that somebody like me, a Canadian that’s been acquitted and looking for statistics, can actually go somewhere now to look at it and not feel like we’re alone because all of these years we really didn’t have something to fall back on that was reliable.”


PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "The degree of “imagined crimes” cases — often due to “dirty thinking” by expert witnesses — is “staggering,” said Voss, who along with Stirling studied law at the University of Toronto, where Carling and Roach co-taught a course on wrongful convictions, and Roach continues to lead."

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

Story: "Canadian registry of wrongful convictions shines light on cases the headlines miss," by Staff Reporter Jim Rankin, published by The Toronto Star, on February 20, 2023. (Jim Rankin, my friend and former Toronto Star colleague, is a reporter-photographer on the crime, courts and justice team. He has won three National Newspaper Awards and been nominated for eight others. In 2002, he led a team of reporters, editors and researchers involved in a Michener Award-winning investigative series into race, policing and crime in Toronto. He is also the recipient of a Canadian Association of Journalists Award and the St. Clair Balfour Fellowship from the Canadian Journalism Foundation.)

SUB-HEADING: "The registry shows a significant number of cases were due to false guilty pleas and “imagined” crimes or “dirty thinking,” such as the victims of disgraced coroner Dr. Charles Smith. Also, the number of Indigenous people wrongfully convicted represent roughly one in five of the documented cases."


GIST: A first-ever comprehensive Canadian registry of wrongful convictions shows 18 per cent of remedied cases were due to false guilty pleas and a third of all cases involved “imagined” crimes that never happened. Many of these cases involved disgraced former Ontario pathologist Charles Smith, known for “thinking dirty” about child abuse.


Another takeaway is the number of Indigenous people wrongfully convicted. They represent roughly one in five of 83 documented cases, which are only the “tip of the iceberg” of wrongful conviction cases that go unreported and occur on a daily basis in courtrooms across the country.


The Canadian Registry of Wrongful Convictions is five years in the making, the brainchild of University of Toronto legal scholar Kent Roach and Métis lawyer Amanda Carling, and inspired by the U.S. National Registry of Exonerations, which has documented more than 3,000 cases.


Like the U.S. registry, the Canadian registry does not attempt to measure “factual innocence” but records cases where the legal system admits its mistakes, often by admitting new evidence after a trial or a guilty plea.


The Canadian registry steps deeply beyond DNA “whodunnit” exoneration cases, which most commonly come to mind in the public’s eye when thinking of wrongful convictions — think Guy Paul Morin and David Milgaard — and into areas like bad science, dubious police techniques and people who have committed no crime whatsoever but plead guilty, often to avoid a potentially more punitive outcome or due to cultural differences.


The registry, which is now live and includes case summaries and a timeline of wrongful convictions and injustices dating back to the hanging of Louis Riel, most importantly publicly shares an analysis of up to 140 data points related to the cases, including the factors that led to wrongful convictions.


Of the 83 documented cases, 28 — or 34 per cent — involved no crime actually taking place. In 15 — or 18 per cent — of cases, a false guilty plea was a factor. The findings nearly mirror those of the U.S. registry.


For Roach and Carling — and law school graduates Joel Voss and Jessie Stirling who worked to bring the registry to life — these findings plus the overrepresentation of Indigenous people are profound, and speak to what was previously known anecdotally, and through data on the overrepresentation of Black and Indigenous people in prisons.


“We don’t in any way claim that this is the definitive sample,” Roach said. “I mean, it’s a tip of the iceberg and we’re never going to know how big the iceberg gets — but there’s nothing like counting it up to say, ‘Holy crap,’ right?”


The degree of “imagined crimes” cases — often due to “dirty thinking” by expert witnesses — is “staggering,” said Voss, who along with Stirling studied law at the University of Toronto, where Carling and Roach co-taught a course on wrongful convictions, and Roach continues to lead. (Full disclosure: I was involved in early planning on the registry while on an academic leave, and audited Carling and Roach’s course.)

Carling and Roach, who has written a book on wrongful convictions due out this spring, hope the registry will not only inform lawyers, Crown attorneys and law students, but be taught in high schools. They want it to educate the public at large about a long-standing problem that goes well beyond the high-profile cases most often highlighted by the media — of mostly white men — who were able to navigate the long path to exoneration.

As The Tragically Hip noted, in the band’s song “Wheat Kings” about Milgaard’s wrongful conviction, they’re “nothing new,” notes Roach.


