PUBLISHER'S NOTE: This Winnipeg Free Press story makes clear that no other prosecutor in his jurisdiction was responsible for so many miscarriages of justice, so many years rested from the lives of innocent people and their families, so much pain and isolation, so many tears. The one missing voice in this otherwise excellent story is the voice of his wrongfully convicted victims, who instead of debating his legacy abstractly, are likely still haunted by their memories of their horrific experiences. My view of George Dangerfield's legacy? I don't believe in speaking ill of the dead. Therefore I'm just going to shut up. Besides, there's not enough time and space.
Harold levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Although Dangerfield was operating within established legal practices of the time, and though there are multiple examples of other prosecutors who were guilty of the same mistakes and misdeeds, it is impossible to find another jurisdiction where a single prosecutor was responsible for so many wrongful convictions. That record, Lockyer (Innocence Canada) noted, certainly suggests Dangerfield was the common denominator in all these miscarriages of justice. “There’s no doubt Dangerfield was the problem,” he said. “I don’t know if there’s been a wrongful corruption in Manitoba which didn’t involve Dangerfield. Has there? I don’t think so. So clearly, he was a problem. I imagine there were other prosecutors out there who were just like him back in those days. But no one matches Dangerfield in terms of the sheer numbers of wrongful convictions.”
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STORY: "A century behind bars for crimes they did not commit,"by Reporters Dan Lett and Katrina Clarke, published by The Winnipeg Free Press, on January 16, 2025. (Born and raised in and around Toronto, Dan Lett came to Winnipeg in 1986, less than a year out of journalism school with a lifelong dream to be a newspaper reporter. Katrina Clarke is an investigative reporter with the Winnipeg Free Press.)
For a man who lived most of his adult life in the spotlight, there was something oddly low-key about George Dangerfield’s death.
A highly accomplished Crown prosecutor, Dangerfield had a career that was the stuff of legends. From the early 1970s until 2000, he prosecuted dozens of Manitoba’s most notorious criminals. Serial killers, predatory rapists and bent cops all faced justice at the point of Dangerfield’s accusing finger.
RIGHTING THE WRONGS
A Free Press examination of miscarriages of justice and the legacy of legendary prosecutor George Dangerfield
He fought many of his cases all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, making new law in victory and defeat before the highest court in the land.
But in September 2023, Dangerfield died amidst a deafening silence. There was no memorial service, no obituary, no public acknowledgment of the death of one of Manitoba’s most high-profile prosecutors. So quiet was his passing that even most of those who claimed to know Dangerfield had died could not pin down the date.
But this does not mean Dangerfield has gone gently into that good night.
For the foreseeable future, Dangerfield’s record will be subject to intense scrutiny and even more intense debate within the criminal justice system.
At present, the late prosecutor is linked to five wrongful convictions involving eight men who collectively spent more than 100 years in prison for crimes they did not commit.
Many of the names of his victims — Thomas Sophonow, James Driskell, Kyle Unger and Frank Ostrowski — have been burned into the memories of members of this province’s legal profession.
In their wakes, the cases have left a trail of various forms of misconduct — undisclosed evidence, a reliance on junk science and secret deals with Crown witnesses. They have also spawned two commissions of inquiry and required payments of millions of dollars in compensation for victims.
The most recent Dangerfield case to be overturned involved four Indigenous men from the Pinaymootang First Nation — Brian Anderson, Clarence Woodhouse, Russell Woodhouse and Allan Woodhouse — who were convicted of the 1973 murder of 40-year-old Winnipeg restaurant worker Ting Fong Chan.
After years of media coverage, Innocence Canada took on the case and helped prove Winnipeg police investigators had manufactured confessions from the four men.
In an extraordinary gesture, King’s Bench Chief Justice Glenn Joyal convened special court hearings to not only overturn the convictions of Anderson, Allan Woodhouse and Clarence Woodhouse, but to declare them innocent of the crimes for which they were convicted. Crown prosecutor Michele Jules also apologized to the men. Russell Woodhouse’s conviction is still being fought posthumously. He died in 2011.
In declaring the three men innocent, Manitoba Justice was not only making history — never before has an attorney general or court declared a victim of wrongful conviction innocent — but was also signalling the system was no longer interested in protecting the reputations of Dangerfield, police officers and others responsible for these grievous miscarriages of justice.
Largely because of these most recent cases, the controversy about Dangerfield’s legacy rages on. At the core is a burning question: how can one prosecutor be associated with so many wrongful convictions?
It’s a fact that Dangerfield famously assigned himself the toughest and most sensational of criminal matters, ones that because of their complexity and visceral impact made them more likely to result in wrongful convictions.
Many of Dangerfield’s wrongful convictions occurred from the mid-1970s through to the early ’90s, a time when there were far fewer policies in place to guard against dubious theories, questionable testimony from jailhouse informants and the non-disclosure of evidence.
And there’s also this: Dangerfield was an outlier, a driven prosecutor blinded by tunnel vision who was willing to bend or break the rules in pursuit of a conviction.
THE CASES
Looking back at George Dangerfield’s career, it’s hard not to experience a sense of awe in considering the cases he tackled.
Sexual predators. Child abusers. Cop killers. Serial rapists. Dirty cops who stole and killed themselves. Gangland kingpins. Perpetrators of fatal domestic violence.
Although most of the cases involved victims and alleged criminals who never rose to great public attention, others were lightning rods in this province’s legal history.
