PUBLISHER'S NOTE: What a wonderful irony: O'Neil Blackett was finally
exonerated just a few weeks ago on October 2, 2018 - Wrongful
Convictions Day. Before taking a short break from this Blog in order to
handle a writing assignment, I published a note in which I gave a number
of reasons as to why I continue to publish the Blog after more than ten
years. One of the most important reasons I gave was that there the
Charles Smith story is not yet fully told - there are several important
Smith cases heading to the Ontario Court of Appeal which could well
lead to exonerations. Indeed, O'Neil Blackett's exoneration comes almost
two decades after my first Toronto Star article on Charles Smith.
Blackett O’Neil is the 22nd person whose name Innocence Canada (formerly
known as AIDWYC) has helped clear. Bravo!
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "O’Neil was tragically another victim of the now disgraced former paediatric pathologist Charles Smith. O’Neil
Blackett’s nightmare began on February 10, 1999 when he was arrested
for the murder of his friend’s daughter, 13-month-old Tamara who had
passed away two days earlier while he was babysitting her. Tamara had
intestinal and breathing problems and had been vomiting and losing
weight prior to her death. Charles Smith, revered at
the time as the foremost expert on child deaths, conducted the autopsy
and concluded that Tamara had not died of natural causes but had died
due to strangulation or blunt force. O’Neil cooperated with authorities
and consistently maintained that he had not caused Tamara’s death.
However, after the testimony of Smith at his preliminary hearing, O’Neil
accepted a manslaughter plea for fear of being convicted of murder.
O’Neil had already served 15 months in pre-trial custody by the time he
entered the plea in August 2001."
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COMMENTARY: "O'Neil Blackett" published on its web page by Innocence Canada, on October 2, 2018.
GIST: "On October 2, 2018 - the 5th Anniversary of International
Wrongful Conviction Day - Innocence Canada client O’Neil Blackett had
his name cleared after a long painful 17-year wait.
On a cloudy,
rainy Tuesday O’Neil entered a courtroom at 361 University Avenue in
Toronto with his lawyer, Innocence Canada co-founder James Lockyer. Many
of O’Neil’s close friends were present to hear the announcement that
the charges against O’Neil had been withdrawn. O’Neil is the 22nd person whose name Innocence Canada has helped clear. O’Neil was tragically another victim of the now disgraced former paediatric pathologist Charles Smith. O’Neil
Blackett’s nightmare began on February 10, 1999 when he was arrested
for the murder of his friend’s daughter, 13-month-old Tamara who had
passed away two days earlier while he was babysitting her. Tamara had
intestinal and breathing problems and had been vomiting and losing
weight prior to her death. Charles Smith, revered at
the time as the foremost expert on child deaths, conducted the autopsy
and concluded that Tamara had not died of natural causes but had died
due to strangulation or blunt force. O’Neil cooperated with authorities
and consistently maintained that he had not caused Tamara’s death.
However, after the testimony of Smith at his preliminary hearing, O’Neil
accepted a manslaughter plea for fear of being convicted of murder.
O’Neil had already served 15 months in pre-trial custody by the time he
entered the plea in August 2001. He was sentenced to a further three
years and three months. O’Neil did not appeal. After being
released in October 2003 on mandatory supervision, O’Neil found life
very difficult in general, especially when looking for employment. In
2005 the newly appointed Chief Coroner for Ontario Dr. Barry McLellan
initiated a review known as the Chief Coroner’s Review that examined the
work of Smith, in criminally suspicious deaths of children during the
1990’s. There had been expressions of concern about Smith’s professional
competence in cases of sudden, unexpected deaths of children dating
back as far as 1991. Dr. Christopher Milroy, then the
Chief Forensic Pathologist of the Department of Forensic Pathology and
Legal Medicine in the United Kingdom was retained by the Office of the
Chief Coroner to review Tamara’s case. Dr. Milroy
criticized and rejected Smith’s conclusion concerning the cause of
Tamara’s death. He felt pathology could not provide a cause of death and
that it should be classified as “unascertained”. On
September 15, 2009 Mr. Justice Rosenberg of the Ontario Court of Appeal
granted O’Neil’s application for an extension of time to file an appeal
of his conviction. James Lockyer filed a notice of appeal on behalf of
O’Neil requesting that the guilty plea be set aside, and a new trial
ordered on the charge of manslaughter. Dr. Milroy
provided a further opinion and Dr. Michael Shkrum, a Forensic
Pathologist at the University Hospital of London, Ontario also provided
an opinion. Their reports were received in February and April of 2013. On
May 17, 2017 the Crown consented to the appeal and agreed that O’Neil’s
guilty plea should be set aside and that his request for a new trial on
a charge of manslaughter be ordered. Child death
cases are extremely difficult and emotionally charged but thankfully
O’Neil Blackett’s journey through the criminal justice system has come
to a just conclusion without him or his family having to endure another
trial. O’Neil can now move forward and pursue his dreams, aspirations and goals that for far too long didn’t seem possible."