 But, in time, the DNA “whodunnit” wrongful conviction exonerations the public is so familiar with will dry up, and the challenge will be to keep the spotlight on the vast number of other kinds of wrongful conviction cases.


“That’s a challenge to educate the public because the public has gotten used to the clear-cut DNA, wrong perpetrator case,” said Roach. “What I hope that the registry can contribute is educating the public about, frankly, the more intractable wrongful convictions with false guilty pleas and crimes that never happened.”


Maria Shepherd was wrongfully convicted in a case where she entered a false guilty plea to manslaughter in the 1991 death of her 3-year-old stepdaughter on the advice of a lawyer, who advised that now-disgraced coroner Charles Smith’s evidence was solid and could land her more time in jail. She lauds the launch of the Canadian registry.


“I’m happy and very grateful to the study group that has been able to bring these numbers together,” said Shepherd, who was finally acquitted in 2016 when the Crown pointed to new evidence that Smith’s opinion and testimony was “fundamentally flawed.”


“It is long overdue that our system here in Canada keeps track of this to see where are we going wrong,” said Shepherd, who is a paralegal and advocate on wrongful conviction cases, and called the proportion of imaginary crimes and false guilty pleas “shocking.”


“It’s really nice to know that exonerees will be able to not only get recognized on this registry, but that somebody like me, a Canadian that’s been acquitted and looking for statistics, can actually go somewhere now to look at it and not feel like we’re alone because all of these years we really didn’t have something to fall back on that was reliable.”


Indeed, the registry, funded initially by a grant from the Bennett Family Foundation, is intended to be a living and expanding home to wrongful conviction cases, and invites users to send information about new cases or on the documented cases.


It was also important to build the registry with an Indigenous foundation in mind, said Carling, who articled with Innocence Canada, which was formerly known as the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted.


 There, she saw how much work was required to take on wrongful conviction cases, and by then had decided she wanted to spend her legal career “ameliorating the criminal justice system for First Nations people.”


The site features work by Moe Butterfly — a mixed Seneca, Two-Spirit artist currently residing on Susquehannock land. There are also pages highlighting issues faced by Indigenous women and men, the former making up about 50 per cent of incarcerated females in Canada and the latter more than 30 per cent of all male prison admissions.


Given those huge over-representations in jails — the general Indigenous population in Canada is 3 per cent — the much lower over-representation of Indigenous cases in the registry is most definitely still an undercount and speaks in part to which cases got attention over the years, and which did not.


Early on in her advocacy work, Carling found herself speaking to Indigenous audiences about the cases of white people and with no Canadian Indigenous data to tie anything to. That is, other than the one that started things off, the wrongful conviction of Donald Marshall Jr, which came with a judicial recognition that these things happened to Indigenous people in part because they are Indigenous. Marshall Jr. spent 11 years in prison for a murder he did not commit.


“And then everybody just kind of didn’t talk about that” and the wrongful conviction cases that did get attention where mostly white middle-class people and not the most vulnerable, said Carling, who approached the registry project with that gap in mind.


That’s where the storytelling comes in.


“One thing most Indigenous communities share internationally is that we’re storytellers,” said Carling, who serves as the first CEO for the BC First Nations Justice Council. “That’s what this registry does. It tells stories of the people who have been victimized by the Canadian criminal justice system.” For example, those of Connie Oakes and Clayton Boucher, both Indigenous people who were wrongfully convicted, and cleared when new evidence came to light.


Raw data from the registry can be downloaded, and like the US registry, provides graphs and charts to make the data digestible. For Stirling, who is a Kwakwaka’wakw woman of the Wei Wai Kum First Nation in Campbell River, B.C., the data visualizations in particular have made it the “tool we’d always hoped it would be.”


The launch of the registry comes as federal Justice Minister David Lametti just recently introduced long-anticipated legislation to create an independent Canadian commission to review and investigate claims of wrongful convictions, potentially making the path to clearing up miscarriages of justice both quicker and lowering the threshold for retrial or appeal.



The entire story can be read at: 


https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2023/02/20/canadian-registry-of-wrongful-convictions-shines-light-on-cases-the-headlines-miss.html#:~:text=A%20first-ever%20comprehensive%20Canadian%20registry%20of%20wrongful%20convictions,Smith%2C%20known%20for%20“thinking%20dirty”%20about%20child%20abuse.


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. 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;

SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:


https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985


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!


Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;


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


YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:


David Hammond, one of Broadwater’s attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, “Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it’s the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.


https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-1234880143/


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

Jailhouse Informants: Olin "Pete" Coones bill: Earlier this month, the Kansas State House overwhelmingly passed a bill that would require Kansas prosecutors to disclose information to defendants about so-called “jailhouse informants - a move strongly supported by The Kansas City Star in a powerful editorial..."The bill now goes to the state Senate. Unfortunately, final passage is far from assured. Last year, a similar bill passed the Kansas House with unanimous backing — only to die in the Legislature’s upper chamber. Advocates aren’t quite sure what will happen this time around. “What we’ve seen is that the will to pass this continues in the House,” Bushnell said. “We’re hopeful the Senate will take it up and hear it.” We share that hope — and find it unlikely that Coones is the only Kansan wrongly imprisoned using the testimony of a jailhouse informant. The Star’s Luke Nozicka reported that it has happened at least 10 times in Missouri in recent years, including with the recently-released Lamar Johnson. And a recent study by the University of Notre Dame uncovered more than 200 such wrongful convictions across the country. “Regardless of their obvious conflicts of interest, jailhouse informants are extremely effective in persuading jurors to convict,” the study found. The Kansas bill would simply arm defendants with knowledge of those conflicts. Pete Coones and his family can’t ever recover the 12 years he spent in prison. But it’s not too late to better ensure justice for future defendants."


PUBLISHER'S NOTE: What do police informants have to do with forensic science? (I'm glad you asked). Investigative  Reporter Pamela Colloff give us  a clue when she writes - at the link below -  "I’ve wanted to write about jailhouse informants for a long time because they often appear in troubled cases in which the other evidence is weak." That's my experience as  will as a criminal lawyer and an observer of criminal justice. Given the reality that jurors - thanks to the CSI effect - are becoming more and more insistent on the need for there to be forensic evidence, it is becoming more and more common for police to rely on shady tactics such as use of police snitches, staging lineups, coercing, inducing, or creating false confessions out of thin air, procuring false eyewitness testimony or concealing exculpatory evidence. "
Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
-----------------------------------------------------------------

PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Jailhouse informants have obvious incentives to testify. And sometimes those incentives lead them to stretch the truth, or even lie outright.  That’s what happened to Olin “Pete” Coones Jr., for whom the new bill is named.  Coones, a retired mail carrier and father of five, spent 12 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of murder following the 2008 deaths of Kathleen and Carl Schroll in Wyandotte County.  Prosecutors produced no physical evidence or witnesses tying Coones to the deaths. But they did offer the testimony of a jailhouse informant who had a history of mental illness and dishonesty — and who testified that Coones had confessed the crimes to him in the cell they shared while awaiting trial.  A dozen years later, authorities determined that Kathleen Schroll actually had committed a murder-suicide — and that Coones had been railroaded by the prosecution."

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

EDITORIAL: "Kansas bill would give context about jailhouse informants," by The Kansas City  Star Editorial  Board,  published on March 3, 2023.

PHOTO CAPTION: "Olin “Pete” Coones was wrongly imprisoned for 12 years based on false testimony from someone with a history of mental illness and dishonesty. 

GIST: "In an era when crime issues are often played for partisan advantage, it’s rare to see Republicans and Democrats come together in the cause of keeping innocent people out of prison. 

That just happened in the Kansas House. Soon, we hope, the state Senate will repeat the accomplishment.

 State House legislators last week overwhelmingly passed a bill that would require Kansas prosecutors to disclose information to defendants about so-called “jailhouse informants.” 

Those are folks who sometimes testify against defendants at criminal trials — usually with information obtained while both the witness and defendant were imprisoned together, and generally with the expectation the informant will see his or her own punishment reduced. 

Jailhouse informants have obvious incentives to testify. And sometimes those incentives lead them to stretch the truth, or even lie outright. 

That’s what happened to Olin “Pete” Coones Jr., for whom the new bill is named. 

Coones, a retired mail carrier and father of five, spent 12 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of murder following the 2008 deaths of Kathleen and Carl Schroll in Wyandotte County. 

Prosecutors produced no physical evidence or witnesses tying Coones to the deaths.

 But they did offer the testimony of a jailhouse informant who had a history of mental illness and dishonesty — and who testified that Coones had confessed the crimes to him in the cell they shared while awaiting trial. 

A dozen years later, authorities determined that Kathleen Schroll actually had committed a murder-suicide — and that Coones had been railroaded by the prosecution. 

He was exonerated and released from prison at the end of 2020. Just three months later, he died of cancer at age 64.