New legal standards were established in some of Dangerfield’s cases, including several proceedings where he found himself on the losing side of the judge’s decision.
Helen Betty Osborne
For example, Dangerfield was one of the prosecutors asked in 1987 to try three men — James Houghton, Lee Colgan and Dwayne Johnston — in connection with the 1971 murder of Norway House teenager Helen Betty Osborne.
The attempt to finally convict the men who had escaped justice through a conspiracy of silence was one of the most ambitious and complex criminal cases in Manitoba history.
Dangerfield was at the heart of the controversial case because of his decision to give Colgan immunity in exchange for his testimony against Houghton and Johnston. But even with Colgan’s testimony, only Johnston was convicted; Houghton was acquitted.
In their final report, Aboriginal Justice Inquiry commissioners Alvin Hamilton and Murray Sinclair took no issue with Dangerfield’s decision to offer Colgan immunity for his testimony.
They did, however, criticize Dangerfield for not charging Houghton with a range of other, lesser offences such as abduction, assault or accessory after the fact.
Battered women’s syndrome
A few years later, Dangerfield would once again write his name into legal history as the lead prosecutor in the 1990 Angelique Lyn Lavallee case, which went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.
Lavallee had been abused by her spouse for many years and eventually shot and killed him. She was initially acquitted of murder at trial, but Dangerfield convinced the Manitoba Court of Appeal to reject the third-party testimony of a psychiatrist who examined Lavallee, and order a new trial.
The Supreme Court rejected Dangerfield’s arguments and re-instated the acquittal. In a strongly worded written decision, the high court finally recognized in law the phenomenon of “battered women’s syndrome,” a term coined by psychologists in the 1970s to describe a particular type of post-traumatic stress suffered by abused women.
The Lavallee decision helped erase a long-standing belief in the justice system that women who injured or killed their abusive partners were not entitled to claim self-defence.
Revered in legal community
There was nothing unusual about the number of cases Dangerfield won or lost; such is the life of a top prosecutor.
And so, it was not surprising that when he retired, Dangerfield was revered throughout the Manitoba legal community by both prosecutors and defence attorneys as a man who took on the toughest cases, often finding convictions where others could not.
Dangerfield retired in 2000 and it did not take long for his legacy to come under attack.
That same year, Winnipeg police announced that after an intensive internal review of the 1981 murder of 16-year-old Barbara Stoppel, it no longer considered Thomas Sophonow a suspect.
From 1982 through to 1985, Manitoba tried Sophonow three times: the first trial resulted in a hung jury; the second and third trials reached guilty verdicts but both were overturned in the Manitoba Court of Appeal. Dangerfield was the prosecutor in the first two trials.
The Winnipeg Police Service announcement was stunning for a number of reasons, not least of which was the steadfast belief among police and prosecutors that Sophonow was the only logical suspect.
News that police had effectively cleared Sophonow of the Stoppel murder shook the legal community, and quickly triggered a series of collateral events.
Sophonow inquiry
The Manitoba government ordered a commission of inquiry in 2000 that would confirm a combination of bad science and non-disclosure by police and prosecutors kept the case against Sophonow alive.
The final report, released a year later, publicly criticized the way Dangerfield had prosecuted Sophonow — in particular, Dangerfield’s decision to withhold evidence from the defence about a polygraph test where a Crown witness admitted he was only testifying to get a deal on charges he was facing.
At the inquiry, Dangerfield testified he had fulfilled his role as prosecutor by taking the evidence the police gave him and putting it before a jury.
This was one of the most important elements in Dangerfield’s attempts to establish plausible deniability on the wrongful convictions: his often-repeated contention that he’d trusted the evidence police had provided to him and had done his duty by putting that evidence before a judge and jury.
Dangerfield and other justice officials went further to buttress this excuse by arguing that if there were efforts to compensate witnesses for testimony, or if a key witness threatened to recant, these details could be kept from Dangerfield so he could prosecute the case as it was originally presented to him.
This firewall between senior justice officials and the trial prosecutor would become a critical element in almost all of Dangerfield’s wrongful convictions.
In instances when it could be shown Dangerfield was aware of a major problem with his case, he would simply claim he did not recall seeing the evidence in question, or that he could not remember why it wasn’t disclosed to defence counsel.
But these arguments carried little weight at two judicial inquiries: for the Sophonow case and then James Driskell’s.
“Clearly, the failures resulted from the erroneous acts of Crown counsel and the police, some of which were deliberate and some were inadvertent.”
–Sophonow inquiry
Sophonow inquiry commissioner Peter Cory, a former Supreme Court justice, ignored all of Dangerfield’s attempts to establish plausible deniability rationalizing the withholding of key evidence. They were “failures” of the highest order, Cory concluded.
“The failure to disclose these matters certainly had serious consequences for the defence,” Cory wrote. “Clearly, the failures resulted from the erroneous acts of Crown counsel and the police, some of which were deliberate and some were inadvertent.”
Following the release of the final report, Manitoba Justice portrayed the Sophonow case as an unfortunate one-off, its failures largely due to the tunnel vision brought on by the shocking nature of the crime.
Those assurances would turn out to be fundamentally and tragically erroneous.
Driskell inquiry
In 2003, following an in-depth investigation by the Free Press, James Driskell — who was convicted in the 1990 murder of his friend Perry Dean Harder — was released on bail pending a formal review under Section 696 of the Criminal Code, the last-ditch hope for the wrongly convicted.
