BACKGROUND: WIKIPEDIA: "Peter Hugh McGregor Ellis (30 March 1958 – 4 September 2019) was a New Zealand child care worker who was wrongfully convicted of child sexual abuse. He was at the centre of one of the country's most enduring judicial controversies, after being He maintained his innocence until his death 26 years later and was supported by many New Zealanders in his attempts to overturn his convictions. Concerns about the reliability of the convictions centred on lurid stories told by many of the children and the interview techniques used to obtain their testimony. Ellis was exonerated by a landmark Supreme Court decision in October 2022, which found that evidence against him and misleading expert testimony resulted in a miscarriage of justice in New Zealand. In 1994, Ellis took his case to the Court of Appeal of New Zealand which quashed convictions on three of the charges but upheld the sentence. His conviction and sentence were upheld in his second appearance before the Court of Appeal in October 1999. In March 2000, former Chief Justice Sir Thomas Eichelbaum was appointed to conduct a ministerial inquiry reviewing the children's evidence. His report upheld the guilty verdicts. The same month Governor-General Sir Michael Hardie Boys rejected Ellis' third bid for pardon on the advice of Justice Minister Phil Goff, who was satisfied with Eichelbaum's finding that Ellis had failed to prove his convictions were unsafe. Ellis refused to attend parole board hearings while in prison because he would have to confess to the crimes in order to argue for early release.[1] He was released in February 2000 after serving seven years in prison. Two books and numerous articles[2] have been written about the case. After his release, Ellis continued campaigning to clear his name. In 2019, nineteen years after he was released, he appealed to the Supreme Court to have his conviction overturned. Although he died of cancer before the appeal could be heard, the Supreme Court delivered a judgment in October 2022 allowing the appeal and quashing Ellis' convictions.[3 The Ellis case was one of several similar high profile child abuse cases around the world in the 1980s and early 1990s. It has been mentioned as a cause in the decline in the number of male teachers in New Zealand schools.[4]
----------------------------------------------------------------
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: This Blog is interested in false confessions because of the disturbing number of exonerations in the USA, Canada and multiple other jurisdictions throughout the world, where, in the absence of incriminating forensic evidence the conviction is based on self-incrimination – and because of the growing body of scientific research showing how vulnerable suspects (especially young suspects) are to widely used interrogation methods such as the notorious ‘Reid Technique.’ As all too many of this Blog's post have shown, I also recognize that pressure for false confessions can take many forms, up to and including inducement. deception (read ‘outright lies’) physical violence, and even physical and mental torture.
PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "How many times do we get told by the cops after a deplorable interview process that borders on bullying a confession out of desperate and simple people, that Police promise to change procedure? We had it after Police planted evidence in the Arthur Allan Thomas case, we had it after Teina Pora who was interviewed for 5 days in a row, we had it with taking photos illegally from Māori teenagers on the street, we had it with the appalling case of Alan Hall and this year we had a Detective Superintendent who was the architect of a controversial new police interrogation program called the Complex Investigation Phased Engagement Model, caught out lying about his level of involvement in detectives using his model for a case that was eventually kicked out of court because it was manipulating people into making confessions!"
-----------------------------------------------------------------
GIST: "Cough.
Sooooooooo, after another bitter miscarriage of justice with Peter Ellis – are we going to talk about corrupt Police Interrogation techniques or not?
How many times do we get told by the cops after a deplorable interview process that borders on bullying a confession out of desperate and simple people, that Police promise to change procedure?
We had it after Police planted evidence in the Arthur Allan Thomas case, we had it after Teina Pora who was interviewed for 5 days in a row, we had it with taking photos illegally from Māori teenagers on the street, we had it with the appalling case of Alan Hall and this year we had a Detective Superintendent who was the architect of a controversial new police interrogation program called the Complex Investigation Phased Engagement Model, caught out lying about his level of involvement in detectives using his model for a case that was eventually kicked out of court because it was manipulating people into making confessions!
Using false memory evidence from children in the Christchurch Creche satanic case with the Peter Ellis case is just the latest evidence of police interrogation techniques that are imprisoning innocent people!
We have a Police interview process that generates false and illegal confessions! If all we are trying to do is set people up and convict them of crimes we force them to confess to, that’s not a fucking legal process, that’s a gulag!
How have the NZ Police managed to get away with this with so little media attention?"
The entire post can be read at:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resurce. 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;
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
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: "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;
-----------------------------------------------------------
