Clare Spiers: Ontario. Police vetting of jury pool gets murder conviction tossed; Canadian Press;

PUBLISHER'S VIEW: In a previous post I asked: "Why didn't Ontario prosecutors examine Dr. Charles Smith's qualifications a bit more closely over the years, pay more attention to court decisions suggesting he was biased towards the Crown and that that his opinions were seriously flawed - or at least share the existence of these decisions with the defence?" My answer was that some prosecutors cared more about winning the case than the possibility that an innocent person might be convicted; I buttressed my response with an important story broken by the National Post that prosecutors in several parts of Ontario have been asking police to do secret background checks on jurors. This controversy resulted in requests for mistrials and bids to open cases where accused persons have been convicted in the shadow of the illegal practice which taints a criminal jury trial from the outset. The Charles Smith Blog is very much concerned with the question as to how far prosecutors will go to win the case has been monitoring developments on a regular basis. Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.

STORY: "Police vetting of jury pool gets murder conviction tossed," published by the Canadian Press on November 21,  2012.

GIST: "Aman accused of kidnapping and slitting a woman's throat has had his murder conviction quashed because prosecutors and police acted improperly when it came to jury selection at his trial. In ordering a new hearing for Clare Spiers, Ontario's top court said Wednesday an examination of how potential jurors were vetted creates a "troubling picture" of damaging collusion between Crown and police that amounted to a miscarriage of justice......... Spiers later became aware of possible problems in the jury-selection process. He discovered background checks were done on potential jurors in direct violation of government policy. Court documents show the regional Crown attorney asked police to run checks on prospective jurors, saying it would be helpful to have information about a "disreputable person we would not want as a juror." Essentially, the prosecution wanted those with a "negative attitude to law enforcement" flagged for exclusion as jurors. Officers not only checked for criminal backgrounds, but also searched driving records and other databases for any police contact with potential jurors. Police provided several binders with the jury lists to the Crown that included comments such as "Flag, hates police." None of the information was provided to the defence before the trial. The entire story can be found at: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2012/11/21/toronto-jury-vetting.html The Ontario Court of Appeal decision can be found at:  http://www.ontariocourts.ca/decisions/2012/2012ONCA0798.htm  PUBLISHER'S NOTE I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located  near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site. 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 Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.