PASSAGE OF THE DAY: (The snowfall experts): "The defence called witnesses this past week to counter an account by a Toronto firefighter that there was snow on the ground as he entered the Ali home after the 911 call. He testified he saw no footprints, leading him to instantly conclude that the home invasion story was fabricated. (Most first responders to testify at the trial reported clear conditions upon arrival, including Ed Owen, a paramedic, who said the roadways were “great and clear” and the walkway and path leading to the town home free of snow. Jarrod Stark, who owns a video production company, recreated a CTV news shot of Cynara being wheeled on a stretcher from the town home to a waiting ambulance to show the angle and focal length used. Light flurries are seen in the CTV footage, and snow in spots on the ground, though none present on boots in the scene or on the stretcher wheels. Stark mapped out where certain landmarks were in the news clip, including snow piled up in the background that was about 35 metres beyond the stretcher, yet due to the compression of the telephoto lens in use, appeared closer. Stark’s recreation for the court was followed by expert testimony from Kent Moore, a University of Toronto physics professor who studies lake effect snow, which was what was happening that day. Using Environment Canada radar images, Moore testified that the area around the Ali home at one snapshot of the morning of the 911 call did not show snow bands, while the area around Buttonville airport, where an Environment Canada weather station exists, did. Based on a number of factors, including snowfall rate, snow on the ground, ground temperature, presence of salt, sunshine and wind — and the CTV video, police photos and CCTV footage from a nearby building — it was Moore’s opinion that there was likely no snow accumulation leading into the Ali home."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
STORY: "At Cindy Ali trial, church friends and snowfall experts counter Crown's ‘absurd’ mercy-killing theory," by Staff Reporter Jim Rankin, published by The Toronto Star, on December 9, 2023. (Jim Rankin is a reporter-photographer on the crime, courts and justice team. He has won three National Newspaper Awards and been nominated for eight others. In 2002, he led a team of reporters, editors and researchers involved in a Michener Award-winning investigative series into race, policing and crime in Toronto. He is also the recipient of a Canadian Association of Journalists Award and the St. Clair Balfour Fellowship from the Canadian Journalism Foundation.)
SUB-HEADING: "The second trial of a Toronto mom accused of murdering her severely disabled daughter is hinging on the same Crown theory: that Cindy Ali killed her daughter Cynara, and then staged a fake home invasion."
These are among the final pieces of evidence in a case that is now nearly as old as Cynara was at the time of her death.
Ali’s defence team of James Lockyer and Jessica Zita wound up its case Thursday before Superior Court Justice Jane Kelly at the 361 University Ave. courthouse in Toronto, where Ali stands accused for a second time of deliberately killing Cynara.
Following closing submissions scheduled for later this month, it will be up to Kelly in this judge-alone retrial to decide what happened in the Ali Scarborough town home on the morning of Feb. 19, 2011, when Ali, home alone with Cynara, dialed 911 to report a break in and her daughter, who had cerebral palsy and suffered from seizures, in medical distress.
In the final days of the trial this week, Amanda Ali, Cynara’s oldest sister, testified as a defence witness, in part, to the lengths Toronto police went in its investigation of not only her mother but of her family, and herself.
Following her mother’s arrest in March 2012, Amanda, who was 21 when Cynara died, told Lockyer of a voicemail she received from Frank Skubic, the lead detective in the case.
The detective, said Amanda, explained there was an “outstanding” issue and that based on what her mother had told the detective, he believed that Ali “had help” and that Amanda should get legal advice. Skubic, said Amanda, made it sound like “my mom turned on me, or tried to turn on me.” (The trial has seen no evidence to back up this claim.)
At the time and unbeknownst to the Ali family, their relatives and friends, extensive police wiretapping was underway and had been for months, capturing them all in conversations that the defence team has said amounted to nothing of consequence.
Amanda delivered the eulogy at Cynara’s funeral service but told Lockyer that for months afterwards, police kept coming to the family for statements. “It felt chaotic,” she said. “We didn’t have the time to grieve.”
Cynara, said Amanda, did not have a miserable life and “was always in the middle of all of us,” referring to her mother, father Allan and younger twin sisters. “Cynara had a happy life, a very happy life.”
Cynara, who communicated by laughing and crying, could not walk or feed herself.
Court has heard several possibilities for her death due to lack of oxygen, including sudden unexpected death due to epilepsy.
Prosecutors continue to argue Ali staged the family home to make it appear a home invasion had taken place and then smothered Cynara with a pillow.
Ali’s defence team contends Ali did nothing to cause her daughter’s death, that there had been a home invasion, and that Cynara was loved and well cared for.
Ali was convicted of first-degree murder in a jury trial in 2016. The conviction was quashed in 2021 by the Ontario Court of Appeal and Ali has been out of prison since 2020, when she was released on bail, in part due to the strength of her appeal.
Not advanced at the first trial was the suggestion of a “mercy killing.” It was only during the Crown’s cross-examination of Ali at this trial that the proposition was put to her — that she decided to kill Cynara after she had several seizures the night before.
