FIRST QUOTE OF THE DAY; 'The veteran detective on the case has said that it seemed that among some of the medical experts involved in the death investigation, there was “just some determination to find abuse.”'
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SECOND QUOTE OF THE DAY: “The system failed us … and again, they failed the community as a whole with this (decision),” Alexander’s father said. “It just goes to show that these people in power are able to do as they please. That’s what disappoints me the most.” The family’s lawyer said the decision has had the “unintended consequence” of doing “serious harm” to the “family’s recovery from this tragic loss.” “The wound has been reopened for them,” James Mountford said. “(They) fear that other families may have to endure the same trauma as they have because nothing will change.”
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STORY: "Ontario’s top pathologist was accused of abusing his power. Now, judges say the bitter dispute never should have made it to their court," by Investigative Reporter Rachel Mendleson, published by The Toronto Star, on May 16, 2023.
SUB-HEADING: "Judges rejected a former pathologist’s plea for the court to wade into Dr. Michael Pollanen’s conduct in a case involving an infant’s death."
In a ruling against Dr. Jane Turner, a panel of judges took aim at the former Hamilton forensic pathologist’s accusation that Pollanen abused his power to overrule some colleagues and change the cause of the child’s death to abuse.
Turner used the court process “to air a personal grievance pointed at” Pollanen because the oversight body that probed Turner’s complaint against him “failed to accept” her analysis as to the cause of death, the May 8 decision reads.
Her application for a judicial review of the Death Investigation Oversight Council “was ill-considered and should never have been brought,” the court concluded.
The case involving “baby Alexander” raised questions about the integrity of Ontario’s death investigation system and concerns about the objectivity of Pollanen. The boy’s family has said they were wrongly punished as abusers.
Pollanen has denied Turner’s accusations.
He has said that he had a duty to oversee the debate between medical experts over the cause of Alexander’s death.
He said he did not conclude that the baby had been abused, but rather that the underlying cause of mysterious fractures found on his body after he died had not been explained.
He wrote in his final report: “Inflicted injury has not been excluded in this case.”
Turner’s lawyer, Sujit Choudhry, said: “Dr. Turner does not agree with the factual conclusions reached by the Divisional Court. We continue to carefully review the judgment and will have no further comment at this time.”
Turner, then-director of the former Hamilton forensic pathology unit, performed the autopsy on the seven-week-old boy after he died suddenly in 2017.
Pollanen became involved after a Hamilton child abuse pediatrician disagreed with Turner.
The ensuing battle led Turner to resign, saying she felt her integrity was being threatened. She complained to the Death Investigation Oversight Council in 2019.
The oversight council reviewed Turner’s complaint and issued 13 systemic recommendations, mostly aimed at improving the forensic pathology service. But she believed the council did not take appropriate action, including failing “to make any factual findings whatsoever,” despite having the power to do so.
Turner then took the fight to Divisional Court — the first-ever challenge of the effectiveness of the council, which the province created to shore up public confidence in the death investigation system following the tragic scandal involving disgraced pathologist Charles Smith.
In a hearing in February, she alleged the oversight council failed to fulfil its legislated purpose and had instead shielded Pollanen from accountability.
She implored a panel of three judges to send her complaint back to the oversight council for reconsideration, allow her to present new evidence and to direct the council to refer to Pollanen’s superiors “any portion of the complaint … which are more appropriately dealt with by them.”
Court issued a resounding rebuke
In a scathing rebuke issued last week, the court dismissed Turner’s application.
Superior Court Justice Thomas Lederer, who wrote on behalf of the panel, said Turner’s application “stands as an impediment” to accepting the advice the oversight council provided in the recommendations it issued after investigating her complaint.
“In doing this, it impugned the participation of virtually every professional involved.”
In response to questions from the Star for this story, Pollanen’s lawyer pointed to these findings by the court, as well as its conclusion that “the root” of Turner’s application was “not the concern for the treatment of the death of the child but an effort seeking the removal of Dr. Michael Pollanen from his position as the Chief Forensic Pathologist.”
“Dr. Pollanen has faithfully served the people of Ontario as Chief for many years,” the top pathologist’s lawyer, Wayne Cunningham, added. “He looks forward to continuing his work, implementing (the oversight council’s) recommendations and strengthening the death investigation system.”
Pollanen was entrusted to repair the system after Smith’s flawed autopsy analyses tainted more than a dozen criminal cases and led to parents being wrongfully convicted of killing their children.
‘The system failed us’
Baby Alexander’s parents were initially kept in the dark about the battle between medical experts investigating the case, as the Star has reported. They lost custody of the boy’s surviving siblings for 20 months. (Their names have been changed to protect their identities as required under the law governing child protection cases.)
In January 2020, several months after the parents got their children back, Ontario’s Chief Coroner Dr. Dirk Huyer overruled the investigating coroner, who had sided with Turner, and deemed Alexander’s death a homicide, to the shock of police and some medical experts involved. The police found no criminality and closed the case.
The veteran detective on the case has said that it seemed that among some of the medical experts involved in the death investigation, there was “just some determination to find abuse.”
The family’s child protection proceedings dragged on until last fall, when the matter was finally closed, nearly five years after Alexander died.
“The system failed us … and again, they failed the community as a whole with this (decision),” Alexander’s father said. “It just goes to show that these people in power are able to do as they please. That’s what disappoints me the most.”
The family’s lawyer said the decision has had the “unintended consequence” of doing “serious harm” to the “family’s recovery from this tragic loss.”
“The wound has been reopened for them,” James Mountford said. “(They) fear that other families may have to endure the same trauma as they have because nothing will change.”
A spokesperson for the ministry of the solicitor general, speaking on behalf of the oversight council, declined to comment while the matter remains within the appeals period."
https://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/2023/05/16/ontarios-top-pathologist-was-accused-of-abusing-his-power-now-judges-say-the-bitter-dispute-never-should-have-made-it-to-their-court.html
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. 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;
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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;
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YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:
David Hammond, one of Broadwater’s attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, “Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it’s the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.”
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