BACKGROUND: (Innocence Canada): David and Joyce’s Quest for Justice. "David spent 23 years in prison – almost a quarter-century – for a crime that he did not commit. In addition to the massive injustice that David had suffered, he was subjected to physical and sexual assault in prison, leading to several suicide attempts. David managed to escape for 77 days in 1980, before being shot and recaptured by the RCMP. Enmeshed in a truly desperate situation and seemingly out of options, David and his mother, Joyce, refused to give up the fight. Joyce devoted her life to securing justice for her son, launching her own investigation, telling David’s story to the media, and spending all her savings in a multi-year quest to bring the truth to light.Meanwhile, Larry Fisher – the real culprit – had been arrested in September 1970, while committing yet another sexual assault. On December 21, 1971, Fisher pled guilty to four sexual assaults and was incarcerated. He was released from prison in 1980 – while David was still languishing for one of Fisher’s crimes – and promptly returned to his disturbing pattern of violence against women. On June 11, 1981, Fisher was convicted of rape, as well as attempted murder.[ By this time, police already had reason to suspect that Fisher – not David – had murdered Gail. On August 28, 1980, Fisher’s ex-wife, Linda, had gone to the Saskatoon police station and explained that she thought that Larry might have killed Gail Miller. She said that she had been arguing with Fisher on the day of Gail’s murder, when a news story began on the radio about this crime. She angrily accused him of committing the murder – and noticed his shocked reaction. She also noticed that they were missing a paring knife from the kitchen. Although the Inspector who met with Linda found her to be credible, police never followed up on this report, even though it suggested that the wrong person might be in jail.[ While police failed to pursue this possible lead, Joyce continued her own investigations. In March of 1983, she learned that at the time of Gail’s murder, convicted rapist and attempted murderer Larry Fisher had been living in Albert Cadrain’s basement. Cadrain, it should be recalled, was at one point David’s friend and later a police informant. This revelation was the first step in a long journey that ultimately led to the long overdue conviction of the true culprit."
https://www.innocencecanada.com/exonerations/david-milgaard/
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Joyce was one of the founders of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted, now Innocence Canada. In 2020, Joyce died at the age of 89; her son David died May 2022 at age 69. And Brian Mulroney died peacefully on Feb. 29 at the age of 84. He told the Winnipeg Free Press in 1997 that his meeting with Joyce had a lasting impact on him. “In that brief meeting, I got a sense of Mrs. Milgaard and her genuineness and her courage. We all have mothers. But even the most devoted and loving of mothers would not continue their crusade for twenty-two years if there was any doubt in her mind. "So I went back to Ottawa and had a much closer look at it.”
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STORY: "Milgaard and Mulroney: When the PM’s compassion shone through for the mom of an innocent man," by Peter Edwards, (my good friend and former colleague at the Toronto Star with whom I worked closely for years on many important stories), published on March 19, 2024.
SUB-HEADING: "Prime Minister Brian Mulroney could have simply walked away from the mother of a convicted killer — but he didn’t. Years later, David Milgaard was exonerated."
GIST: "David Milgaard had been locked in Canada’s toughest prisons for 22 years for a murder and rape he did not commit when he urged his mother Joyce to go and have a talk with Brian Mulroney.
“Mom, you’ve got to talk to the Prime Minister,” he told her in August 1991.
I was there at Stony Mountain Prison in Manitoba, working on a story for the Toronto Star when David made his emotional request.
I found it utterly pathetic and depressing.
By the time of this visit, Milgaard's arms were scarred with about a dozen slashes — an inch long, ugly and deep.
Some were from suicide attempts and others were just the slashing that’s common in prison when prisoners choose pain over the dull feeling of being one of the living dead.
On top of the slashing scars on his arms were a couple of large rose tattoos —those were also from prison.
David was then one of Canada’s longest-serving prisoners and he faced the real threat of spending the rest of his life behind bars.
By this time, lawyers, doctors and private investigators were among those who were expressing doubts that he really was the man who raped and murdered Saskatoon nurses’ aide Gail Miller on Jan. 31, 1969.
By then, new evidence had come to light pointing to Larry Fisher, a vicious serial rapist who had been living two blocks from Miller at the time. In 1991, when I first saw David Milgaard, Fisher was in Mountain Prison in Agassiz, B.C., serving time for six sex attacks.
Years later, an RCMP DNA expert told the court that the odds were 950 trillion to one that someone other than Fisher had attacked Miller.
By 1991, even Miller’s family were saying Milgaard might be innocent.
