QUOTE OF THE DAY: "One lawyer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said his office alone received dozens of letters, each one representing an individual case involving one of the accused officers. “Go to any of the (older law firms) you can just imagine how many letters they got,” the lawyer said, speculating Manitoba Prosecution Services sent out “hundreds, if not thousands” of the letters, all told. “You have four officers whose conduct is at issue,” the lawyer said. “How many cases would they have touched, even if it’s peripheral?”
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "“If you have received one of these letters, your duty as counsel requires that you do a summary review to determine whether the conduct of the officer named in the letter may have committed misconduct and whether that misconduct would have reasonably resulted in a miscarriage of justice,” reads the notice, adding Legal Aid Manitoba has not been provided funding to pay defence counsel for the work. “If counsel concludes that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred based upon the facts of the case, LAM is of the view that this would constitute new evidence and is prepared to fund an appeal,” the notice says."
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STORY: "Crown calls on defence lawyers to look for possible police misconduct in past convictions involving charged WPS officer," by Courts Reporter Reporter Dean Pritchard, published by The Winnipeg Free Press, on November 6, 2025. (Someone once said a journalist is just a reporter in a good suit. Dean Pritchard doesn’t own a good suit. But he knows a good lawsuit. Since covering his first trial for the Brandon Sun in 1999, Pritchard has logged more time in a courtroom than many of the veteran lawyers whose cases he has followed. After leaving Brandon, Pritchard spent 12 years on the court beat for the Winnipeg Sun, returning to the beat in 2019 after a brief stint as a Free Press copy editor. In covering cases that often capture people at their lowest, Pritchard strives for fairness and accuracy, without sacrificing the humanity at the core of the stories. In the words of one of his favourite literary gumshoes, Harry Bosch, “Everybody counts or nobody counts.)
GIST: "Winnipeg defence lawyers are being asked to wade through “hundreds, if not thousands” of old case files looking for possible miscarriages of justice following the arrest of four city police officers on corruption charges."
Last month, Manitoba Prosecution Services sent letters to every defence lawyer who has represented a client whose conviction involved Winnipeg Police Service constables Elston Bostock, Vernon Strutinsky, Jonathan Kiazyk or Matthew Kadyniuk.
Bostock, a 22-year veteran of the police service, was first arrested last November and then re-arrested on more charges in August, along with the three co-accused officers.
Manitoba Prosecution Services is calling for a review of cases that involved four criminally charged Winnipeg Police Service officers.
The officers face a raft of charges, including breaking and entering, theft, drug trafficking, breach of trust and extortion.
“Out of an abundance of caution, you are receiving this letter because a conviction was entered on the above charge(s) and Officer Bostock had involvement in the incident’s file,” read one of the letters sent by Winnipeg trials director Jennifer Mann, a copy of which was reviewed by the Free Press.
The letter concludes with a list of the charges Bostock is facing. He is accused of conducting more than 80 drug deals while on and off duty over the course of nearly nine years, among many other allegations. He has also been accused of taking an intimate photo of a half-naked dead woman at a sudden-death call, then texting the picture to another officer.
Neither Mann nor Justice Minister Matt Wiebe could be reached for comment Thursday.
“Do a summary review to determine whether the conduct of the officer named in the letter may have committed misconduct and whether that misconduct would have reasonably resulted in a miscarriage of justice.”
The intent of the letter is made clear in a subsequent “Notice to the Profession” distributed by Legal Aid Manitoba.
“If you have received one of these letters, your duty as counsel requires that you do a summary review to determine whether the conduct of the officer named in the letter may have committed misconduct and whether that misconduct would have reasonably resulted in a miscarriage of justice,” reads the notice, adding Legal Aid Manitoba has not been provided funding to pay defence counsel for the work.
“If counsel concludes that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred based upon the facts of the case, LAM is of the view that this would constitute new evidence and is prepared to fund an appeal,” the notice says.
One lawyer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said his office alone received dozens of letters, each one representing an individual case involving one of the accused officers.
“Go to any of the (older law firms) you can just imagine how many letters they got,” the lawyer said, speculating Manitoba Prosecution Services sent out “hundreds, if not thousands” of the letters, all told.
“You have four officers whose conduct is at issue,” the lawyer said. “How many cases would they have touched, even if it’s peripheral?”
“How many cases would they have touched, even if it’s peripheral?”
The lawyer said it was unlikely that any review of their cases would result in an appeal, as most of the cases involved offences such as assault, domestic assault or impaired driving, where the honesty of the arresting officer was not a contested or relevant issue.
“In these kinds of cases, you might not even call the officer (to testify) most of the time,” the lawyer said. “If it was a case where the officer’s honesty was central to the conviction, I would remember it.""
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/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
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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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