The Free Press investigation revealed important instances of non-disclosure by the police and Dangerfield, who had prosecuted the case, including failing to disclose the payment of tens of thousands of dollars to two Crown witnesses, one of whom threatened to recant his testimony if he were not relocated outside Manitoba.
At trial under direct examination, Dangerfield asked both witnesses if they’d received anything in exchange for their testimony. Both denied it, even though Dangerfield was aware negotiations were ongoing to reward them.
At the Driskell inquiry, held in 2006, lead counsel Michael Code surgically deconstructed Dangerfield’s assertions that he “did not know” or “could not remember” certain key details of the case.
In the penultimate moment of cross-examination, Code put it to Dangerfield that he knew enough to know the witnesses were lying when they said they had not received consideration for their testimony.
Dangerfield, as trial prosecutor “had a duty to get to the bottom of (the witness deals) and find out the true facts, and you didn’t do it,” Code said. “Isn’t that correct?”
Dangerfield, having lost his bluster and authority, sagged in the witness dock and let out an audible sigh.
“I don’t know what prompted me to leave that matter untouched,” he said.
In his final report, Driskell inquiry commissioner Justice Patrick LeSage determined the “conduct of Crown counsel… fell below then existing professional standards expected of lawyers and agents of the Attorney General.”
He forwarded his findings to the Law Society of Manitoba to consider disbarment or other professional sanctions. The law society refused to take any action against Dangerfield.
More cases quashed
In subsequent years, other Dangerfield cases — Kyle Unger, Frank Ostrowski, and, most recently, the case involving Brian Anderson, Clarence Woodhouse, Allan Woodhouse and Russell Woodhouse — would end with quashed convictions.
An additional case, a first-degree murder conviction involving Robert Sanderson, is before the Manitoba Court of Appeal after then-federal justice minister David Lametti’s determined in 2023 a miscarriage of justice likely occurred.
Although there were no inquiries called to examine the causes of the wrongful convictions in these latter cases, they all featured the same litany of mistakes and misdeeds: imprecise science manipulated into damning testimony; non-disclosure of exculpatory evidence; coerced confessions; and secret deals with jailhouse informants.
Dangerfield sought out cases that were, by their very nature, fertile ground for wrongful convictions. They involved complex relationships, extreme violence and the rampant use of co-accused or other criminals to testify against the accused.
“No other prosecutor in Canada has a record that approaches that of Mr. Dangerfield, and it defies coincidence.”
– Innocence Canada
Even so, there is an overwhelming sense among those involved in freeing the wrongly imprisoned men that the nature of Dangerfield’s cases alone can’t account for what happened.
It has been often observed that cases Dangerfield accepted were not unique, in and of themselves. Nor were there any differences in the way the law was interpreted and applied.
The only thing that is unique in Dangerfield’s cases is Dangerfield himself.
“No other prosecutor in Canada has a record that approaches that of Mr. Dangerfield,” Innocence Canada lawyers argued in the Anderson and Woodhouse hearing, “and it defies coincidence.”
THE MAN
When George Dangerfield retired from criminal prosecutions in 2000, Jeremy Dangerfield was born.
The lightly altered pseudonym was the stage name Dangerfield adopted for a second career as an actor. And while he never really made it big — his 18 credits listed on IMDb.com feature largely low-budget, independent productions — he did give a few notable performances.
Many people in Manitoba’s legal community know he had a very brief but noticeable role as the jury foreman in the 2005 film Capote, a biopic of writer Truman Capote. That was easily the biggest commercial project he was involved in as an actor.
In other big-budget productions he played background characters: a “passing customer,” a judge, a “zombie old man” and, in his last acting gig — an independent movie from 2019 called Cybernetic Showdown — he played “Frank’s head,” a disembodied head floating on the screen of a computer monitor.
Most of Jeremy Dangerfield’s meatier roles were in low-budget, screwball satires of police procedural shows. He played a wise-cracking police detective in a 2008 film called The Killing Death, and a similarly cornball police chief in 2011-12 in the TV series Police Cops.
Acting was clearly a passion for Dangerfield, and given that he shared few details about his personal life, it is unsurprising he took steps to obscure the path of his second career by adopting a stage name.
What, then, do we know definitively about George Dangerfield the man?
A formidable opponent
The most common narrative is this: over a storied, 35-year career, Dangerfield evolved into Manitoba’s top prosecutor, thriving on a steady diet of the most complex and grisly crimes the province had ever seen. Although he had legal peers, it is widely believed Dangerfield stood out as the best of the best.
However, beyond that thumbnail sketch, Dangerfield was an enigma.
Winnipeg lawyer Jay Prober was uniquely positioned to assess Dangerfield as opposing counsel and as a person.
He faced Dangerfield in court many times. However, he also got the chance to cross-examine Dangerfield at the 2000 Sophonow inquiry, and then was hired by Dangerfield to represent him at the Driskell Inquiry and again at the 2018 Manitoba Court of Appeal hearings into Frank Ostrowski’s wrongful conviction.
In all contexts, Prober said Dangerfield was an impressive, even intimidating presence.
“He was a formidable opponent,” Prober said. “He was prepared, he was articulate. He was probably, in all my years of practice, the best Crown prosecutor at cross-examination.
