"A SPECIALLY CONVENED PANEL OF JUSTICES TEAGUE, CUMMINS AND COLDREY SAID THE MOVE TO SEEK ADVICE RATHER THAN A JUDICIAL DETERMINATION APPEARED TO BE AN AUSTRALIAN FIRST. IN THEIR 30-PAGE OPINION THE JUDGES UNANIMOUSLY CONCLUDED THAT NEW EVIDENCE SHOWED THE CASE AGAINST ROSS WAS FLAWED. "THERE HAS BEEN A MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE," THEY CONCLUDED. THE JUDGES FOUND THAT THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL COULD SEND THE CASE TO THE COURT OF APPEAL TO SEEK A QUASHING OF THE CONVICTION OR HAD THE OPTION "OF GRANTING A PARDON INDEPENDENTLY OF THIS STATUTORY REGIME". MR HULLS CHOSE TO SEEK A PARDON, WHICH WAS SIGNED BY THE GOVERNOR ON FRIDAY."
REPORTER JOHN SILVESTER; THE BRISBANE TIMES;
(Wikipedia informs us that "The Brisbane Times is an Internet-based news site for Brisbane and Queensland, Australia. It was launched on 7 March 2007 by then-Queensland Premier Peter Beattie.")
PHOTO RIGHT: CAMERON TODD WILLINGHAM; PHOTO LEFT; COLIN ROSS;
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: While visiting the Old Melbourne Jail, in Melbourne Australia, earlier this year I was astounded to learn about some of the compelling similarities between the wrongful convictions of Colin Ross, an Aussie executed 24 April, 1922, and Cameron Todd Willingham, a Texan executed on February 17, 2004 - though separated by more than eighty years half a century in time and located at opposite ends of the Globe. Both men were were sent to their deaths on the basis of junk science; both men's convictions were assured by self-serving cellmate or unsavoury convict evidence, and both men vehemently cried out their innocence to their last breath. The one glaring difference is that the Victorian Government granted a posthumous pardon to Colin Ross on 27 May 2008, in what is believed to be an Australian legal first. The government of Texas appears to be doing everything can to deny Cameron Todd's innocence, avoid accountability for his wrongful conviction and impede his exoneration.
BACKGROUND: COLIN ROSS: "Hawthorn schoolgirl Alma Tirtschke was raped and strangled while in the city running errands for her mother. Her naked body was found by a bottle gatherer in Gun Alley, off Little Collins Street, on December 31, 1921. Ross, who ran a nearby wine bar, was arrested at his Maidstone home on January 12. After a short trial and two failed appeals, he was executed 115 days after the murder. Prosecutors claimed that Ross, 28, lured Alma into his wine saloon in the Eastern Arcade in Bourke Street, took her into a small room off the main bar, then plied her with alcohol before he raped and strangled her. The court was told Ross then put her body in a nearby laneway, where it was found the next morning. However, Ross was able to produce alibi witnesses who said they saw him at work and on the tram heading home at the time of the murder. The key evidence against him was given by two contradictory and unreliable "witnesses" — prostitute Ivy Matthews and career thief Sydney John Harding, who claimed Ross independently "confessed" to the murder. But the petition of mercy says the prosecution failed to tell the court that Harding was a known and repeated perjurer. The Crown was aware that his military record included convictions for making a false statement to a superior officer and giving false sworn answers on his attestation papers. The only forensic link came from hairs found on a blanket discovered at Ross' home, which were said to match hairs taken from the victim. Government analyst Charles Price, a chemist by occupation and not a forensic expert, gave evidence that the hairs "were derived from the scalp of one and the same person". But after the hair samples were rediscovered in long-forgotten archives by methodical researcher-turned-author Kevin Morgan in 1995, he pushed for them to be retested. Mr Morgan has since written a book based on the case called Gun Alley: Murder, Lies and Failure of Justice. Three years later, a microscopic examination by Dr Bentley Atchison, of the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine, showed the hairs were not from the same scalp. A second test by Australian Federal Police forensic expert Dr James Robertson, a world authority on hair identification, confirmed that Price's conclusion was wrong. (The information for this background comes from the Australian newspaper "The Age");
Although some legal experts viewed the pardon as tantamount to exoneration the fact remains that Ross was never formally acquitted. The Australian Broadcasting Network quoted a member of the victim's family who contended that a pardon was not good enough because "A pardon means, 'I am forgiving you for something you have done'. Shouldn't it rather be an exoneration, which means, 'I accept you didn't do this in the first place'?" But Victorian Premier John Brumby told ABC that the pardon does come close to exonerating Colin Ross because "Science in particular has proven beyond reasonable doubt that he could not have committed that crime." ABC went on to say that "The Premier says the case shows how far forensic technology has come - and it reinforces the decision to formally abolish the death penalty in Victoria in 1975."
