"I did not cause Kasandra's death, and my conviction for doing so has haunted me ever since," she says in her affidavit.........
"I remember the first day of the preliminary hearing when Dr. Smith walked into court," Shepherd says in an affidavit in December 2015. "It was like a superhero entered the room.".........
"All the experts (now) agree that Dr. Smith's watch theory was wrong," the Crown now admits. "It is in the interests of justice that the conviction be set aside and, in the circumstances of this case, an acquittal be entered."
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am thrilled for Maria Shepherd by the fact, as reported so ably by Colin Perkel, she is set to be exonerated on Monday February 29 by the Ontario Court of Appeal - a day which can't come soon enough - after carrying such a terrible burden for so many years. In the meantime, I will publish from time to time some of the posts which I wrote about Maria's case over the years - and possibly some new material.
Harold Levy; Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog;
STORY: "Mom who pleaded guilty to toddler's death 25 years ago set for exoneration," by reporter Colin Perkel, published by the Canadian Press on February 22, 2016.
PHOTO CAPTION: "Discredited pathologist Dr. Charles Smith arrives for the beginning of his testimony at the Goudge Inquiry into pediatric forensic pathology in Toronto on Jan. 28, 2008."
GIST: "A woman implicated by disgraced pathologist Dr. Charles Smith in the death of her three-year-old stepdaughter is set for exoneration more than two decades after pleading guilty to manslaughter, The Canadian Press has learned. Documents filed ahead of a court hearing next week show the attorney general agrees Maria Shepherd's guilty plea and conviction should be struck and an acquittal entered. "Had the appellant and her lawyer known then what they know now, the plea would not have been entered," the Crown says in its factum. "More importantly, the fresh medical evidence shows that Dr. Smith's evidence, which formed the foundation of the guilty plea, was fundamentally flawed." The Shepherd case was one of many suspicious child deaths in which Smith, a renowned and highly regarded Toronto-based forensic pathologist, had done the autopsy. However, a review of his work starting in November 2005 and subsequent public inquiry uncovered numerous examples in which he had made egregious errors."... ...... "He was the Crown's star witness and his reputation preceded him," her trial lawyer Thomas Wiley says of Smith's opinion in a 2013 affidavit. "I found his opinion to be compelling, and seemingly unassailable." However, after Wiley consulted an outside expert, who agreed Smith's theory was reasonable, Shepherd pleaded guilty to manslaughter in October 1992 "I remember the first day of the preliminary hearing when Dr. Smith walked into court," Shepherd says in an affidavit in December 2015. "It was like a superhero entered the room." She was sentenced to two years less a day and gave birth to her fourth child in custody. While the guilty plea was valid at the time, the Crown now says the conviction should be set aside based on new forensic evidence. Experts have now concluded Smith's testimony at Shepherd's preliminary hearing contained a "number of significant errors." The best guessing is that Kasandra may have had a previous brain injury that caused seizures or that she suddenly developed a seizure disorder that led to her death. Either way, they agree, her death should have been classified as "undetermined." All the experts (now) agree that Dr. Smith's watch theory was wrong," the Crown now admits. "It is in the interests of justice that the conviction be set aside and, in the circumstances of this case, an acquittal be entered."........."I did not cause Kasandra's death, and my conviction for doing so has haunted me ever since," she says in her affidavit.
The entire story can be found at:
http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/
PUBLISHER'S NOTE:
Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.
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/