“A lot of the Crowns don’t get the experience necessary to be effective cross-examiners. George would get an A-plus for his cross-examination. He knew what questions to ask. He knew when to stop. He was incisive and he was intimidating for witnesses.”
“He was probably, in all my years of practice, the best Crown prosecutor at cross-examination.”
–Jay Prober
Prober said Dangerfield never exuded collegiality in the courtroom. He was all business, even when he was Prober’s client.
“I’ll never forget my first jury trial with him, it was a rape case back in (the) ’70s. The jury found my client not guilty. Well, when the verdict was read out, George slammed his books and stormed out of the courtroom. No collegial handshake. He was always brusque.”
So much so that few lawyers got to know Dangerfield outside the courtroom.
Although he was known to be close with top brass in the Winnipeg Police Service, few members of the legal community had opportunity to socialize with Manitoba’s top Crown.
‘A real respect’
One of those who did, ironically enough, was Greg Brodsky, the Winnipeg lawyer who arguably crossed swords with Dangerfield on more important cases than any other Winnipeg lawyer.
These included the Lavallee “burning bed” case that went to the Supreme Court, and the wrongful convictions of Sophonow (Brodsky defended him in the first two of three trials), Driskell and Ostrowski.
Brodsky died in 2022, but his son Daniel Brodsky, a lawyer in Toronto who does work with Innocence Canada, said his father was one of the few lawyers who got to know Dangerfield away from the courtroom.
He said over the years, Greg Brodsky began to think of Dangerfield as a friend and colleague. Dangerfield even attended Daniel Brodsky’s wedding.
“They had been fighting each other for what seemed like forever,” Daniel Brodsky said recently. “They were always battling, but my dad had a real respect for him.”
Greg Brodsky famously liked to host friends and colleagues for dinner on Friday nights, Daniel said, where the bluster and posturing of the courtroom were cast aside. Dangerfield sometimes attended.
“My dad would love to entertain on Friday nights and it would be different people he’d invite over. George would come over, sometimes there would be judges (who) would come into town (with) the Law Reform Commission. They wouldn’t necessarily talk about the cases that they were working on, but they’d come over to the house for dinner and talk like friends.”
Committed, driven
Former Manitoba deputy attorney general Bruce MacFarlane said Dangerfield was among the most committed and driven prosecutors he had ever seen.
In fact, in 1971 when MacFarlane was still in law school, his father — then a Winnipeg police officer — arranged for him to meet with Crown prosecutors Jack Montgomery and Dangerfield. MacFarlane said the meeting was intended to give him some direction on which area of law to practice.
“George went into a monologue about the role of defence counsel and Crown counsel. He told me I should not be a defence lawyer because ‘they are really just prostituting themselves.’
“He said Crown attorneys are there to fight for justice and the people, while defence lawyers have to… prostitute themselves and say things they privately wouldn’t agree with but had to say to defend their clients as vigorously as possible.
“He essentially told me that as a defence lawyer I wouldn’t be fighting for justice. That really left an impression.”
“He essentially told me that as a defence lawyer I wouldn’t be fighting for justice.”
–Bruce MacFarlane
Over the years, MacFarlane worked as a federal prosecutor in Manitoba, and then went to work in the federal justice Department.
During his time in Ottawa, MacFarlane and Dangerfield crossed paths, often when one of Dangerfield’s cases made its way to the Supreme Court of Canada.
A motivating case
MacFarlane said he has always believed that one of those cases — R. v. John Thomas James Jr. — had a seismic and lasting impact on Dangerfield’s view of the criminal courts and his role in bringing offenders to justice.
James Jr. was convicted in the brutal 1985 sexual assault and killing of a three-year-old girl, when he was just 17. It was easily among the most shocking cases in Manitoba history.
James Jr.’s original trial was handled by the only prosecutor who could be considered Dangerfield’s true peer: Jack Montgomery. Flamboyant and gregarious, he earned the nickname “Hollywood Jack” among other lawyers.
Montgomery secured a conviction at the trial, but it was overturned on appeal after concerns were raised about whether police had coerced the accused youth.
In 1990, the case wound up in Canada’s top court, where Dangerfield represented Manitoba and MacFarlane intervened on behalf of the Attorney General of Canada.
The Supreme Court described the murder as “violent and brutal.” Despite that, the Manitoba conviction was overturned and a new trial was ordered. In the end, James Jr. was convicted of the lesser charge of manslaughter and released in 1992.
MacFarlane said Dangerfield was infuriated by the high court’s decision, and it seemed to “change the way he approached his work.”
Problems emerge
When MacFarlane returned to Manitoba in 1993 to serve as deputy minister of justice, he began to see how Dangerfield’s attitude was creating problems within the prosecution service.
Dangerfield had risen to a position that rendered him beyond reproach and, for the most part, supervision, MacFarlane said. He had an office away from other Crowns, picked his own cases and prosecuted them without peer or departmental review, MacFarlane added.
He said he could understand to some degree how Dangerfield felt he had earned the right to operate without review or reproach. On the other hand, it was setting a dangerous precedent.
“He was the king of the courtroom. But he worked for too long on his own.”
–Bruce MacFarlane
“Everybody respected George,” MacFarlane said. “The private bar respected him. The judges respected him. He was the king of the courtroom. But he worked for too long on his own, as a one-man band, without much in the way of supervision.”
MacFarlane recalled a meeting with all prosecutors to discuss a new law that compelled Crown attorneys to meet with victims and their families, to keep them up to date on developments in a case.
