STORY: "Charged with murder; Jailed for more than three years. Tried. Acquitted due to questionable police tactics. Still, Peel cops insist Eric Morgan's ordeal was his own fault," by reporter Wendy Gillis, published by the Toronto Star on February 17, 2016.
PHOTO CAPTION: "Eric Morgan poses for a photo in his home in Brampton, November 11, 2014. Morgan has filed a complaint to the Office of the Independent Police Review Director, and is suing Peel police and the officers involved in his case for $25 million. Marta Iwanek;
GIST: "A Brampton man acquitted of murder after a
judge raised serious concerns about the police tactics used during the
investigation “was entirely the author of his own misfortune,” the Peel
Police Services Board, former police chief and lead detectives allege in
a statement of defence in a multimillion-dollar lawsuit. Eric Morgan is suing the board, former police chief Michael Metcalf and five Peel homicide detectives for about $25 million after he spent more than three years in pretrial custody before being acquitted of murder in 2013. His freedom came after Ontario Superior Court
Justice Fletcher Dawson took the unusual step of instructing the jury to
acquit Morgan after finding police had used “abusive” and “threatening”
tactics against key witnesses and “manufactured” evidence incriminating
Morgan. But in a statement of defence filed last
month, the police board, Metcalf and the five detectives on the case
claim Peel police were at all times acting “in the interest of public
safety.” Their defence claim emphasizes the results of a recent ruling by the Ontario Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD),
which found there was insufficient evidence to lay any misconduct
charges because the tactics officers used to pressure witnesses “were
consistent with their training.” Those tactics — aggressive interrogation often
referred to as Reid technique — have been the subject of a growing
chorus of concern over what some experts say is an elevated risk of
false confessions and wrongful convictions. The latest condemnation of Reid-style
interviewing comes from the Association in Defence of the Wrongly
Convicted (AIDWYC), which this week criticized the OIPRD’s handling of
Morgan’s case in a post on its website, saying the decision not to lay
charges essentially endorses these interrogation tactics. “It’s a tacit, if not express, approval of the
techniques resorted to by the police,” Russell Silverstein, a Toronto
lawyer and director on AIDWYC’s board, said in an interview......... Morgan was arrested in 2010 and charged with
second-degree murder in the death of Mervyn Spence, who was a casual
acquaintance. Spence was gunned down in November 2006 outside Brampton’s
Malibu Marie’s nightclub. A well-known events promoter, Morgan had
thrown a party that night to celebrate his 39th birthday. No physical or DNA evidence linked Morgan to
the scene; Peel police made the arrest based predominantly on the
testimony of two eye witnesses. But Dawson — who oversaw Morgan’s retrial,
after the first resulted in a hung jury — expressed grave concern over
what he viewed as problematic police actions used during interviews with
key witnesses, including “overly aggressive and abusive tactics.” In one interview, a detective used “leading
and suggestive” questioning that showed he had an “agenda,” Dawson said.
In another, Dawson found Morgan’s strongest alibi witness, Brian Cox,
became “psychologically broken down” after an eight-hour “relentless
onslaught” by Peel police and recanted testimony that supported Morgan’s
innocence. Dawson called Cox’s story change “the direct result of threatening and oppressive police conduct.” At one point during the court process, Morgan
was offered a one-day sentence for a guilty plea to manslaughter, but
turned it down because he said he would not admit to a crime he didn’t
commit. Morgan’s lawsuit alleges Peel police used
“highly improper and negligent investigation tactics” and that
detectives had “tunnel vision” motivated in part by trying to achieve a
100 per cent homicide solvency rate for the year. According to a 2009
statement by the head of Peel Homicide, Spence’s homicide was the only
2006 case remaining for Peel police to solve.........Immediately after his arrest, Morgan waived
his right to silence, offered to take a polygraph test and gave police
the names of seven individuals he believed could confirm that it was
physically impossible for him to have been involved in Spence’s death,
Shulman said. “He wasn’t required to talk to police or give
this information, but he believed that his arrest was a big
misunderstanding that would be cleared up if he was forthcoming. Eric
trusted that the police would interview these witnesses fairly,” Shulman
said in a statement to the Star......... The OIPRD’s ruling points to a systemic issue,
says Timothy Moore, a York University psychology professor who
researches false confessions and the Reid technique. “If abusive and oppressive tactics are
consistent with how officers are being trained then the obvious
inference to draw is that the training methods are at fault,” Moore
said. The Reid technique police interrogation
includes an aggressive, confrontational and accusatory style of
questioning, and it is typically used on suspects to assess guilt or
produce confessions. The tactic assumes the subject of the interview is
guilty — or that there is a strong likelihood of guilt — so the
interview is conducted to obtain incriminating evidence or a confession. Critics have said this technique can elicit
false confessions when used on suspects. Research inspired by Morgan’s
case has also shown forceful, Reid-style questioning on witnesses can produce false accusations..........During the OIPRD investigation, all the Peel
officers involved denied they were employing the Reid technique during
the interviews. The investigation also found only one of the officers
connected to the case had any training in the Reid technique, and that
officer’s involvement was limited to one interview that Dawson said was
conducted in a fair manner.
Joseph Buckley, president of John E. Reid and
Associates — the company that teaches the Reid technique — denies
criticism that the interrogation style leads to false confessions. Among
the guiding principles of the technique is to “always conduct
interviews and interrogations in accordance with the guidelines
established by the courts.” “False confessions are not caused by the
application of (the Reid) principles, they are caused when investigators
‘step out of bounds’ and engage in behavior that is inappropriate —
threats of harm, promises of leniency, etc.,” Buckley said in an email
to the Star."
The entire story can be found at:
See related AIDWYC (Association in Defence of the Wrongfully Convicted) article: (Including a link to the CBC 'Fifth Estate' documentary on the Morgan case): "What’s troubling is the fact that some Canadian services continue to use elements of the Reid technique (although increasingly it seems police are moving away from calling their interview method “Reid’s” while continuing to employ the minimization and maximization techniques that make Reid’s likely to coerce an unreliable statement and, at the extreme, a false confession). It is our hope that we will soon see the Reid technique completely abandoned in Canada, as it has been in the United Kingdom. Until then we will continue to blog about it!"
PUBLISHER'S NOTE:
Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.
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