PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "To be frank, I am horrified that the South Australian legal system has not freed and exonerated Derek Bromley - and that it has resisted calling an inquiry into the disastrous Manock regime - with a view to ensuring that safeguards are put in place, and such a debacle will never happen again in South Australia. I suspect these would be givens here in Canada. You clearly have your work cut out for you. I respectfully suggest that your government should call a judicial inquiry into the work of Dr Manock and his cases, so that trust within the international legal community can be reinstated for the South Australian legal system."
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I have devoted numerous posts on the Colin Manock regime of botched criminal cases and autopsies over the years - which have drawn me to the conclusion that Colin Manock is South Australia's 'Charles Smith', the namesake of this Blog. These posts have dwelled on common denominators between these two men, including their lack of qualifications to perform their consequential jobs, which, coupled with their sheer incompetence was a perfect storm for wrongful convictions and botched autopsies - and for drawing their respective criminal justice systems into disrespect. There is one other common denominator which disturbs me. As I'm searching for the words to describe it, I keep coming back to 'flawed character,' as illustrated by the following examples. Charles Smith: In one of the cases reviewed by The Goudge public inquiry, it was revealed that Smith brought his 11-year-old son to the disinterment of an 11-month-old baby, in the presence of the baby's horrified family. The horror of this conduct was summed up by the baby's grandfather, who wrote, in a letter to the Chief Coroner of the time: "Not only did Dr. Smith, the man responsible for the disinterment, trivialise the desecration of our baby's grave, he contemptuously mocked my daughter and the memory of her son, by flaunting his 'live' son while cavalierly digging up her dead son." Colin Manock: As I wrote on this Blog in 2017, "In a recent post on Dr. Colin Manock - the self-styled forensic 'expert' who was not qualified to do death investigations and was responsible for Henry Keogh's wrongful conviction, and who knows how many others, I raised the question 'what kind of man would allow himself to play such a destructive, harmful role in his state's criminal justice system?' ..."The post was based upon a two part documentary report by Graham Archer on 'todaytonight Adelaide' which appeared on March 21, 2016 which I noted goes a long way to answering this fundamental question. (Part One takes us to the tiny opal mining South Australian settlement of Mintabie in 1978 where Manock performs an outdoor autopsy on an aboriginal man - even though private, in-door cool-room facilities are available, In the words of reporter Graham Archer: "His plan is to demonstrate his mortuary skills before the entire community. Miners, Aboriginal people, women and perhaps even children congregate around in stunned belief. He then goes to work on the body of the deceased - someone's father - someone's brother - someone's son." Mulla Sumner, an Aboriginal elder interjects: "Well, my sort of response to that, and what I can see is that he gutted this bloke in public, he gutted him took out his insides. Graham Archer responds: "That's what happens in autopsies. The skull is cut open, the brain removed as are the organs of the body. The bystanders, especially the Aboriginal people, must have been horrified at this indignity - the desecration of the poor man in public." In spite of all the common denominators between Charles Smith and Colin Manock, there is one glaring difference: In spite of initial resistance, the Ontario government relied the importance of ordering a public inquiry into Smith's botched cases (The Goudge Inquiry) , explored how this all came about (exposing the complicity of the government, the Chief Coroner's Office and the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons (the regulator of the medical profession in Ontario ), revealed the systemic flaw which allowed all this to come about, and came up with recommendations meant to prevent such a debacle from happening in the future. The South Australian government, however, appears to be still resisting calls for an inquiry. Relying on the experience I have gained in reporting and commenting on Smith over the years, I have therefore written South Australia's Deputy Premier and Attorney General Vicky Chapman, in support of a commission of inquiry, as follows:
"Dear Ms. Chapman: I am writing this letter in support of requests to you to call a commission of inquiry into the Dr Colin Manock debacle. My views are based upon my experience as a criminal lawyer, and my investigative reporting for the Toronto Star, which led to a Judicial Inquiry in Toronto into miscarriages of justice caused by the disgraced Ontario pathologist Dr Charles Smith. Justice Goudge of the Ontario Superior Court headed the Inquiry. It should be noted that a number of eminent jurists and forensic pathologists from Australia contributed to the deliberations and recommendations of the Goudge Inquiry. Whilst those recommendations met with the approval of Justice Goudge in his report, they have clearly not been implemented in South Australia.
The main point to be learned from the Canadian experience is the way they effectively used Commissions of Inquiry as an important tool for criminal justice reform, after a series of disturbing wrongful conviction cases (mainly involving forensic issues) rocked the country. This approach could well be a valuable procedure which your government could use to regain public trust following the
revelations which arose after overturning of the conviction of Mr Keogh. It could also assist in making additional long overdue reforms.
