Dr. Charles Smith's claim that he is backed by the Solicitor General is found in an undated email he sent to Dr. Alan Goldbloom, former head of The Hospital for Sick Children, on the same day the murder charge against Sharon's mother was to be withdrawn. (January 25, 2001);
In the letter, under the heading "media problem", Smith says that he, "like Dr. Cairns, (Deputy Chief Coroner H.L.) and Dr. Young (Chief Coroner H.L.)", believe that a statement the Crown attorney was going to read into court on withdrawal of the charge was "misleading" and "was going to be a bombshell."
(The letter is included in the "Overview Report" on Sharon's case prepared for Commissioner Stephen Goudge by his staff.)
We learn for the first time from this letter that Dr. Smith decided just hours before the charge against Sharon's mother was withdrawn that the best way to handle the "problem" was for him to ask to be excused from performing medico-legal autopsies - and to ask for "a review" of his cases.
The letter raises grave concerns that the Chief Coroner's office may have become politicized to a disturbing degree.
Here is Dr. Smith's letter in its entirety;
"Alan, Jim Cairns, the Deputy Chief Coroner, is going to telephone you early this afternoon," the letter begins.
I have just written to Jim Young, the Chief Coroner. My on sentence stated:
"I am writing to request that you excuse me from the performance of medico-legal autopsies for the Office of the Chief Coroner and that you arrange for an external review of my post-mortem examinations;"
While the case in question had no direct involvement with Sick Kids (apart from Bairbre Connelly reading the x-rays,) just because I work here, there may be media inquiries about a case in Kingston where the murder charges are being dropped today.
Here is the case, in a nut shell.
In June 1997, 7-year-old (Sharon) was sent home from school because of head lice.
Some hours later, her mother reported her missing, and police found her body in the basement of her home, having been scalped and bearing numerous puncture wounds which had the appearance of stab wounds.
A weapon was not found, but it was suspected that a pair of scissors may have been used both the (sic H.L.) scalp the girl and to cause the puncture wounds.
I (reluctantly) performed the post-mortem examination at the Coroner's building.
Sometime later, the question arose as to whether the puncture wound could have been caused by a dog.
Because I have no expertise in bite marks, Dr. Robert Woods, who serves as a forensic ondonologist for the Chief Coroner, was consulted.
He reviewed the materials and wrote a report dismissing the possibility.
I subsequently wrote an autopsy report attributing the death to multiple wounds.
I testified at a preliminary hearing in April, 1998;
Subsequently, defence experts continued to postulate that the injuries were due to a dog attack.
The body was exhumed and a second autopsy was performed by Dr. David Chaisson, the Chief Forensic Pathologist of Ontario, and Dr. Woods.
In July 1999, Dr. Woods examined the bony injuries and wrote a report attributing some of the marks to dog bites and some were inconsistent with dog bites.
Dr. Chiasson concurred with this opinion.
I reviewed the materials and wrote a supplementary report agreeing that some injuries were consistent with a dog and some were inconsistent with a dog bite.
The bones were then sent to Dr. Stephen Symes at the University of Tennessee (who is probably the nation's leading expert on tool mark evidence on bones).
He stated that some of the injuries were consistent with canine injury, and some of the wounds were caused by a sharp instrument like a knife or scalpel.
The murder charge against (Sharon's mother) are being dropped in court in Kingston today.
The Crown Attorney is going to read a statement as why (sic H.L.) this action is being taken.
Unfortunately, the statement appears to place the blame for the wrongful prosecution on me.
I saw the statement last evening and like Dr. Cairns and Dr. Young, I felt it was misleading and was going to be a bombshell.
Because it was written by lawyers for the Attorney General, Dr. Young, in his role as Assistant Deputy Minister for the Attorney General has no authority to substantially change it.
We expect that it will be on the national media tonight and/or tomorrow.
While the Solicitor General has agreed earlier in the week to back me, the statement being read in court will make his job very difficult.
Therefore, I made the decision last evening that the best way to handle the problem was to ask to be excused from medico-legal autopsies and I asked that a review of my cases be undertaken,
Dr. Young and the Solicitor General have agreed to this.