“George stood up and said, ‘I want to make myself perfectly clear. I’m not a social worker, and I’m not going to meet with victims. I’m not going to do it.’ For me, it was the first tangible sign that he had changed direction and there was a bitterness in his approach.”
Years without a break
MacFarlane also remembers Dangerfield being so driven, he often went years without taking any vacation.
“When I first got back to Manitoba, I introduced a policy to make sure everyone took their holidays. The policy was ‘use them or lose them.’
“George was the worst of all; he had 18 weeks of unused vacation. When I told him that he had to take his holidays or lose them, he snarled at me: ‘What do you want to me to do, sit at home and watch the snowflakes fall?’
“Several months later, George came to my office. ‘I want to thank you for pushing me to take my holidays. I took five weeks and travelled all over Israel. I feel energized and ready to take on the world.’”
THE FINAL VERDICT
If George Dangerfield was tried on charges of gross prosecutorial misconduct contributing to multiple miscarriages of justice, what would a jury of his peers conclude?
Unsurprisingly, there’s no consensus.
Jay Prober, who battled Dangerfield in the courtroom and then represented him at the Driskell inquiry and the Ostrowski appeal, said he has often wondered what drove Dangerfield to cut so many corners and make so many questionable decisions.
However, Prober said he also realizes that apart from the wrongful convictions, Dangerfield did courageous work and put a lot of dangerous people behind bars.
“I’m certainly not convinced he’s blameless. But I’m not saying that he was blameworthy.”
–Jay Prober
“I’m not convinced he was blameless,” Prober said. “I mean, that’s my assessment at this point. I simply don’t know. I’m certainly not convinced he’s blameless. But I’m not saying that he was blameworthy.”
Daniel Brodsky, whose father Greg Brodsky fought more high-profile cases against Dangerfield than arguably any other lawyer in Manitoba, said his father could never quite figure out why a man he considered a friend could commit so many grievous errors leading to so many miscarriages of justice.
Noble cause corruption
Daniel Brodsky said he considers Dangerfield a prime example of “noble cause corruption,” a term that came into fashion in the United Kingdom following inquiries into wrongful convictions.
Noble cause corruption describes the mindset of police and prosecutors when they investigate particularly heinous crimes and the drive to get a conviction is so fierce that they are willing to cut corners or break rules in pursuit of what they believe is justice.
“Was noble cause corruption what motivated George?” Daniel Brodsky asked. “We know it is still alive and well in criminal law. And I know that’s the question that Greg asked himself.
“I remember pressing him on whether George was corrupt, where he was all about the ends justifying the means. I never really got an answer.
“Despite the fact he was really disappointed in George, Greg mostly thought George was doing what he thought was right at the time he was doing it.”
‘I’ve got to get a conviction’
Bruce MacFarlane has certainly ruminated over Dangerfield’s record. In the years following his departure from the provincial government, MacFarlane has become a leading voice on remedies for wrongful convictions through his teaching and writing.
MacFarlane said after considering all Dangerfield did during his career — the good and the bad — he is somewhat torn in his final assessment.
“If you put all the elements together, I think he was guilty of noble cause corruption,” MacFarlane said.
“He handled the most horrific cases, where he would be genuinely outraged, and where he thought there was a decent case to prosecute. He would say, ‘I’m not going to let anyone get in my way on this. I’ve got to get a conviction.’ In that sense, he was very susceptible to noble cause corruption.”
‘Dangerfield was the problem’
Innocence Canada lawyer James Lockyer has fought for, and won, freedom for the wrongly accused in just about every province in Canada. He has also represented all the Dangerfield victims in Manitoba, and believes in the final analysis Manitoba’s former top prosecutor was an outlier simply because of the number of cases he was involved in.
Although Dangerfield was operating within established legal practices of the time, and though there are multiple examples of other prosecutors who were guilty of the same mistakes and misdeeds, it is impossible to find another jurisdiction where a single prosecutor was responsible for so many wrongful convictions.
That record, Lockyer noted, certainly suggests Dangerfield was the common denominator in all these miscarriages of justice.
“There’s no doubt Dangerfield was the problem,” he said.
“I don’t know if there’s been a wrongful corruption in Manitoba which didn’t involve Dangerfield. Has there? I don’t think so. So clearly, he was a problem. I imagine there were other prosecutors out there who were just like him back in those days. But no one matches Dangerfield in terms of the sheer numbers of wrongful convictions.”
“I don’t know if there’s been a wrongful corruption in Manitoba which didn’t involve Dangerfield.”
–James Lockyer
Some members of the legal community are willing to go even further in discussing Dangerfield’s legacy.
Alan Libman, a Winnipeg lawyer who worked with the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted (now Innocence Canada) to help exonerate Driskell, Unger and Ostrowski, said Dangerfield’s crimes against the justice system have never been properly punished by the legal establishment or— in some instances — by the criminal justice system.
Libman said Dangerfield was too good a lawyer to explain away the wrongful convictions as simple mistakes or sloppiness. Everything he did in the courtroom was deliberate, he added.
“I think the fact that Dangerfield was never disbarred by the Law Society or charged with obstruction of justice is a stain on the entire legal system in Canada,” Libman said.
“No one has ever tried to hold him accountable for what he did to the men he wrongly convicted. And that is a scandal.”