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"THE Victorian Government will create legal history today when it announces a posthumous pardon for a man wrongly executed 86 years ago in the notorious Gun Alley murder case," The May 27, 2008 Brisbane Times story by reporter John Silvester under the heading "Ross cleared of murder nearly 90 years ago, begins."
"Colin Campbell Ross was hanged in 1922 after he was convicted of killing Alma Tirtschke, 12. He went to the gallows maintaining his innocence," the story continues.
"Governor David de Kretser has signed the pardon, and Attorney-General Rob Hulls will formally announce the decision today in Parliament during question time.
The pardon follows an unprecedented inquiry by Victorian Supreme Court judges Bernard Teague, Phil Cummins and John Coldrey, who found Ross was the victim of a miscarriage of justice.
After receiving the advice, Mr Hulls moved to have Ross posthumously pardoned. "This is a tragic case where a miscarriage of justice resulted in a man being hanged," he told The Age.
The formal re-examination of the case began three years ago when relatives of Alma Tirtschke and Colin Ross signed a petition of mercy after they learned that fresh evidence showed the executed man had been wrongly convicted.
Alma Tirtschke, a Hawthorn schoolgirl, was raped and strangled while in Melbourne shopping for her aunty. A bottle gatherer found her naked body in Gun Alley, off Little Collins Street, on December 31, 1921.
Ross, who ran a nearby wine bar, was arrested at his Maidstone home on January 12. Just 115 days after the murder, he was executed, following a short trial and two failed appeals.
The Crown case was that Ross, 28, persuaded the young girl to enter his wine saloon in the Eastern Arcade, in Bourke Street. He was then alleged to have given her alcohol before raping and strangling her.
A new investigation has ruled out any link between Ross and the only physical evidence said to connect him to the crime — hairs found on a blanket at the suspect's home, which the jury was told came from the scalp of the victim.
In 1995 researcher Kevin Morgan traced the exhibit to an archive and pushed for the hair to be re-examined using modern technology. In 1998 a test by the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine found the hairs were not from the same scalp.
A second test by Australian Federal Police confirmed that the key evidence was wrong.
Prosecutors used two witnesses who claimed Ross had confessed to the crime. But the jury was not told that one of the key prosecution witnesses was a convicted perjurer.
The defence team produced alibi witnesses who swore they saw him at work and on a tram heading home at the time of the murder.
Two years ago, Mr Hulls wrote to Chief Justice Marilyn Warren to ask for the court to re-examine the case to see whether the Ross conviction remained sound.
A specially convened panel of justices Teague, Cummins and Coldrey said the move to seek advice rather than a judicial determination appeared to be an Australian first. In their 30-page opinion the judges unanimously concluded that new evidence showed the case against Ross was flawed.
"There has been a miscarriage of justice," they concluded.
The judges found that the Attorney-General could send the case to the Court of Appeal to seek a quashing of the conviction or had the option "of granting a pardon independently of this statutory regime". Mr Hulls chose to seek a pardon, which was signed by the Governor on Friday.
Mr Morgan, who wrote a book on the case Gun Alley: Murder, Lies and Failure of Justice yesterday told The Age: "A big stain on the legal system has finally been expunged, and a shadow on two Australian families has also been lifted.
"That justice has finally been done for the Ross and Tirtschke families after 86 years is a tremendous outcome."
Alma Tirtschke's niece, Bettye Arthur, said: "It is a tragedy for everybody that the actual perpetrator was not caught, and an innocent man lost his life."
She said the tragedy deeply affected her mother, who had been two years younger than her sister, Alma.
The flawed prosecution case was that the 12-year-old chose to drink in Ross' wine bar instead of running messages for her aunty.
"The actual pardon has also helped restore the reputation of Alma, because it shows that she didn't enter the wine bar as was said in the trial," Mrs Arthur said. "She was a good girl."
Colin Ross' niece Betty Everett, said her parents had not told her of the family secret, but she read of the case in a magazine and realised the link when she saw the striking resemblance between her father and Colin Ross.
"I had lived with this fear and doubt for most of my life, the more so as I began to have children, that perhaps I carried the genes of a murderer," she said. "That shadow has gone."
Mr Hulls said: "The pardon is a tribute to the families of Colin Campbell Ross and Alma Tirtschke for their persistence.
"These families have come together to right a historical wrong.
"I trust the pardon will provide some relief from the suffering that this terrible human tragedy has caused the Ross and Tirtschke families, and allow these wounds to heal."