Before he died, though, Coones called on lawmakers to make the informant process more transparent.

The Kansas House bill would do that by requiring prosecutors to disclose the agreements they make with informants, as well as informants’ criminal history — and their history of acting as informants in other cases. 

Testimony from informants wouldn’t be prohibited, but defendants and juries would have a better picture of why and how those informants ended up on the stand. 

The bill is “just saying we think only reliable testimony should be used to convict people,” said Tricia Rojo Bushnell, executive director of the Midwest Innocence Project. 

What might be most remarkable about the bill, though, is the support it has received from a wide array of advocacy organizations.

 The Midwest Innocence Project and the Kansas Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers are both backing it, as might be expected, but so is the conservative Americans for Prosperity and a victims’ advocacy organization, the Kansas Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence. 

 “It’s just generally considered noncontroversial to believe innocent people shouldn’t be in prison,” Bushnell said. “It’s pretty easy for people to want to come to that table.” 

That broad backing produced overwhelming support in the Kansas House, which voted 117-4 in favor. 

The bill now goes to the state Senate. Unfortunately, final passage is far from assured. Last year, a similar bill passed the Kansas House with unanimous backing — only to die in the Legislature’s upper chamber. 

Advocates aren’t quite sure what will happen this time around.

 “What we’ve seen is that the will to pass this continues in the House,” Bushnell said. “We’re hopeful the Senate will take it up and hear it.” 

We share that hope — and find it unlikely that Coones is the only Kansan wrongly imprisoned using the testimony of a jailhouse informant. 

The Star’s Luke Nozicka reported that it has happened at least 10 times in Missouri in recent years, including with the recently-released Lamar Johnson. And a recent study by the University of Notre Dame uncovered more than 200 such wrongful convictions across the country. 

“Regardless of their obvious conflicts of interest, jailhouse informants are extremely effective in persuading jurors to convict,” the study found.

 The Kansas bill would simply arm defendants with knowledge of those conflicts. Pete Coones and his family can’t ever recover the 12 years he spent in prison. But it’s not too late to better ensure justice for future defendants."

The entire story can be read at: 



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. 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;

SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:


https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985


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!


Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;


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


YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:


David Hammond, one of Broadwater’s attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, “Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it’s the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.”


https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-1234880143/


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

Tuesday, March 21, 2023

(Part 1): Sorely flawed pathologist Charles Smith (namesake of this Blog): The botched child autopsies that resulted in numerous wrongful convictions, causing innocent people to spend years in prison, are now being cited to counter current calls for reinstatement of the death penalty in Canada, 'Alberta Reports' (Reporter Reid Small) reports. The story is headed: 'Survey shows support for return of death penalty arising in Canada.'..."As per the survey, Canadians who oppose reinstating capital punishment are primarily worried about the possibility of wrongful conviction and, as a result, the death of an innocent. The story of Dr. Charles Smith is often highlighted in arguments against the death penalty's reinstatement. Smith — who worked as a pediatric forensic pathologist at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children from 1982-2003 — is famous for his flawed child autopsies that resulted in numerous wrongful convictions, causing innocent people to spend years in prison. The death penalty was abolished in Canada for offences under the Criminal Code in 1976, and finally for offences under the National Defence Act in 1998."


PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "The last execution occurred in 1962, when Ronald Turpin and Arthur Lucas were hanged at Toronto’s Don Jail, the latter being nearly decapitated." (Innocence Canada has been asked to look into the possibility that Arthur Lucas may have been innocent);

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

STORY: "Survey show support for return of death penalty arising in Canada,"  published by The Alberta Report (Reporter Reid Small),  on March 19, 2023. 

GIST: The majority of Canadians support reinstating the death penalty for murder, according to a new poll.


The online survey, conducted by Vancouver’s Research Co., found 54% of Canadians support relying on capital punishment for murder convictions, showing a three point increase since a similar poll conducted last year.


Alberta shows the highest support for capital punishment, at 62%, followed by Saskatchewan and Manitoba, both at 60%.


Ontario and British Columbia show 58% support, and 55% in Atlantic Canada.


The lowest support for reinstating the death penalty is in Quebec, where the proportion drops to 43%.


“Almost three-in-five Canadians aged 55 and over (59%, +4) would welcome the return of the death penalty,” said Research Co. President Mario Canseco.


“The numbers are slightly lower among those aged 35-to-54 (54%, +3) and those aged 18-to-34 (50%, +3).”