The entire commentary can be found at:
http://innocencecanada.com/exonerations/oneil-blackett/
See Toronto Star investigative reporter Rachel Mendleson's story on the Blackett exoneration, published by The Toronto Star on October 2, 2018, under the heading: "What happened to O’Neil Blackett is a ‘tragedy,’ judge says in wrongful conviction case," at the link below; "Seventeen
years after he was convicted of killing a 13-month-old girl, O’Neil
Blackett’s battle to clear his name ended where it began. On
Tuesday morning, Blackett stood before a judge in a wood-panelled
courtroom at 361 University Ave., the same Toronto courthouse where he
was convicted in 2001, based largely on evidence from disgraced Sick
Kids pathologist Charles Smith. The 42-year-old clasped his hands behind
his back and held his head high. “I
woke up this morning, I was refreshed. I knew what was to come,” he
said in an interview after the hearing. “I waited so long.” Earlier this year, the
Court of Appeal set aside
Blackett’s manslaughter conviction and ordered a new trial based on
fresh expert evidence that sharply criticized Smith’s opinions.
Following a review of the case by the attorney general, the ministry
concluded there was “no reasonable prospect of conviction,” Crown lawyer
Dimitra Tsagaris told the court on Tuesday. The charge against Blackett
was withdrawn. Justice John McMahon called Blackett’s ordeal “a tragedy.” His
victory is the latest development in the continuing effort of the
justice system to undo the damage caused by the flawed opinions of
Smith, who was once revered as the province’s top expert in cases where
children died in unusual circumstances. A decade after a public inquiry
exposed oversight gaps in Ontario’s pediatric forensic pathology system
that allowed Smith to rise to prominence despite his
lack of training and objectivity, some parents who say they were wrongly blamed in the deaths of their children are still fighting to clear their names. Smith could not be reached for comment. A
complication in many wrongful conviction cases involving Smith’s
testimony — including Blackett’s — is that the accused pleaded guilty. Blackett
was looking after Tamara Thomas the day she died in February 1999. When
her mother returned from running errands she found the girl lying in
her playpen, lifeless and cold to the touch. Blackett was performing CPR
on the child when police arrived. He was “distraught and confused,” and
denied causing harm, the appeal court ruling states. (At the time,
Blackett believed Tamara was his daughter, but says in an affidavit he
subsequently learned he was not her father.) Tamara had a history
of intestinal and breathing problems, and had recently been vomiting and
losing weight. That afternoon, Blackett had left her in her playpen
with a bottle of chocolate milk. When
she died, Tamara was wearing a cumbersome cast to repair a broken right
femur. The injury happened a month earlier, while she was in Blackett’s
care. He told the paramedics the child’s leg got caught in the wooden
spindles of her crib. Police concluded that the crib was unsafe and
deemed the injury accidental. Blackett was described by a first
responder as an anxious parent who showed concern, and cooperated with a
subsequent investigation by children’s aid, the ruling said. Blackett
told police that since being in the cast, “there was a problem with her
lying on her back, because she used to throw up whatever we gave her.” Smith
dismissed the possibility that Tamara had choked on her vomit, or died
in any other accidental way. In his opinion, she had succumbed to a
“mechanical type of asphyxia” due to strangulation or blunt force. He
also claimed to have found several additional fractures. Blackett was
charged with second-degree murder. Smith testified at the
preliminary inquiry, in November 1999. The trial was set for April 2001.
By then, concerns about Smith’s work had begun to emerge. The Crown
sought the opinion of another expert, who was largely supportive of
Smith’s opinion but warned that unless there was some other evidence to
support the Crown’s theory “there will always be doubt as to whether
this is the actual cause of death.” A second pathologist, retained by
the defence, disputed Smith’s findings. In August 2001, Blackett
reached a deal with the Crown. He pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of
manslaughter and was sentenced to three years and three months in jail,
in addition to 15 months of pretrial custody. In an agreed
statement of facts, Blackett stated that he had become frustrated while
feeding Tamara, and forced the bottle violently into her mouth, causing
her to choke and vomit, and had “then left her either unconscious or
entering unconsciousness, unable to breathe, and she died.” In
his affidavit filed last year in support of his appeal, Blackett said
“those facts were not true.” He worried the jury would believe Smith
over him because he had a criminal record, and he would receive a life
sentence. “Dr. Smith’s evidence ... preyed on my mind,” Blackett said. “I felt trapped by my situation. I decided to plead guilty.” Blackett’s
trial lawyer, Stephen Bernstein, said in an affidavit that his client
“had always maintained that he did not know why Tamara died, and
insisted that he had done nothing to cause her death.” Bernstein said
that he told Blackett that “he should not plead guilty to something that
he did not do,” but “that there was a ‘real chance’ he would be
convicted of murder if he went to trial.” The Court of Appeal set
aside Blackett's conviction after four additional forensic pathologists
rejected Smith's conclusions. They said it could be natural causes but
found it was impossible to say how Tamara died. On Tuesday, Justice McMahon said he was sympathetic to Blackett’s position, and urged vigilance in these types of cases. “As
lawyers and judges, we can’t allow people to plead guilty to things
they didn’t do, but I understand why it happens” when the accused is
faced with a contradictory expert opinion, he said. Blackett, who
was released on mandatory supervision in October 2003, was accompanied
in court by a half-dozen supporters from Innocence Canada and the
group’s founding director, James Lockyer — his lawyer. Outside the courtroom, he embraced Lockyer, who has helped clear the names of
nine parents and caregivers wrongly blamed due to Smith’s flawed opinions. In seven of those cases, the
accused pleaded guilty, Lockyer said. Blackett
said the nature of his conviction has made it difficult to find work.
He said he hopes to start his own business managing musicians. “This day is a new turning point for me ... I can basically start over.” he said. “It’s raining outside, but it’s tears of joy.”"
https://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/2018/10/02/what-happened-to-oneil-blackett-is-a-tragedy-judge-says-in-wrongful-conviction-case.html
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this
case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on
developments. 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;
