PUBLISHER'S NOTE:I am thinking today about these two Charles Smith which have yet to be resolved by The Ontario Court of Appeal - meaning there are still parents out there who were wrongfully charged and convicted because of the role Smith played in their cases - and that still have not been exonerated many years later. Their exonerations can't come soon enough.
Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
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JEFF SMITH: Oshawa: He is the subject of the CBC 'Fifth Estate' documentary 'Diagnosis Murder' which profiles parents considered wrongly convicted of shaking their babies to death, As reported by Reporter Jillian Follert on December 10, 2013: "His case is well-known in Canada and was recently the subject of a CBC Fifth Estate documentary called Diagnosis Murder, which profiles parents considered wrongly convicted of shaking their babies to death.........The child’s sudden death was closely scrutinized and a pathologist report concluded she died of a brain hemorrhage. There was also evidence of brain swelling and bleeding behind the eyes. At that time, the three symptoms automatically pointed to shaken baby syndrome, as far as many doctors and pathologists were concerned. In July 1994, Mr. Smith was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. He stood trial in 1996, was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to 18 months in jail......... In the years that followed Mr. Smith’s conviction, researchers began to challenge assumptions about shaken baby syndrome, arguing that symptoms such as brain hemorrhage can also be caused by infection or trauma at birth. He is currently working with the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted (Innocence Canada), in the hope of one day being exonerated."
Read the entire story at:
http://www.durhamregion.com/news-story/4246015-man-convicted-of-killing-daughter-shares-heartbreak-with-uoit-students/
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JENNIFER GASKIN: As reported in The Toronto Star by Reporter Marco Chown Oved On February 3, 2014: " In 2002, she was convicted of manslaughter in the shaken baby death of her infant son, Joeseph — a crime she says she did not commit...................................... Gaskin was 23 years old and already had an 11-month-old daughter when she delivered Joeseph, 9½ weeks prematurely, in April 1999. Both mother and daughter had health complications after the birth and Gaskin confided that raising two babies while her boyfriend worked was extremely trying. At one point, she admits to having thought about giving her babies up for adoption. When Joeseph was less than three months old, Gaskin took him out with her boyfriend, Dale Jones, to a Chinese food restaurant in the northwestern Ontario town of Ignace. Joeseph was getting cranky, so Jones took him home. At home, Jones would testify in court, Joeseph stopped breathing and turned blue. Despite repeated attempts to revive him, the baby would be pronounced dead in hospital less than an hour later. In an autopsy, Dr. David Welbourne suspected some shaking may have occurred but concluded Joeseph died of a head injury. Police then called in a second opinion, and solicited Dr. William Halliday, a pathologist at Sick Kids Hospital. Halliday concluded that injuries found on Joeseph’s brain occurred during three separate time periods before his death: two weeks, two to three days and 12 hours. Police then charged Gaskin with second-degree murder, alleging she had “exclusive opportunity” to have injured Joeseph at these times. She was later convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to two years less a day in prison."
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014/02/03/a_decade_later_shaken_baby_convictions_appealed.html
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BERNARD DOYLE: (This was written before his exoneration. HL. See the link to my post on his exoneration on June 27, 2023, below); "Marco Chown Oved reports in the article referred to above: "Gaskin and Doyle’s cases share remarkable similarities. 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. Police also conducted aggressive and lengthy interviews with both suspects, so much so that the trial judge for Gaskin ruled her interview inadmissible. ..................“I’m of the opinion that both of them may well have been convicted of crimes they did not commit,” said Lockyer. (Lawyer James Lockyer: Innocence Canada): Gaskin and Doyle served their time behind bars and are back in their communities, but the convictions continue to plague their lives. Gaskin lost custody of her two other children, while Doyle isn’t allowed to be alone with his. Both maintain their innocence."
Link to Bernard Doyle's exoneration:
https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/3594791339569214027-
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. 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;
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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;