Research Co. highlights more than seven out of 10 Canadians who voted Conservative in the last federal election support bringing back the death penalty for murder.


The proportions drop slightly below 50% for those who voted NDP and Liberal in 2021.


As per the survey, Canadians who oppose reinstating capital punishment are primarily worried about the possibility of wrongful conviction and, as a result, the death of an innocent.


The story of Dr. Charles Smith is often highlighted in arguments against the death penalty's reinstatement.


Smith — who worked as a pediatric forensic pathologist at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children from 1982-2003 — is famous for his flawed child autopsies that resulted in numerous wrongful convictions, causing innocent people to spend years in prison.


The death penalty was abolished in Canada for offences under the Criminal Code in 1976, and finally for offences under the National Defence Act in 1998. 


The last execution occurred in 1962, when Ronald Turpin and Arthur Lucas were hanged at Toronto’s Don Jail, the latter being nearly decapitated."

The entire story can be read at: 

https://www.westernstandard.news/alberta/survey-shows-support-for-return-of-death-penalty-rising-in-canada/article_28d05b36-c4e4-11ed-b10c-7798ac40338c.html

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

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: The William Mullins-Johnson case is relevant to calls for reinstating the death penalty in Canada, as it is the only 'Smith'  case I am aware of in which the the utterly innocent accused - a loving uncle - was charged with first degree murder - and if convicted before the death penalty was abolished in Canada, he would have faced the death penalty. Indeed, being a native charged with murdering  his 4-year-old niece, it is likely that he would have been executed - let alone the fact that  this 'truly horrific crime' never took place, except in the mind of an unqualified, incompetent pathologist named  Charles Smith, backed by his, and others,  flawed forensic evidence - as set out beautifully on the Innocence Canada site (at the link below) by Author Sarah Harland-Logan.  I wish that anyone calling for reinstatement of the death penalty in Canada - or resisting calls for its abolition elsewhere - would read this piece. 

Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.

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

Introduction

William Mullins-Johnson was wrongly convicted of a truly horrific crime; a crime which never took place. On the evening of June 26, 1993, twenty-two-year-old Bill was babysitting his four-year-old niece, Valin.[1] Bill’s sister-in-law, Kim, had asked him to look after her three children that evening; she would soon tell the police that “the children loved staying with Billy.”[2]

Bill and Valin spent part of the evening watching TV, before Valin went to bed – she had been running a fever earlier that day. Valin gave her uncle a goodnight kiss and a hug, and told Bill that she loved him. When Bill checked on her about half an hour later, Valin was sleeping. When Kim went into Valin’s room the next morning, she was confronted with any mother’s worst nightmare. She first noticed that there was vomit on Valin’s bed, and when Kim turned the little girl over, she saw that Valin was purple. Bill would later recall that he had been sleeping on the couch when he heard Kim barreling down the stairs, crying and screaming. He asked her what had happened, and she screamed out the heartbreaking news that Valin was dead. Bill’s brother – Valin’s father – tried to roll her over to perform CPR, but it was too late: Valin’s body was rigid with rigor mortis, and reviving her would be impossible. 

Bill was devastated. Over a decade later, he would describe his niece as “very smart, very mischievous, very funny and very special to me.” Bill’s mother, Valin’s grandmother, would insist that “he adored that girl and would never hurt her.” Having suffered this devastating family tragedy, Valin’s family – Bill included – should have been able to grieve together and treasure her memory. However, due to a series of egregious errors made by the physicians who conducted the post-mortem examination of Valin’s body, Bill’s personal tragedy was just beginning.

Faulty Medical Evidence

After Kim discovered her daughter’s body, Valin’s remains were taken to the Sault Ste. Marie General Hospital. Over the next several hours, a team of physicians – Dr. Bhubendra Rasaiah (who conducted Valin’s autopsy), Dr. Patricia Zehr, and the now-infamous Charles Smith (see explanation below) – made findings as to how Valin had died. Their conclusion was that she had been strangled to death between 8:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. on the night of June 26th – meaning that Bill, who had been alone with the children, would had to have murdered her.[9] They also found that Valin had been subjected to chronic sexual abuse.[10] In fact, Dr. Zehr – who was not a pathologist, but rather “a gynaecologist/obstetrician with expertise in child sexual abuse” – concluded that “this was one of the worst cases of child sexual abuse she had seen.”