Let me explain.
Around the beginning of 2000, Canada entered an intense period of soul-searching. As a government document noted, the soul-searching - which began with a high level federal working group, was in response to a series of wrongful convictions across the country and the various reports of inquiries which they generated. The working groups conclusions led to three reports over the last two decades all with the common purpose of guarding against future miscarriages of justice.
The three reports:
First report (2005): “Prevention of miscarriages of justice”.
Second report (2011): “The path to justice: Preventing wrongful convictions”.
Third report (2019): “Innocence at stake: the need for continued vigilance to prevent wrongful convictions in Canada.
It is important to note that a common theme of all of the reports is that commissions of Inquiry are crucial tools for rectifying individual miscarriages of justice, identifying where things went wrong, leading innocent people to prison, and coming up with recommendations to prevent further debacles and to retain public confidence in the justice system - in spite of the horror stories.
The second report stated:
Recent Canadian commissions of inquiry continue to uncover and denounce the now recognizable themes that are often present when innocent people have been imprisoned for crimes they did not commit. The importance of these case-specific inquiries cannot be overstated – they have helped to enlighten all justice system participants, and indeed the public at large, that miscarriages of justice are a part of our justice system and not as rare as previously believed. More importantly, they point to a number of converging themes that must be addressed in efforts to prevent miscarriages of justice in Canada. The reports are cautionary tales for all justice participants and are required reading for those who would prevent these sad histories from repeating themselves.
It is crucial to understand, that these words, in a report headed, 'The Path to Justice: Preventing Wrongful convictions', reflect the views of the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, formulated at a gathering of prosecution and police officials from all over the country. This report, put out by the Government of Canada, contains a quote, from the British section of the International Commission of Jurists:
No criminal justice system is, or can be, perfect. Nevertheless, the manner in which a society concerns itself with persons who may have been wrongly convicted and imprisoned must be one of the yardsticks by which civilization is measured.
This report notes that of the four commissions of inquiry that occurred between 2005 (first report) and 2011 (second report), three were set up to probe individual cases, (Ronald Dalton, Gregory Parsons and Randy Druken), one involved dozens of cases, and potentially many more) - and virtually all of them involved forensic issues.
It is noteable that in Canada, governments have seen it important to order public inquiries whether the injustice - or failings of the criminal justice system that have been exposed - involves a single case, or as in the case of Dr Charles Smith extends to many cases of egregious injustice, systemic flaws, and government wrongdoing.
For example, I have followed the Derek Bromley case for several years - and am
firmly of the review that it cries out for review - especially after the findings of Colin Manock's lack of qualifications and incompetent practice demonstrated in the overturning of the Henry Keogh conviction.
It is clear that the conviction of Mr Bromley should be overturned as soon as possible. Every minute on top of the 37 years behind bars for an innocent man in these circumstances is clearly unsupportable. His case, and the circumstances giving rise to it should be thoroughly and publicly probed.
Also, by way of example, I have followed the issues relating to Dr Colin Manock through many cases and controversies over the years, and can easily conclude that in a sense Manock is equivalent to our Dr Smith although obviously on a much greater scale.
Although Dr Smith ran a forensic unit in a hospital, he made himself appear as Ontario's chief paediatric pathologist, and was on occasion reported as such in the media. He had little power, other than his ability to hide his incompetence, and use his media savvy to build himself into the great Dr Charles Randal Smith - Canada's so-called top forensic pathologist.
Still, the damage he caused in terms of wrongful convictions and the destruction of families was enormous, and a commission of inquiry just had to be called, and changes had to be made.
Dr Manock however, was the real thing - South Australia's chief forensic pathologist. The state had explicitly given him that power. With the power came prestige, and ultimately (undeserved) public trust. The state put him in every courtroom where he testified. Prosecutors called him as their expert witness, giving him an aura of support and trust by the state. Prosecutors kept calling him to testify even after they were aware that he was unqualified to give the crucial verdict-determining opinions he made.
To be frank, I am horrified that the South Australian legal system has not freed and exonerated Derek Bromley - and that it has resisted calling an inquiry into the disastrous Manock regime - with a view to ensuring that safeguards are put in place, and such a debacle will never happen again in South Australia.
I suspect these would be givens here in Canada. You clearly have your work cut out for you. I respectfully suggest that your government should call a judicial inquiry into the work of Dr Manock and his cases, so that trust within the international legal community can be reinstated for the South Australian legal system. Best wishes. Harold Levy."
--------------------------------------------------------------
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;
-----------------------------------------------------------------
FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
—————————————————————————————————
FINAL, FINAL WORD (FOR NOW!): "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they’ve exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
----------------------------------------------------------
