"Last February, Ontario's highest court quashed the second-degree murder conviction and ordered a new trial for Marquardt, who is looking forward to putting this saga behind her.
"Kenneth died on October 9, 1993. Tomorrow, 17 1/2 years later, I hope and pray it will all come to an end," she said in a statement Monday. "Kenneth was a lovely boy and I feel he has been suffering in his grave all these years with me."
According to her lawyer James Lockyer, the new trial is expected to last less than an hour long."
REPORTER LINDA NGUYEN; THE NATIONAL POST;
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BACKGROUND: In february, 2011, The Ontario Court of Appeal quashed the murder conviction of the Toronto mother who was imprisoned for life on the basis of flawed testimony from pathologist Charles Smith. “We recognize this has been a terrible ordeal for you and it’s tragic it has taken so long to uncover the flawed pathology that led to your conviction in 1995,”Justice Marc Rosenberg told Tammy Marquardt Thursday morning. “We agree … there was a miscarriage of justice,” Rosenberg said on behalf of a three-judge panel. The 38-year-old Scarborough native spent nearly 14 years in prison after being convicted of murdering her 2-year-old son, Kenneth Wynne. While other victims of Smith’s mistakes have since been acquitted, Marquardt’s “dilemma” is that fresh evidence in her case only allows a court to go as far as ordering a new trial, Lockyer told the court. The evidence is still ambiguous about how the child died but strongly suggests he died as a result of an epileptic seizure, Lockyer said. In his short life, Kenneth had suffered from asthma and pneumonia and had been treated for seizures eight times. Smith opined the cause of death was asphyxia, likely the result of smothering or suffocation. That remains a possibility, given an absence of hard evidence about why Kenneth died, the appeal court was told on Thursday. At the same time, two neurologists from the Hospital for Sick Children who independently examined the boy’s medical records found his demise was consistent with a sudden unexplained death from epileptic seizure. While three-judge panel set aside Marquardt’s conviction, the Crown has not indicated whether it intends to proceed with a new trial. The court, meanwhile, extended Marquardt’s bail. The appeal court decision came after forensic experts reviewed the conclusions of the former pediatric pathology superstar and found them illogical and “completely” unscientific. Smith’s evidence dovetailed with the Crown’s theory at the time, that Marquardt had suffocated Kenneth in a moment of anger and frustration. But he was wrong in supporting the Crown’s theory and his testimony denied the jury the option of concluding the child had instead died as a result of a seizure, Crown counsel Gillian Roberts told the court. Marquardt said she found him twisted up in bed sheets and obviously distressed. He was taken to hospital, but died three days later, after being taken off life support. Tammy Marquardt was ultimately released on bail. She had been incarcerated in the Grand Valley women’s prison in Kitchener. Kenneth in October, 1993. Her other sons, teenagers named Keith, and Eric, live somewhere in Canada, but never had further contact with their mother.
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"TORONTO — A new trial was expected to begin Tuesday for an Oshawa, Ont., woman who was sent to prison for 13 years for killing her toddler son largely based on the erroneous testimony of now-disgraced pathologist Charles Smith," the National Post story by reporter Linda Nguyen published earlier today under the heading, "New trial for woman convicted on disgraced pathologist's testimony," begins.
In 1995, Tammy Marquardt, then 21, was sentenced to life in prison for the death of her 2 1/2 year-old son, Kenneth Wynne after Smith declared that the boy had died of "asphyxia" through strangulation or smothering. New expert evidence since then has provided alternative theories, including a likely possibility the epileptic toddler had died from a sudden death brought on by his condition," the story continues.
"Last February, Ontario's highest court quashed the second-degree murder conviction and ordered a new trial for Marquardt, who is looking forward to putting this saga behind her.
"Kenneth died on October 9, 1993. Tomorrow, 17 1/2 years later, I hope and pray it will all come to an end," she said in a statement Monday. "Kenneth was a lovely boy and I feel he has been suffering in his grave all these years with me."
According to her lawyer James Lockyer, the new trial is expected to last less than an hour long.
Smith was a leading Canadian expert in pediatric forensics from the 1980s to 2000s. He acted as a star witness for the Crown at hundreds of cases involving suspicious child deaths despite any formal accreditation in forensic pathology or formal training.
In 2007, the Ontario chief coroner launched a two-year probe into Smith's work and found major problems with 20 of the 44 autopsies the former doctor performed. Twelve of those cases had resulted in charges or convictions.
To date, the Ontario Court of Appeal has overturned seven convictions connected to Smith's faulty testimony. A number of other cases are still waiting to for appeals to be heard.
According to the provincial government, it has paid $5.5 million in compensation to nearly 30 people wrongly charged or convicted based on Smith's faulty evidence.
Earlier this year, Ontario's medical regulatory body handed down its harshest sentence by stripping Smith of his medical licence."
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The story can be found at:
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/trial+woman+convicted+disgraced+pathologist+testimony/4901953/story.html
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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;