Dr. Becker is not aware of these events, as he is away for two weeks.
In his absence, I felt you should be aware of this.
I will be in the autopsy suite this morning (completing an autopsy for Dr. Young, who is not going to accept my letter until it is over) but am free to speak with you if you so wish.
Respectfully.
Charles Smith.
Dr. Smith's lament that "unfortunately, the statement appears to place the blame for the wrongful prosecution on me," is also fascinating.
His attempt to pass the blame for the wrongful prosecution on Dr. Woods is worth considering in the context of a recent story on the Inquiry by Globe and Mail reporter Kirk Makin, who as will be seen, obtained notes of a lengthy interview with Dr. Smith conducted by Maclean's Magazine reporter Jane O'Hara.
Makin's story appeared on November 20, 2007, under the heading, "Dog-bite expert to blame, pathologist said."
"Disgraced pathologist Charles Smith privately blamed a colleague for misleading him into making critical mistakes in a notorious case involving a Kingston child whose mother spent two years behind bars for her murder," the story begins.
"The charge against the mother was withdrawn in early 2001, after the child's remains were exhumed and Dr. Smith conceded that she was mauled by a pit bull.
The case revolved around the source of 80 cuts to the body of the girl, who is referred to as only Sharon. Based on Dr. Smith's opinion, the Crown alleged that the mother used scissors or a knife to kill her daughter in a rage.
However, in a previously unpublished interview several months after the mother was exonerated, Dr. Smith heaped blame for his error on Dr. Robert Wood - a colleague in the Ontario Chief Coroner's Office.
"He collected dog heads for months - pit bull heads - and he wrote a report in which I think his words were: 'The marks on the skin are absolutely inconsistent with dog bites,' " Dr. Smith said. "And it was only when he made that conclusion that I released my report."
Dr. Smith's words are in marked contrast to his testimony three years earlier at the mother's 1998 preliminary hearing. At that time, he testified forcefully that he formed his own conclusions about the cause of Sharon's death without speaking to Dr. Wood or seeing his report.
Dr. Smith testified that he was interested in hearing Dr. Wood's opinion on the case, but that he had already reached his own firm conclusions: "I didn't feel any doubt," he told the preliminary hearing. "It's not the tearing pattern that one would expect with a dog or coyote or wolf. I don't believe it's there."
The difference in his two accounts provides new insight into aspects of Dr. Smith that his critics frequently raise: a tendency to be overconfident, overstate his opinions, and to blame others for his mistakes.
The unpublished interview was conducted in 2001 by Jane O'Hara, a Maclean's magazine writer at the time. It was for use in defending a defamation lawsuit Dr. Smith had launched, but later dropped. Ms. O'Hara provided a transcript of the interview to The Globe and Mail.
At several points in the four-hour discussion, Dr. Smith said that he would like to state something off the record, but Ms. O'Hara did not signal her agreement.
Dr. Smith said that Dr. Wood's opinion was, in fact, very important to him because of his own inexperience with animal bites: "I'm not a dog-bite expert," he said in the interview. "I've got the province's dog-bite expert saying that these marks are absolutely inconsistent with a dog.
"I've sat in meetings with Dr. Wood - I've sat there when he's displayed his collection of dog mandibles that he had obtained from the various humane societies in Ontario over a period of months, so that he could do measurements of these. I knew what his conclusions were."
Dr. Smith also revealed that the Crown took measures to keep Dr. Wood off the witness stand as a trial tactic.
"The Crown attorney chose not to put Dr. Wood on the stand," he said. "He didn't want to bring credibility to the dog-bite story when he felt that Dr. Wood, who is the expert on ondontology - bite marks - had discounted the possibility."
But the tactic set Dr. Smith up for a fall, he told Ms. O'Hara.
"I'm left holding the bag there," he said. "What would an equivalent be? A surgeon takes a breast biopsy from you, the pathologist looks at the biopsy and says it's cancer."
Harold Levy; hlevy15@gmail.com
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