Ross cleared of murder nearly 90 years ago
John Silvester | May 27, 2008
THE Victorian Government will create legal history today when it announces a posthumous pardon for a man wrongly executed 86 years ago in the notorious Gun Alley murder case.
Colin Campbell Ross was hanged in 1922 after he was convicted of killing Alma Tirtschke, 12. He went to the gallows maintaining his innocence.
Governor David de Kretser has signed the pardon, and Attorney-General Rob Hulls will formally announce the decision today in Parliament during question time.
The pardon follows an unprecedented inquiry by Victorian Supreme Court judges Bernard Teague, Phil Cummins and John Coldrey, who found Ross was the victim of a miscarriage of justice.
After receiving the advice, Mr Hulls moved to have Ross posthumously pardoned. "This is a tragic case where a miscarriage of justice resulted in a man being hanged," he told The Age.
The formal re-examination of the case began three years ago when relatives of Alma Tirtschke and Colin Ross signed a petition of mercy after they learned that fresh evidence showed the executed man had been wrongly convicted.
Alma Tirtschke, a Hawthorn schoolgirl, was raped and strangled while in Melbourne shopping for her aunty. A bottle gatherer found her naked body in Gun Alley, off Little Collins Street, on December 31, 1921.
Ross, who ran a nearby wine bar, was arrested at his Maidstone home on January 12. Just 115 days after the murder, he was executed, following a short trial and two failed appeals.
The Crown case was that Ross, 28, persuaded the young girl to enter his wine saloon in the Eastern Arcade, in Bourke Street. He was then alleged to have given her alcohol before raping and strangling her.
A new investigation has ruled out any link between Ross and the only physical evidence said to connect him to the crime — hairs found on a blanket at the suspect's home, which the jury was told came from the scalp of the victim.
In 1995 researcher Kevin Morgan traced the exhibit to an archive and pushed for the hair to be re-examined using modern technology. In 1998 a test by the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine found the hairs were not from the same scalp.
A second test by Australian Federal Police confirmed that the key evidence was wrong.
Prosecutors used two witnesses who claimed Ross had confessed to the crime. But the jury was not told that one of the key prosecution witnesses was a convicted perjurer.
The defence team produced alibi witnesses who swore they saw him at work and on a tram heading home at the time of the murder.
Two years ago, Mr Hulls wrote to Chief Justice Marilyn Warren to ask for the court to re-examine the case to see whether the Ross conviction remained sound.
A specially convened panel of justices Teague, Cummins and Coldrey said the move to seek advice rather than a judicial determination appeared to be an Australian first. In their 30-page opinion the judges unanimously concluded that new evidence showed the case against Ross was flawed.
"There has been a miscarriage of justice," they concluded.
The judges found that the Attorney-General could send the case to the Court of Appeal to seek a quashing of the conviction or had the option "of granting a pardon independently of this statutory regime". Mr Hulls chose to seek a pardon, which was signed by the Governor on Friday.
Mr Morgan, who wrote a book on the case Gun Alley: Murder, Lies and Failure of Justice yesterday told The Age: "A big stain on the legal system has finally been expunged, and a shadow on two Australian families has also been lifted.
"That justice has finally been done for the Ross and Tirtschke families after 86 years is a tremendous outcome."
Alma Tirtschke's niece, Bettye Arthur, said: "It is a tragedy for everybody that the actual perpetrator was not caught, and an innocent man lost his life."
She said the tragedy deeply affected her mother, who had been two years younger than her sister, Alma.
The flawed prosecution case was that the 12-year-old chose to drink in Ross' wine bar instead of running messages for her aunty.
"The actual pardon has also helped restore the reputation of Alma, because it shows that she didn't enter the wine bar as was said in the trial," Mrs Arthur said. "She was a good girl."
Colin Ross' niece Betty Everett, said her parents had not told her of the family secret, but she read of the case in a magazine and realised the link when she saw the striking resemblance between her father and Colin Ross.
"I had lived with this fear and doubt for most of my life, the more so as I began to have children, that perhaps I carried the genes of a murderer," she said. "That shadow has gone."
Mr Hulls said: "The pardon is a tribute to the families of Colin Campbell Ross and Alma Tirtschke for their persistence.
"These families have come together to right a historical wrong.
"I trust the pardon will provide some relief from the suffering that this terrible human tragedy has caused the Ross and Tirtschke families, and allow these wounds to heal.""The story can be found at:
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/national/ross-cleared-of-murder-nearly-90-years-ago/2008/05/26/1211653984758.html
Harold Levy...hlevy15@gmail.com