Ali rejected the suggestion and has maintained she did nothing to cause her daughter harm.
Ali has said two men dressed in black and wearing balaclavas pushed their way into the home seeking a “package” and one of them, armed with a gun, led her through the house to look for the package.
Ali testified to seeing an intruder standing near Cynara with a pillow in his hands before one of the intruders acknowledged they had the wrong home and the pair exited through a basement door leading to an underground garage shared by 165 other units in the complex.
By then, she said, Cynara was not moving.
Ali dialed 911 at 11:37 a.m. and has said she twice passed out while on the call. First responders were able to restore Cynara’s heartbeat, but she died in hospital 36 hours later, after being taken off life support.
Ali was home alone with Cynara that day, with her husband Allan and twin daughters out at a Family Day weekend work event, and Amanda out at the gym and then to work.
An eyewitness testified at the first trial to seeing two men of similar description in the underground garage around that time.
Peter and Sheela Duraisami, married pastors from the Christian church the Ali family attended then and still do, were among the final witnesses to testify, describing them as a loving family.
Peter Duraisami, who is also the CEO of The Scott Mission, said Ali was “like a mother” at the church and that continued with her fellow inmates when Ali was incarcerated. “At a time of brokenness of her own, she is there taking care of others,” Duraisami said.
He said he attended Ali family parties, including birthday celebrations for Cynara, and that the family “knew how to celebrate.” On the day Ali called 911, the Duraisamis along with many church congregants, supported the family, including at the Hospital for Sick Children where Cynara died.
Was it hard for the family to care for Cynara, asked Lockyer? “It’s just the other way around,” Duraisami said. “Cynara was the joy of their life.”
Sheela Duraisami told court she was “shocked and horrified” to eventually learn that police had tapped her own phone as part of the investigation, since she had sensitive conversations with many of her congregants.
When Lockyer also put to her the Crown proposition that Ali had put Cynara out of misery in a mercy killing situation, the pastor replied it would be “impossible” and “the most absurd statement.” Ali, she said, is a woman of “strong faith” and “love.”
On cross-examination by Crown attorney Beverley Olesko, Duraisami was asked about a suicide attempt Ali had made while in prison, and if that was against the tenets of the church.
The pastor agreed it is, but said that made her realize “how much this woman had been pushed into a corner.”
Ali never spoke of “hopelessness” regarding Cyanara and in sermons, Duraisami said she used Ali as an “example of grace and strength.”
The defence called witnesses this past week to counter an account by a Toronto firefighter that there was snow on the ground as he entered the Ali home after the 911 call.
He testified he saw no footprints, leading him to instantly conclude that the home invasion story was fabricated. (Most first responders to testify at the trial reported clear conditions upon arrival, including Ed Owen, a paramedic, who said the roadways were “great and clear” and the walkway and path leading to the town home free of snow.)
Jarrod Stark, who owns a video production company, recreated a CTV news shot of Cynara being wheeled on a stretcher from the town home to a waiting ambulance to show the angle and focal length used. Light flurries are seen in the CTV footage, and snow in spots on the ground, though none present on boots in the scene or on the stretcher wheels.
Stark mapped out where certain landmarks were in the news clip, including snow piled up in the background that was about 35 metres beyond the stretcher, yet due to the compression of the telephoto lens in use, appeared closer.
Stark’s recreation for the court was followed by expert testimony from Kent Moore, a University of Toronto physics professor who studies lake effect snow, which was what was happening that day. Using Environment Canada radar images, Moore testified that the area around the Ali home at one snapshot of the morning of the 911 call did not show snow bands, while the area around Buttonville airport, where an Environment Canada weather station exists, did.
Based on a number of factors, including snowfall rate, snow on the ground, ground temperature, presence of salt, sunshine and wind — and the CTV video, police photos and CCTV footage from a nearby building — it was Moore’s opinion that there was likely no snow accumulation leading into the Ali home.
At Ali’s successful appeal, Lockyer and Zita argued her jury had been “straitjacketed” into an all-or-nothing decision that wrongly resulted in a conviction and automatic life sentence.
Not put to the jury at her first trial were other possible options to consider, including that Ali could have done nothing wrong but panicked and made up the intruder story.
That fact, along with other problems in Justice Todd Ducharme’s instructions to the jury, was enough reason to set aside her conviction, the Court of Appeal ruled.
At the first trial, the Crown contended Ali smothered Cynara for financial reasons, a motive Lockyer attacked in the appeal hearing, saying the debt the family carried made them no different than hundreds of thousands of Canadians.
The appeal court found that motive “so meagre” and “speculative” that the judge should not have left that with the jury as a possibility.
Ali was released from prison on bail in 2020, in part based on the strength of her then-unheard appeal. Throughout this trial and the last, supporters, most with a connection to Ali’s church, have been attending.
Crown and defence final submissions are scheduled to be made on Dec. 18."
———————————————————————————
The entire story can be read at:
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;
—————————————————————————————————
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;
------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-123488014
