"I personally do not want to live in a province which has a justice system who's officials stick their necks out, as Blatchford suggests Smith did. I think our justice system works best when its officials like coroners, pathologists, prosecutors, and police respect their power and just do their jobs in an honest, neutral, fair and objective way. That's how we best serve deceased children and society."
HAROLD LEVY: PUBLISHER; THE CHARLES SMITH BLOG;
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BACKGROUND: The Goudge inquiry focused largely on the flawed work of Charles Smith — formerly the province's chief pediatric pathologist and a self-styled member of the prosecution team — whose "errors" led to innocent people being branded as child murderers. (He has since been thrown out of the medical profession in Ontario);
The 1,000-page report by Justice Stephen Goudge slammed Smith, along with Ontario's former chief coroner and his deputy, for their roles in wrongful prosecutions and asked the province to consider compensation.
The provincial coroner's office found evidence of errors in 20 of 45 autopsies Smith did over a 10-year period starting in the early 1990s. Thirteen resulted in criminal charges.
William Mullins-Johnson, who was among those cases, spent 12 years in prison for the rape and murder of his four-year-old niece, whose death was later attributed to natural causes.
In another case, Smith concluded a mother had stabbed her seven-year-old girl to death when it turned out to have been a dog mauling.
The inquiry heard that Smith's failings included hanging on to crucial evidence, "losing" evidence which showed his opinion was wrong and may have assisted the accused person, misstating evidence, chronic tardiness, and the catastrophic misinterpretation of findings.
The cases, along with other heart-rending stories of wrongful prosecutions based in part on Smith's testimony, also raised a host of issues about Ontario's pediatric forensic pathology system and the reliance of the courts on expert evidence."
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: While I understand Christie Blatchford's dismay over the tragic scalding death of 19-month old Miguel Fernandes and the province's response to it, I simply cannot accept her idolization of Smith as a white knight who, backed by the Coroner's office, went beyond the call of duty. (Blatchford commends him for being willing "to stick his neck out" to protect children.) Blatchford gets off on a false start when she describes Smith as a "legitimate pediatric pathologist." Blatchford fails to mention that Smith was not qualified as a "forensic pathologist" and was therefore utterly unqualified to give crucial opinions in criminal trials on issues such as the cause, time and manner of death. Worse, in his evidence in court he purported to have this knowledge as he bad-mouthed the opinions and reputations of those true experts who actually had the knowledge - and in the process was responsible for the wrongful conviction of numerous innocent parents and caregivers. Blatchford also misses the boat when she describes Smith as having accrued "considerable hands on experience." I remember being quite surprised to discover that when Smith was appointed head of the Ontario Pediatric Forensic pathology Unit around 1991 he had hardly performed any suspicious death autopsies - and I am still baffled as to why he would have been offered the important position and as to why, given his lack of qualifications and experience, he would have accepted it. Blatchford correctly notes that Smith filled a vacuum in Ontario - but she is far too kind when she presumes it was out of compassion for dead children. I suspect that Smith, a run of the mill doctor at the time used that vacuum to artificially construct a reputation, and masterfully, through misrepresentation, to create himself into a God of the forensic world. I also take issue with her lament that the old star system in which the office of the Chief Coroner was doing "some considerable good." In the words of Justice Stephen Goudge, who presided over an independent public Inquiry which investigated many of Smith's cases: "In the end, as Chief Coroner, Dr. (James) Young must bear the ultimate responsibility for the failure of oversight. As he rose to take on more senior positions, he proved unable to exercise the authority of the position he already held: to ensure vigilant oversight of Dr. Smith. When he finally did act, it was to protect the reputation of his office, and not out of concern that individuals and the public interest may already have been harmed. Sadly, the de facto oversight of Dr. Smith that resulted was far too little, far too late." Far from being a white knight, Smith abused his important, trusted role in Ontario's justice system, as he routinely lied, twisted, "lost evidence" that would show accused persons were innocent, and discredited other explanations of a child's death that pointed away from guilt. How was Smith showing his love of children when he came up with his opinion in case after case that a child's death was murder - when in fact, the child had tragically died of natural causes? (Instead of allowing parents to grieve he turned them into pariahs.) In some of the cases, he had caused the injuries to the child's body during the autopsy which he testified were evidence that the child had been murdered. In the Waudby case, the real murderer - a teenager with psychological problems - went free for years because Smith, who saw himself as a member of the prosecution team, as Blatchford acknowledges, opined a time of death which meant that only Baby Jenna's mother could have committed the brutal crime. How did all of this serve Ontario's justice system in what Blatchford would have us believe were the good old days? I personally do not want to live in a province which has a justice system who's officials stick their necks out, as Blatchford suggests Smith did. I think our justice system works best when its officials like coroners, pathologists, prosecutors, and police respect their roles and their power and just do their jobs in an honest, neutral, fair and objective way. That's how we best serve deceased children and society. We can see from the Smith saga, with all of the human cost and the assault on confidence in the criminal justice system what happens when this is not the case.
HAROLD LEVY: PUBLISHER; THE CHARLES SMITH BLOG;
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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/2010/08/new-feature-cases-issues-and_15.html
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com;