THE VICTIMS
Brian Anderson, Allan Woodhouse, Clarence Woodhouse, Russell Woodhouse
Years in prison: Brian 11, Allan 23, Clarence 12, Russell — sentenced to 10 years, time served unclear.
Year of conviction: 1974, for murder (Brian, Allan, Clarence) and manslaughter (Russell).
Date of exoneration: 2023, Brian and Allan acquitted; 2024, Clarence acquitted; Russell’s case ongoing posthumously.
Status of compensation: Brian and Allan lawsuit ongoing.
Miscarriage of justice checklist: Racism, police brutality, forced confession, eyewitness identification of a stranger, maintaining innocence, tunnel vision, failure to investigate alibis.
Brian Anderson and Allan Woodhouse and brothers Clarence Woodhouse and Russell Woodhouse were in their late teens to early 20s when they were arrested in 1973 in connection with the death of Ting Fong Chan, a 40-year-old chef who was killed on his way home from work in Winnipeg.
The men, all Anishinaabe from Pinaymootang First Nation, 240 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, maintained they were innocent and testified that police beat them and coerced them into signing false confessions.
None were fluent in English, and Clarence needed a Saulteaux interpreter at trial, yet the confessions were written in English.
Alibis were also ignored. Anderson, for instance, was staying with his grandfather the night Chan was killed. There was no physical evidence tying the men to the crime.
While one witness said they saw men with long hair at the scene, police lied and said witnesses had identified the defendants. They also told Anderson that his friends had already confessed and implicated him.
Despite the four defendants’ testimony about the police brutality and forced confessions, and the fact there was no physical evidence tying them to the case, the judge refused to believe them. At one point, the judge said Canada is not a “jungle” filled with “wild people.”
The Crown prosecutor, George Dangerfield, later wrote a letter to the police thanking the officers for securing the young men’s confessions.
In 1974, Anderson, Allan and Clarence were convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole eligibility for 10 years. Russell was sentenced to 10 years for manslaughter.
In 2023, then-federal justice minister David Lametti ordered a new trial for Anderson and Allan. At the trial, Crown attorney Michele Jules called no evidence, allowing Chief Justice Glenn Joyal of the Court of King’s Bench to acquit them. He declared them innocent and apologized on behalf of the justice system.
In 2024, the same happened in Clarence’s case. Russell died in 2011, and a posthumous application to see him declared innocent is under review at the federal level.
Anderson and Allan are currently suing the Manitoba government and attorney general, the federal attorney general and the City of Winnipeg, seeking compensation for their wrongful convictions.
Thomas Sophonow
Years in prison: 4.
Year of conviction: 1983, for murder.
Date of exoneration: 1985, acquitted.
Status of compensation: Received $2.9 million.
Miscarriage of justice checklist: Abusive police interrogation, false evidence, tunnel vision, flawed eyewitness identification, jailhouse informants, likely alternate suspect, alibi not revealed in court.
After 16-year-old Barbara Stoppel was murdered at the Winnipeg doughnut shop where she worked in December 1981, police focused on Vancouverite Thomas Sophonow as a suspect.
Sophonow had been visiting Winnipeg at the time, hoping to see his young daughter, who lived with her mother in the city. He became a suspect partly because police believed twine used in the killing came from the West Coast, where he lived.
In 1982, Sophonow underwent a lengthy interrogation by Winnipeg police, which included strip and body cavity searches, and during which he was not told he had the right to contact a lawyer. The interview was not recorded.
Police then showed potential eyewitnesses a photo lineup, which included a photo of Sophonow that differed from the rest, making his image stand out.
In addition, there was another suspect, Terry Arnold, who better fit eyewitness descriptions of the assailant. Arnold said he knew Stoppel, had a crush on her and had visited her in hospital after the attack. Police kept the investigation focused on Sophonow. (Arnold was later convicted of multiple sexual assaults and a murder — though the murder conviction was eventually stayed. He died by suicide in 2005.)
Sophonow faced three trials after being formally charged with second-degree murder. The first in 1981 resulted in a hung jury and mistrial.
The second in 1983 resulted in a conviction. He appealed and was granted a new trial but was again found guilty in 1985. After a final appeal that year, his conviction was quashed and he was acquitted for a final time.
The Manitoba Court of Appeal found a number of legal errors in the case, including: the judge prevented the jury from hearing alibi evidence; eyewitness evidence presented in court was unreliable; and that police conducted unlawful interrogations.
In 2000, Winnipeg police chief Jack Ewatski reopened the case and later apologized to Sophonow, saying police got the wrong man.
A later inquiry into the Sophonow case revealed a range of factors that contributed to his wrongful conviction. Among them:
- police had tunnel vision early on and favoured Sophonow as their suspect;
- police didn’t test the twine tying him to the scene — which would have shown it originated from a plant in Manitoba and not the West Coast, as had been previously suggested; and
- the Crown failed to disclose key information to the defence, including the fact a test for the twine was available, that eyewitness evidence was flawed and that the prosecution relied on questionable jailhouse informants. One informant said police pressured him to testify, while another was facing 26 charges and was hoping to have them dropped — which they were. George Dangerfield made the deal on dropping the charges.
Frank Ostrowski
Years in prison: 23.
Year of conviction: 1987, for first-degree murder.
Date of exoneration: 2018, stay of proceedings.
Status of compensation: Sought compensation but judge ruled he took too long.
Miscarriage of justice checklist: Jailhouse informants, Crown withholding evidence.
