PUBLISHER'S NOTE: "Lockyer and his Innocence Canada (formerly known as Aidwyc) colleagues have managed to secure exonerations for many of Charles Smith's victims, including: Richard Brant, Joyce Hayman, O'Neil Blackett, Dinesh Kumar, Maria Shepherd, Tammy Marquardt, Sherry-Sherrett Robinson, and William Mullins-Johnson. So I truly hope that by the end of the appeal, Bernard Doyle - albeit after far too many years - will have achieved his quest to clear his name - and that Jennifer Gaskin's, and the other cases from the 'shaken baby system' review, will soon follow. I am, of course, curious as to whether the Doyle appeal will give us insight into the Ontario Court of Appeal's take on 'Shaken Baby Syndrome.'
Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: On Monday, Bernard Doyle's appeal is scheduled to be heard in the Ontario Court of Appeal at 10.00 AM in Courtroom, 10.
Bernard Doyle was found guilty of manslaughter in a 'Shaken Baby Syndrome' case 26 years ago.
In an article published on February 3, 2014, Toronto Star Reporter Marco Chown Oved reported that the facts of his case shared "remarkable similarities" to the unrelated Ontario manslaughter case of Jennifer Gaskin, which dates back to 2002.
"In both, a baby died suddenly and doctors suspected mistreatment. Both autopsies found brain and optical nerve hemorrhaging that doctors concluded must be the result of shaking — conclusions that have come under renewed scrutiny," he wrote.
Jennifer Gaskin and Bernard Doyle protested their innocence from the outset, went to prison, and then returned to their communities where their convictions continued to plague their lives and frustrate their quest for clearing their names.
Normally that would have been the end of the matter, game over. In spite of your innocence, go through the rest of your life under a cloud of public shame.
However, as Marco Chown Oved reports, ten years later, the findings of the Goudge Inquiry into many of the Charles Smith cases prompted a review of all shaken baby deaths in the province.
This review led to several people, including Gaskin and Doyle, being granted the right to appeal their convictions - in spite of the passage of time.
"Under normal circumstances, defendants have just 30 days to appeal but Justice Marc Rosenberg allowed their cases to go forward because of a re-evaluation of how shaken baby syndrome (SBS) is understood by the scientific community, Marco Ovid Chown reported.
“There’s no question that today, the whole SBS hypothesis is being questioned on its scientific foundation,” said their lawyer, James Lockyer, a veteran of high-profile cases of the wrongly convicted such as David Milgaard, Guy Paul Morin and Steven Truscott.
I am planning to be in the Ontario Court of Appeal on Monday, where lawyer Lockyer, representing Mr. Doyle for Innocence Canada, formerly known as AIDWYC, will be making submissions on his behalf.
Lockyer and his colleagues have managed to secure exonerations for many of Charles Smith's victims, including: Richard Brant, Joyce Hayman, O'Neil Blackett, Dinesh Kumar, Maria Shepherd, Tammy Marquardt, Sherry Sherrett-Robinson, and William Mullins-Johnson.
So I truly hope that by the end of the appeal, Bernard Doyle - albeit after far too many years - will have achieved his quest to clear his name - and that Jennifer Gaskin's appeal, and the other cases from the 'Shaken Baby Syndrome' review, will soon follow.
I am, of course, curious as to whether the Doyle appeal will give us insight into the Ontario Court of Appeal's 'take' on 'Shaken Baby Syndrome.'
Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
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Read Marco Ovid Chown's story at:
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014/02/03/a_decade_later_shaken_baby_convictions_appealed.html
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/5052296540746415495
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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/120008354894645705/47049136857587929
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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