Bill was arrested at 6:30 p.m. on June 27th 1993, for the first degree murder and aggravated sexual assault of his niece. Bill recalled that during his interrogation, the police officers “kept screaming at me that they had evidence that I did this and that…. With every accusation, I responded: ‘I didn’t do it.’” Bill continued to maintain his innocence, from this first police interview until the present time. However, only his mother, Laureena, believed him. Meanwhile, Bill’s extended family closed ranks on him, since they trusted those believed to be the experts’ judgment. Bill, on the other hand, began to believe that his brother might have killed his own daughter, since he too trusted the experts, and he knew himself to be innocent.

Bill’s Trial and Incarceration

At Bill’s trial, the jury heard expert testimony from the now-disgraced pathologist Charles Smith. He and other Crown expert witnesses testified that Valin had been abused and then suffocated to death, as evidenced by the bruises found on her chest, neck, and head. Smith also testified that the four-year-old had been anally raped.

On September 21, 1994, Bill was convicted of first degree murder – meaning that the jury believed he killed Valin while sexually assaulting her – and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25 years. The jury convicted Bill despite the fact that there was no physical evidence connecting him to Valin’s death.

Bill was transported to Joyceville Institution, outside Kingston, Ontario. As a convicted sex offender, he received death threats from other prisoners, and was afraid that other inmates might slash his throat. He was placed in solitary confinement for a four-month period for his own protection. In 1995, he was sent to Warkworth Institution, a prison north of Toronto that houses sex offenders in protective custody. At Warkworth, Bill took correspondence courses and learned about his Aboriginal heritage, while locked behind the steel door of a sparsely appointed cell.

Appeals Denied

Bill appealed his conviction to the Ontario Court of Appeal, but the court dismissed the appeal on December 19, 1996. One of the three judges disagreed with the decision to dismiss the appeal. In his dissenting judgment, Justice Borens stated that he would have ordered a new trial in Bill’s case. He pointed out that “there was no forensic evidence” connecting Bill to Valin: “although tests were conducted, there was no evidence that any bodily substance of [Bill’s] … was on, or in … [Valin’s] body.” He also noted that “Of the five experts who testified, only Dr. Smith … thought he saw evidence of recent anal penetration.” This dissenting opinion – pointing out the severe limitations in the evidence used to convict Bill of Valin’s murder – is in retrospect haunting, as we will see below.

Bill then appealed this decision to the Supreme Court of Canada, but the court unanimously dismissed his appeal on May 26, 1998.

A Miscarriage of Justice

Bill then turned to Innocence Canada (formerly AIDWYC) for help, and the organization took his case. In February 2003, lawyer James Lockyer wrote to the Crown Law Office on Innocence Canada’s behalf, asking that the samples taken from Valin’s body be made available so that forensic pathologist Dr. Bernard Knight could independently review them.

The police then contacted Dr. Rasaiah (who had conducted Valin’s autopsy); his records revealed that he had sent the microscopic slides from Valin’s autopsy that Innocence Canada had requested to Charles Smith, who had never returned them. Numerous people then attempted to communicate with Smith about the location of these slides, but he denied that he still had the slides and stonewalled this process for over a year, until the slides were finally located in his office and provided to Dr. Michael Pollanen, who has since become the Chief Forensic Pathologist for Ontario.

Dr. Pollanen decided to conduct his own investigation into the slides. He quickly realized that Smith’s findings had been shockingly inaccurate. In fact, they were completely wrong. The injuries to Valin’s body that Smith had attributed to physical abuse were simply “the result of normal processes following death or were caused by procedures connected to the post-mortem investigation.”  In particular, the injuries that Smith had testified indicated she had been sexually assaulted was actually a normal result of changes to her body after death and during the autopsy.

Dr. Pollanen concluded that there was actually no evidence whatsoever that Valin had been sexually abused or that she had been murdered. Although it was impossible to tell what had caused Valin’s death, there was zero evidence that she had died from anything but natural causes. Dr. Pollanen then sent the slides to Dr. Knight, who agreed that Valin’s death was natural.

At last armed with new evidence that he was innocent, Bill and Innocence Canada filed a s. 696.1 application for ministerial review of his conviction on September 7, 2005. He was granted bail on September 21, 2005, while the Minister considered his application. He had spent exactly 11 years in prison for a crime that never took place.

On July 6, 2007, the federal Minister of Justice granted Bill’s application and sent the case back to the Ontario Court of Appeal. This time, the Court took a very different view of Bill’s conviction, finding that “it is now clear that there is no evidence that Valin Johnson was assaulted or murdered, and no evidence that … [Bill] was guilty of any crime.” Further, the Court acknowledged that Bill had suffered “a terrible miscarriage of justice.”