In 1987, Winnipegger Frank Ostrowski was sentenced to life in prison without a chance of parole for 25 years. A jury found him guilty of first-degree murder in the shooting death of Robert Nieman.
The Crown had argued Ostrowski was a drug dealer who trafficked cocaine and thought Nieman was a police informant, and so ordered his killing.
The case against Ostrowski relied on testimony from questionable informants, including one who was acquitted on drug charges in exchange for his testimony, and another whose charges were stayed after he testified.
The man who shot Nieman, Robert Dunkley, had his first-degree murder charge reduced after testifying.
In 1989, the Manitoba Court of Appeal rejected Ostrowski’s appeal and in 1990, the Supreme Court of Canada also rejected his appeal.
But in the early 2000s, Ostrowski connected with the organization now known as Innocence Canada and his luck changed when new information came to light — specifically, the deal between federal prosecutors and one of the informants, Crown star witness Matthew Lovelace, to testify in exchange for acquittal.
In 2009, Ostrowski applied for a review of his case by the federal justice minister who ultimately ordered a new appeal.
Nearly 10 years later, in 2018, the Manitoba Court of Appeal determined the Crown failed to disclose important evidence to Ostrowski, with provincial Crowns — among them George Dangerfield — consistently telling Ostrowski’s lawyers there was no deal with federal Crowns.
The Crown also did not share with defence lawyers police notes that undermined Lovelace’s claim to have told police Ostrowski planned to kill Nieman, something he testified to at trial.
The Court of Appeal quashed Ostrowski’s first-degree murder conviction and stayed proceedings in 2018.
James Driskell
Years in prison: 12.
Year of conviction: 1991, for first-degree murder.
Date of exoneration: 2005, stay of proceedings.
Status of compensation: Received $4 million.
Miscarriage of justice checklist: Flawed science, Crown withholding disclosure, tunnel vision.
In 1991, James Driskell was convicted of first-degree murder for the death of Perry Harder, his friend in their “chop shop” business selling stolen vehicle parts. Prior to Harder’s death, both men were facing charges for their illegal enterprise.
Harder had accepted a plea deal, but before he could testify, he was shot dead. The police theory was that Driskell killed Harder to prevent his friend from testifying against him.
The police and Crown’s case against Driskell relied heavily on testimony from two men with extensive criminal records, Reath Zanidean and John Gumieny. They testified that Driskell wanted to kill Harder.
The Crown also presented microscopy evidence in court showing hairs found in Driskell’s van that apparently belonged to Harder.
Driskell connected with Innocence Canada after appeals of his conviction failed. With more advanced DNA technology available, the organization was able to prove the hairs in the van did not belong to Harder.
It was also revealed that Zanidean and Gumieny, the Crown’s star witnesses, were paid in exchange for testifying. This was not disclosed to the defence.
In 2003, Driskell and Innocence Canada filed a request for a federal ministerial review of the case. In 2005, the justice minister quashed Driskell’s conviction and ordered a new trial. On the same day, the Crown stayed Driskell’s charges.
At a public inquiry into the Driskell case in 2006, highlighting the many flaws in the case, Crown prosecutor George Dangerfield said he was sorry Driskell went to jail.
Kyle Unger
Years in prison: 14.
Year of conviction: 1992, for first-degree murder.
Date of exoneration: 2009, acquitted.
Status of compensation: Settled for unknown amount.
Miscarriage of justice checklist: Flawed science, jailhouse informant, Mr. Big sting.
In 1990, 16-year-old Brigitte Grenier was sexually assaulted and murdered at a music festival near Roseisle. Kyle Unger was at the music festival and knew Grenier from school.
At some point in the night, Grenier and a man named Timothy Houlahan went to a wooded area together. During the evening, Unger also disappeared, telling friends he was going to pick up women.
Early the next morning, Houlahan was seen with muddied clothes and blood and scratches on his face. Unger did not have mud, blood or scratches on him.
Grenier’s body was found later that morning. Houlahan later told police he and Grenier had sex but he was then knocked unconscious by a person who looked like Unger. He also told police Unger killed Grenier and forced him to help move her body.
Both men were charged with first-degree murder but the charges against Unger were stayed — that is, until a jailhouse informant said Unger told him he killed Grenier.
RCMP then staged a “Mr. Big” sting, in which Unger made a false confession to an undercover officer, saying he killed Grenier. He was arrested again in 1991 and charged with first-degree murder.
At trial for the two men in 1992, the Crown’s case was based on the jailhouse informant’s testimony, the “Mr. Big” confession and a hair found on Grenier’s sweatshirt purported to belong to Unger. Both men were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
Unger’s appeals were dismissed but Houlahan’s went through, and he was granted a new trial. He died by suicide before the trial began.
In 2003, after James Driskell’s wrongful conviction, Manitoba Justice struck a committee to look at cases where hair microscopy was involved. DNA tests proved the hair found on Grenier’s sweatshirt did not belong to Unger.
In 2004, armed with this new development, Unger applied for a ministerial review. In 2009, the federal minister of justice quashed Unger’s conviction and ordered a new trial. He was acquitted later that year.
In 2011, Unger sued the Manitoba government, the RCMP and Crown prosecutors. The government settled for an undisclosed amount in 2019.
Robert Sanderson
Suspected wrongful conviction
Years in prison: 25.
Year of conviction: 1997, on three counts of first-degree murder.