And David, who was then 39, seemed to think his mother could just dial up Prime Minister Mulroney and get him to take care of things.
And she did — sort of.
A month after that prison visit, Joyce was holding a vigil outside a Winnipeg hotel when Mulroney arrived.
“There was a carpet laid out from the street into the hotel for the prime minister, and a rope to separate his walkway from our group, the curious and the media,” Joyce recalled in her book "A Mother's Story: The Fight to Free My Son David," which I ghostwrote with her.
“The prime minister stepped out of his car, went halfway up the carpet, then turned and strode directly toward me,” Joyce recalled. “He took my hand and addressed me by name, looking me directly in the eye.”
Joyce said she thanked him, and then said David wasn’t in good shape.
Sex offenders are at the bottom of the prisoner hierarchy. During his imprisonment, which began in 1969 at age 16, Milgaard had been gang-raped, beaten and vilified.
Twice, Milgaard had attempted escape by fleeing custody, once to the GTA.
Twice he had attempted escape through suicide.
During their meeting outside the Winnipeg hotel in 1991, Joyce told Mulroney that David’s mental health was falling fast.
“He needs to have some peace of mind and I’m afraid that the case will not be reopened before David has lost his sanity,” she told him. "And, of course, the other question is anything you could do for a speedy review?"
The prime minister told her he'd just checked in Ottawa the day before. "They’ll be taking a close look at it very, very soon," he told Joyce, before asking about her son.
"You mentioned his health?”
“He’s been in the hospital,” she replied, and they spoke of how David had sought a transfer to the Rockwood prison farm by Stony Mountain, or Collins Bay in Ontario.
The prime minister "could have easily turned away at that point,” Joyce said. “We had chatted a couple of minutes, and he had shown his concern for the cameras. However, he kept on talking."
“It’s hard on him?” he asked.
“It’s very difficult on all of us.”
“How are you getting on?”
“Just the fact that you’re talking to me makes me feel better.”
Mulroney told Joyce that the ministers of justice and attorney-general were reviewing new information on the case.
“I didn’t tell him that (David’s lawyer) David Asper had written three times to the Justice Department trying to get some idea of when a decision would be made, but still had received no answer,” Joyce said — “Perhaps this meeting with the prime minister might speed things up.”
Mulroney steered the conversation back to David’s health.
“Is he that sick?,” Mulroney asked. “I didn’t realize ... I knew he was ill. But I didn’t realize he was that sick.”
“It is exactly. I would never be coming to you otherwise.”
“I’ll look into it right away,” he said.
“Prime Minister Mulroney could have walked away at any point in the lengthy conversation, but he didn’t,” Joyce remembered — “David had been right. Perhaps a chat with the prime minister was just what we needed.”
David was transferred to Rockwood within the month.
“Whatever was going on behind the closed doors of Justice, the tide was turning for us now,” Joyce recalled.
“Transfers from maximum-security prisons like Stony Mountain to minimum-security prison farms like Rockwood, which adjoined it, were almost unheard of, but now, after the meeting with Prime Minister Mulroney, David was getting one.”
He soon told her, “Mom, do you realize that I can go out and take a walk in the field.”
David was released from prison in 1992 as the Supreme Court prepared for a review of the case.
Serial rapist Fisher was convicted in 1999 of first-degree murder in in the killing of Gail Miller. He died behind bars in June 2015 at the age of 65.
Joyce was one of the founders of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted, now Innocence Canada. In 2020, Joyce died at the age of 89; her son David died May 2022 at age 69.
And Brian Mulroney died peacefully on Feb. 29 at the age of 84.
He told the Winnipeg Free Press in 1997 that his meeting with Joyce had a lasting impact on him.
“In that brief meeting, I got a sense of Mrs. Milgaard and her genuineness and her courage. We all have mothers. But even the most devoted and loving of mothers would not continue their crusade for twenty-two years if there was any doubt in her mind.
"So I went back to Ottawa and had a much closer look at it.”
A state funeral ceremony for Mulroney is scheduled for Saturday, March 23, at Notre Dame Basilica in Montréal."
The entire story can be read at:
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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/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
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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.
https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-12348801
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MORE VALUABLE WORDS: "As a former public defender, Texas' refusal to delay Ivan Cantu's execution to evaluate new evidence is deeply worrying for the state of our legal system. There should be no room for doubt in a death penalty case. The facts surrounding Cantu's execution should haunt all of us."
Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett; X March 1, 2024.
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