On October 15, 2007 the Court quashed Bill’s conviction and acquitted him of the terrible “crime” that never occurred but had torn his life and family apart. On October 20, 2010, Chris Bentley, the Attorney General of Ontario at the time, announced that Bill would be awarded $4.25 million in compensation for his wrongful conviction. Mr. Bentley apologized to Bill and his family on behalf of the Ontario government “for the miscarriage of justice that occurred and the pain they had to endure.”

Causes of Bill’s Wrongful Conviction

The principal reason for Bill’s wrongful conviction was the flawed testimony of disgraced ex-pathologist Charles Smith. In fact, Innocence Canada played a crucial role in bringing about the investigation that exposed him. Innocence Canada had grown suspicious of Smith’s conclusions in other cases as well; so in April 2005, Innocence Canada wrote to Dr. Barry McLellan (then the Chief Coroner for Ontario) and Michael Bryant (then the Attorney General), urging a full public inquiry into Smith’s work.[38] On June 7, 2005, Dr. McLellan announced in a press release that a formal review would be conducted into Smith’s work on 45 cases involving suspicious deaths of children.[39] This inquiry, led by Justice Stephen Goudge, resulted in the publication of the Inquiry into Pediatric Forensic Pathology in Ontario.[40]

This comprehensive report found that Smith had no training in forensic pathology (his own field was pediatric pathology), which led to many misdiagnoses such as his completely incorrect assessment of Valin’s injuries.  Moreover, Smith was a terrible expert witness who often “provided unbalanced or emotive testimony, which tended to invite inappropriate and adverse conclusions."  Smith was eventually stripped of his medical license.

At the Ontario Court of Appeal hearing that led to Bill’s acquittal, Innocence Canada lawyer James Lockyer explained that Smith’s woefully inaccurate testimony incited an “extraordinary rush to judgment” by authorities, after which “there was no stopping the train.”

Wounds that Innocence Canada Cannot Heal

A few days before his release on bail, Bill told reporters that the day he was charged “ripped my soul out – and right from the first allegation it destroyed my life.” On the day of his release, he explained that “the last 12 years has been nothing but hell for me – and my family.” In a 2010 interview, Bill said that he might as well still be in a prison cell, because, in his words: “I largely live the way I lived when I was inside: isolated [and] … untrusting.”

Although Bill has regained his freedom, he has lost a decade of his life and suffered unimaginable anguish and undeserved stigma, as his family, fellow inmates, and the public at large believed that he had committed a horrific crime. In a sense, Bill is still behind bars."

The entire Innocence Canada entry can be read at:

william-mullins-johnson

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

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. 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;

SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:


https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985


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!


Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;


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


YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:


David Hammond, one of Broadwater’s attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, “Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it’s the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.


https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-1234880143/


David Tamihere: New Zealand: Bulletin: DNA testing - and a tale of unravelled jailhouse snitches: 'Stuff' (Senior Writer Mike White) reports that DNA testing in America of hair samples has further delayed the long-awaited appeal by David Tamihere in the 'Swedish backpackers case' until July 12...Tamihere was convicted of murdering Heidi Paakkonen, 21, and her fiancé, Urban Hoglin, 23, in the Coromandel in April 1989. He served 20 years in prison, but has always denied being guilty, and the case remains one of the country’s most controversial homicide investigations. In April 2020, the Minister of Justice and Governor-General referred the case back to the Court of Appeal because of concerns about Tamihere’s conviction. However, nearly three years later, the case has yet to be heard, with Crown Law confirming mitochondrial DNA testing on hair samples is currently taking place at an American forensic laboratory. The results of this testing will be released to the Crown and Tamihere’s legal team at the same time, with Tamihere’s appeal now scheduled to take place on July 12."


PASSAGE  OF THE DAY: "Police argued Tamihere murdered Paakkonen and Hoglin near Crosbies Clearing, 12km northeast of Thames, stole Hoglin’s watch and gave it to his son, and took the couple’s car and possessions. The case relied on evidence from two trampers who said they saw Tamihere, and three jailhouse snitches who claimed Tamihere confessed to the murders while in prisonHowever, the police theory was seriously undermined a year after Tamihere was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison, when Hoglin’s body was found in a shallow grave 73km away, on the other side of the Coromandel, near Whangamatā. Not only had Hoglin not been beaten around the head, cut up and dumped at sea, as the prison snitches variously alleged, the watch Tamihere had supposedly given to his son was found on Hoglin’s body. Despite this, the Court of Appeal dismissed Tamihere’s first appeal in 1992. However, in 2017, in a private prosecution of one of the jailhouse snitches, Roberto Conchie Harris, a jury concluded Harris had lied about Tamihere confessing to him, and found him guilty on eight charges of perjury. Harris, a double murderer and serial snitch, died in prison in 2021."