Date of exoneration: N/A
Status of compensation: N/A
Miscarriage of justice checklist: Flawed science, witness testimony in exchange for pay.
In 1996, police zeroed in on Robert Sanderson as a suspect in murders connected to what they called a gang turf war over control of the sex trade in Winnipeg. Police found blood from three men killed at a West Kildonan home in his car, along with a bloody baseball bat.
Sanderson told police he had loaned his car to someone but refused to “rat out” that person. “I’m not saying my car wasn’t there,” he told police the day after the killings. “I wasn’t there.”
Police also found a hair at the crime scene which the Crown presented at trial as belonging to Sanderson.
At trial in 1997, the Crown relied on a key witness named Brent Stevenson who testified against Sanderson and the two other accused, Roger Sanderson (no relation) and Robert Tews. Stevenson testified Roger Sanderson confessed to him that Robert Sanderson and Tews were his co-conspirators in the murders.
Sanderson and the two other men were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with no parole eligibility for 25 years.
Sanderson’s appeals in 1999 were dismissed, but during the appeal process, it was revealed that the Winnipeg Police Service had paid Stevenson $15,000 and relocated him outside of Manitoba after the trial.
All but one of the criminal charges he was facing were dropped. Stevenson had testified at trial that he wasn’t being paid.
A breakthrough came in 2004, when advanced DNA technology proved the hair presented at trial as belonging to Sanderson was not his.
The Manitoba government reviewed his case in 2005 and concluded there was still a strong circumstantial case against Sanderson, including witness testimony.
Finally, in 2023, after a ministerial review of Sanderson’s case, the federal justice minister ordered a new appeal. The case remains before the courts."
The entire story can be read at:
DANGERFIELD TIMELINE
1965: George Dangerfield is called to the Bar.
1974: Brian Anderson, Allan Woodhouse and Clarence Woodhouse are convicted of murder in the death of Ting Fong Chan. Russell Woodhouse is convicted of manslaughter. Dangerfield serves as the Crown.
1983: Thomas Sophonow is convicted of killing 16-year-old Winnipeg doughnut shop worker Barbara Stoppel. This was his second jury trial after the first resulted in a mistrial. Dangerfield is the Crown.
1985: After an appeal, Sophonow faces a third trial with Dangerfield as the Crown. The jury again finds him guilty. He appeals again and the Manitoba Court of Appeal agrees the trial was unfair. Rather than put him through another trial, Sophonow is acquitted.
1987: Frank Ostrowski is convicted of first-degree murder in the death of Robert Nieman. Dangerfield serves as the Crown.
1991: James Driskell is convicted of first-degree murder in the death of his friend, Perry Harder. Dangerfield is the Crown.
1992: Kyle Unger is convicted of first-degree murder for the brutal killing of 16-year-old Brigitte Grenier, along with Timothy Houlahan. Dangerfield is the Crown.
1997: Robert Sanderson is found guilty of three counts of first-degree murder. Police said the murders were tied to a Winnipeg gang turf war over prostitution. Two other men were also convicted. Dangerfield is the Crown.
2000: The Manitoba government appoints former Supreme Court Justice Peter Cory to probe the Sophonow case. The same year, Dangerfield ceases practising law, with his status with the Manitoba Law Society listed as no longer “active” as of March 31, 2000.
2001: The Sophonow Inquiry report is released. It reveals that a range of factors contributed to his wrongful conviction, including tunnel vision on the part of police, unreliable eyewitness identification, jailhouse informants, and a lack of disclosure from the Crown to the defence.
2005: Then-federal justice minister Irwin Cotler orders a new trial after reviewing Driskell’s case. Rather than have a new trial, the Crown issues a stay of proceedings. The Manitoba government calls an inquiry into Driskell’s wrongful conviction.
2007: Former Ontario Superior Court Chief Justice Patrick LeSage releases the Driskell inquiry report. He found that police and Crowns failed to disclose relevant information to the defence and that the work of Dangerfield and other Crowns “fell below then existing professional standards expected of lawyers and agents of the Attorney General.”
Other contributing factors to Driskell’s wrongful conviction: tunnel vision and bad science, specifically microscopic hair matching. LeSage recommended the province review cases involving Dangerfield where other wrongful convictions might have occurred. The NDP government of the time committed to undertaking such a review.
2009: The federal justice minister quashes Kyle Unger’s conviction and orders a new trial. The Crown subsequently enters no evidence and Unger is aquitted.
2018: In the Ostrowski case, following a review by the federal justice minister, Manitoba’s Court of Appeal determines he suffered a miscarriage of justice and sets aside his conviction. The Crown acknowledges it withheld important evidence from Ostrowski in 1987.
2019: Innocence Canada reiterates its call for an inquiry into Dangerfield in a Free Press article. Politicians, including then-PC justice minister Cliff Cullen and then-opposition leader Wab Kinew would not say if they supported such an inquiry.
2023: Then-federal justice minister David Lametti orders a new appeal in the case of Robert Sanderson and a new trial in the cases of Brian Anderson and Allan Woodhouse. The Crown enters no evidence at trial for Anderson and Woodhouse and Manitoba Court of King’s Bench Chief Justice Glenn Joyal finds them innocent. He apologizes to both men.
2024: Federal Justice Minister Arif Virani orders a new trial for Clarence Woodhouse. The Crown enters no evidence. Joyal apologizes to Woodhouse and declares him innocent.
The entire story can be read
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;
