"So, has the system succeeded in purging wrongful convictions?", Lockyer continued.
"By analogizing what happened just two days ago in terms of compensation for those wrongly convicted, like Bill Mullins-Johnson, the answer is "no". The system has not succeeded in purging wrongful convictions.
Indeed, perhaps a fair question might be, "does the system actually want to purge wrongful convictions?"......
The answer, in my view is, unfortunately not.
LAWYER JAMES LOCKYER; AIDWYC; DURING PANEL AT CONFERENCE ON WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS SPONSORED BY THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CRIMINAL DEFENCE LAWYERS. SHERATON HOTEL. TORONTO; AUGUST 12, 2010;
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: Lawyer James Lockyer, a founding member of the Association In Defence of the Wrongly Convicted, (AIDWYC) did not mince words when he reacted to the Ontario Government's recently announced compensations scheme for victims of Dr. Charles Randal Smith and his protectors in the Ontario Chief Coroner's office, in his comments delivered earlier today to as a panelist at the conference on wrongful convictions sponsored by the American National Association of Criminal Defence Lawyers, (NACDL) which is proceeding at the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Toronto. Lockyer's comments are well worth repeating:
"Good morning. Until an event that happened yesterday, I was going to do a bit of a different talk... at least a different lead-in than what I am going to do today," Lockyer began.
"And to start out we have to do with a little homily of a case - the case of Bill Mullins-Johnson," he continued.
"Bill Mullins-Johnson was Ojibway convicted in 1993 in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario of the sodomy murder by means of strangulation of his five year-old niece Valin.
Our organization AIDWYC first came to Bill's case in 1996 - and within a year we had pathology evidence to establish that Valin had neither been sodomized nor strangled by anyone - but, in fact, had died of unknown natural causes.
We used the Canadian system of bringing his case back before the Court - in particular the Ontario Court of Appeal - in 2007 and he was allowed to testify, which you probably can imagine it's a pretty unusual event for an appeal court.
He was allowed to testify and helped to provide the Court with the facts of what happened when Valin died - but rather to provide the Court with how it was spending 13 years in prison for such an awful crime when he hadn't committed it.
One of the most chilling moments that he described to us was when he told the Court that - when asked what the worst feature of his imprisonment was - he told the Court how he naturally accepted the pathology evidence that he heard in the trial.
He believed and assumed that Valin had been sodomized and strangled and that's what had caused her death.
But he knew he hadn't done it - and since he hadn't done it, the only other his brother person who could have done it was brother, Valin's father.
So he spent those thirteen years in prison thinking that he was actually serving his brother's time - and that his brother had done those awful things to his own daughter.
The Court of Appeal, in October of that year, exonerated him.
As they put it, the initial findings by the experts set in motion an inexorable rush to judgment that settled on Valin's uncle, William Mullins-Johnson.
At 6,30 PM - less than twelve hours after her parents had found Valin's body - the police arrested him for first degree murder and aggravated sexual assault.
He was charged because he had been home alone babysitting Valin and her three year old brother John between 8.00 PM and 10.00 PM on Saturday June the 26th.
The fresh evidence, together with the other evidence, shows beyond question that his conviction was wrong and that he was suffering from a terrible miscarriage of justice.
It is profoundly regrettable that as a result of what has been shown to be flawed pathological evidence that Mr. Mullins-Johnson was wrongly convicted and spent such a very long time in jail.
We can only hope that these words and these reasons for judgment and the deep apology expressed on behalf of the Ministry of the Attorney General will provide solace to him, to his mother and to everyone who has been so terribly injured by these events.
An Inquiry was then held in this province, into the pediatric pathology practices of one Dr. Charles Smith who was right at the centre of William Mullins-Johnson's wrongful conviction.
That was held in 2007 - 2008 and one of the recommendations that was handed down was that people such as Bill Mullins-Johnson - and there are many of them as a result of Dr. Charles Smith's work, if I can call it that, that they be properly compensated by the Government for the awful experiences that they went through.
And that brings us to the day before yesterday - when 22 months after that recommendation - the Attorney general of this province finally came out with a public statement about compensation for the victims of Dr. Charles Smith.
And one can only describe the sums that he is talking about as "paltry" if they were to really compensate the individuals concerned.
And our National Newspaper, the Globe and Mail, wrote an editorial about it, just yesterday... This is a part of what that editorial said:
"To be wrongfully convicted of killing your own child, or of raping and killing your four-year-old niece – the personal devastation is unimaginable.
In Ontario, at least 19 families experienced just that sort of horror because for more than a decade, the chief coroner’s office turned a blind eye to its crusading, incompetent pathologist, Charles Smith," the editorial continues.
And now, 22 months after a judicial inquiry recommended compensation for those who had been grievously harmed, Ontario Attorney-General Chris Bentley has announced an ungenerous “recognition” scheme that caps compensation at $250,000 for an individual.
William Mullins-Johnson of Sault Ste. Marie, who spent 12 years in jail on a rape-murder conviction, now has to make the case that he deserves the maximum of $250,000, a sum that does not even make up for his loss of income over that period, let alone his lifelong economic losses, the danger he was exposed to as a convicted child rapist in federal prison, the loss of his name and the destruction of his family......"
"But the victims of Dr. Smith are weak, and exhausted, and poor, and Mr. Bentley is exploiting that weakness.
Ontario should own up to its responsibility and offer a reasonable settlement that would put a close to one of the most shameful chapters in Canadian justice."
"So, has the system succeeded in purging wrongful convictions?", Lockyer continued.
"By analogizing what happened just two days ago in terms of compensation for those wrongly convicted, like Bill Mullins-Johnson, the answer is "no". The system has not succeeded in purging wrongful convictions.
Indeed, perhaps a fair question might be, "does the system actually want to purge wrongful convictions?"......
The answer, in my view is, unfortunately not.
But perhaps we would expect too much to expect otherwise.
Just as most people as individuals find it difficult or impossible to admit that they have made egregious mistakes in the past, so do the systems which are made up of large groups of those same people.
Because we can't then expect the system itself to be able to fulfill the task of purging wrongful convictions, it brings me to what I would consider one of the main themes of this particular round table - and that is that we must have an outside system created if we are going to succeed in purging wrongful convictions...".
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: 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 accessed at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith
For a breakdown of some of the cases, issues and controversies this Blog is currently following, please turn to:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2010/07/new-feature-cases-issues-and.html
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com;