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

STORY: "More DNA testing delays David Tamihere murder appeal," by Senior Writer Mike White, published by 'Stuff', on January 31, 2023.

PHOTO CAPTION:  "Thirty years after being convicted of the murder of two Swedish tourists, Sven Urban Hoglin and Heidi Paakkonen, David Tamihere will have his case re-considered by the Court of Appeal for the second time. 


GIST: "DNA testing in America of hair samples has further delayed the long-awaited appeal by David Tamihere in the Swedish backpackers case.


Tamihere was convicted of murdering Heidi Paakkonen, 21, and her fiancé, Urban Hoglin, 23, in the Coromandel in April 1989.


He served 20 years in prison, but has always denied being guilty, and the case remains one of the country’s most controversial homicide investigations.


In April 2020, the Minister of Justice and Governor-General referred the case back to the Court of Appeal because of concerns about Tamihere’s conviction.

However, nearly three years later, the case has yet to be heard, with Crown Law confirming mitochondrial DNA testing on hair samples is currently taking place at an American forensic laboratory.


The results of this testing will be released to the Crown and Tamihere’s legal team at the same time, with Tamihere’s appeal now scheduled to take place on July 12.


Numerous other exhibits from the case, including clothing, have been recently re-tested using updated DNA techniques, given DNA analysis in criminal cases was in its infancy in 1989.


The current mitochondrial DNA testing compares DNA from a person’s maternal line.


Such testing was used in the Marlborough Sounds murder case to argue hairs found on a yacht owned by Scott Watson came from Olivia Hope, who had disappeared after a New Year’s party in 1998. Watson was later convicted of murdering Hope and her friend Ben Smart.


Crown Law, which oversees all prosecutions in New Zealand, has blamed Covid-19 lockdowns as being primarily responsible for delays in forensic testing in Tamihere’s case.


Tamihere, who had previously been convicted of manslaughter, was on the run from police, and living off the land in the Coromandel area in April 1989, after skipping bail on a rape charge.


Police argued Tamihere murdered Paakkonen and Hoglin near Crosbies Clearing, 12km northeast of Thames, stole Hoglin’s watch and gave it to his son, and took the couple’s car and possessions.


The case relied on evidence from two trampers who said they saw Tamihere, and three jailhouse snitches who claimed Tamihere confessed to the murders while in prison.


However, the police theory was seriously undermined a year after Tamihere was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison, when Hoglin’s body was found in a shallow grave 73km away, on the other side of the Coromandel, near Whangamatā.


Not only had Hoglin not been beaten around the head, cut up and dumped at sea, as the prison snitches variously alleged, the watch Tamihere had supposedly given to his son was found on Hoglin’s body.


Despite this, the Court of Appeal dismissed Tamihere’s first appeal in 1992.


However, in 2017, in a private prosecution of one of the jailhouse snitches, Roberto Conchie Harris, a jury concluded Harris had lied about Tamihere confessing to him, and found him guilty on eight charges of perjury.


Harris, a double murderer and serial snitch, died in prison in 2021.


In the wake of Harris’ perjury conviction, Tamihere applied for the Royal prerogative of mercy – a last gasp request for another appeal.


His case was reviewed by retired High Court judge Sir Graham Panckhurst.


He found that Harris’ evidence had been used at trial to support the eyewitness identification of the trampers who claimed to have seen Tamihere with someone resembling Paakkonen near Crosbies Clearing.


But given Harris’ testimony had now been shown to be false, it raised potential doubts about the trampers’ identification, and Panckhurst recommended the case be reconsidered by the Court of Appeal.


Tamihere’s case was one of the last to be considered under the Royal prerogative of mercy, which has now been superseded by an independent agency looking at possible wrongful convictions, the Criminal Cases Review Commission.

 

   The entire story can be read at:


more-dna-testing-delays-david-tamihere-murder-appeal


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. 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;

SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:


https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985


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!


Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;


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


YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:


David Hammond, one of Broadwater’s attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, “Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it’s the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.”


https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-1234880143/


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