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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: How low can governments go? $425,000 for 15 years on the wrongful conviction. Mr. Beamish asked for the exceptionally reasonable sum of $500,00 and West Australia gave him $75,000 less than that. Incredibly the State of Texas has shrunk even lower in the case of Anthony Graves. Wrongfully convicted of capital murder in 1994. Released in October after 18 years behind bars - most of the time on death row. Special prosecutor handling retrial cites fabricated evidence and unethical pressure on witnesses by her predecessor when prosecutors asked a state court to drop all charges and court readily agrees. He's entitled to $80,000 for every year of his life taken away by the state. But payment is denied because the court did not use the words "actual innocence." Then the state turns on him for back child support not paid while he was in prison. Shame on West Australia. Shame on Texas. Foe shame!
HAROLD LEVY; PUBLISHER; THE CHARLES SMITH BLOG;
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"Darryl Beamish (born 1941) is a Western Australian who was wrongfully convicted of willful murder in 1961 and sentenced to hang. The death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment and he served 15 years," the Wikipedia entry begins.
"Darryl Beamish, Estelle Blackburn and John Button at the Supreme Court celebrating Beamish's exoneration on 1 April 2005 (44 years after conviction), following Button's exoneration on 25 February 2002 (39 years after conviction)," the entry continues, under the heading, "Justice for Button and Beamish."
"Mr Beamish, a deaf man, was 18 in 1959, when the 22-year-old socialite and MacRobertson's chocolate heiress, Jillian MacPherson Brewer, was slain in her Cottesloe flat by an intruder who mutilated her body with a tomahawk and a pair of dressmaking scissors.
His conviction for the murder in 1961 caused continuing concern in legal circles. An Australian Professor of Jurisprudence, Peter Brett, wrote a short book titled The Beamish Case, in 1966; arguing that the affair was a "monstrous miscarriage of justice". (Beamish had narrowly escaped the gallows.)
Western Australian journalist Estelle Blackburn's book Broken Lives, prompted an appeal by John Button. He and Mr Beamish had both been convicted of crimes committed by the serial killer, Eric Edgar Cooke, and to which Cooke had insistently confessed before his death by hanging. Mr Beamish's conviction was finally overturned by the Court of Criminal Appeal in Western Australia on 1 April 2005, after five failed appeals in the 1960s.
Mr Beamish's appeal was made possible by the successful appeal of John Button. His appeal judges' decision was based on fresh forensic evidence established by the publisher of Broken Lives, journalist and Post Newspapers publisher Bret Christian. This forensic evidence also showed Cooke was telling the truth when he confessed to the murder for which Mr Button had been convicted.[1]. Prior to the court hearing the fresh forensic evidence abtained by Mr Christian, Cookes' confessions had not been believed. Mr Button's success opened the way to an appeal by Darryl Beamish, the appeal judges finding that in both cases the murders were probably the work of Cooke.
On June 2, 2011 Beamish was granted a AU$425,000 ex gratia payment by the Western Australian government."
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The entry can be found at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darryl_Beamish
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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 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
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com;
