|
Racial
Profiling
| Jerome
Almon
|
Rodney Cain
- New trial
granted in murder case
- Justice minister's intervention
rare
- Man found guilty in
1985 shooting
by Tracey Tyler, Legal Affairs
Reporter, May 22, 2004
A 45-year-old man who
has spent nearly two decades in prison insisting he was wrongly
convicted of a murder outside a Toronto club won a new trial
from Canada's justice minister yesterday - only the second time
in recent memory that has happened.
In persuading Justice Minister
Irwin Cotler to overturn his conviction, Rodney Cain did what
more famous Canadians who were victims of miscarriages of justice,
including Donald Marshall and David Milgaard, couldn't accomplish.
Cain, a drug dealer with a
criminal record, was convicted by an Ontario Supreme Court jury
in 1986 of shooting and killing Joel Jordan Willis, 32, outside
a "booze can" on St. Clair Ave. W. in April, 1985.
In overturning his second-degree
murder conviction yesterday, Cotler said he decided to intervene
because of new evidence from eyewitnesses. It strongly suggests
Cain acted in self-defence as Willis charged toward him with
a bowling pin, about to break open his head.
The evidence also points to
a campaign by Willis' family members to obstruct justice by threatening
key witnesses into silence, Cotler was told in a written brief
filed on behalf of Cain.
Phil Campbell, a Toronto criminal
lawyer who prepared the brief, said what makes Cotler's decision
"exceptional" is that in the rare instances where justice
ministers have exercised their Criminal Code powers to reopen
a case, they usually opt for the safest route: referring a conviction
for review by a provincial appeal court.
"What he's done on this
is commendable," Campbell said yesterday. "Rodney Cain
is an invisible guy. It's not like anyone is going to go to the
barricades for him."
The other person to have their
conviction overturned by the federal justice minister was Steven
Kaminski, who was found guilty of sexual assault in 1992 and
served his entire seven-year prison sentence. In January, 2003,
then justice minister Martin Cauchon ordered a new trial. A month
later, the crown in Alberta decided not to proceed with a new
prosecution.
Cain "may not be a poster
boy," Campbell said, "but he spent most of his adult
life in penitentiary for a crime of which he was innocent and
he deserves recognition for what happened to him and for his
perseverance in trying to do something about it."
Someone else who deserves "a
lot of credit" is Sean MacDonald, Campbell said. MacDonald
began looking into the case when he was a private detective in
Nova Scotia in the mid-1990s, and stuck with it as he went on
to law school and became a corporate lawyer in Toronto.
The new evidence in the case
includes testimony from Leroy Dallaway, an eyewitness to the
shooting who now lives in Trinidad and Tobago.
Dallaway said he lied to police
in 1985 because of threats from the Willis family. He told the
truth in a statement to Cain's lawyer, but then was intimidated
by a brother of Willis and did not testify at the trial, according
to the brief to Cotler.
From his vantage point in his
second-floor apartment above the club, overlooking the alley
where Willis was shot, Dallaway said he saw Willis with a bowling
pin above his head, ready to attack, and watched him lunge at
Cain before the fatal shot was fired, the brief says.
In addition to three new eyewitnesses,
two prosecution witnesses who testified at the trial - including
the club doorman, Harold Howe have since recanted their
evidence.
Cain appealed his conviction
to the Ontario Court of Appeal in 1987 and lost, although the
court ruled that he could apply for parole after serving 10 rather
than 12 years of his life sentence. The Supreme Court of Canada
refused to hear a further appeal.
Today, Cain remains in Frontenac
Institution, a minimum-security prison in Kingston. He was paroled
in 1987, but returned for a parole violation and has since been
denied release "for the all-too-familiar reason that he
refused to admit his guilt," Campbell said.
MacDonald said Cain will likely
apply for bail, pending a new trial. But Campbell said Ontario's
attorney-general should exercise his discretion and call it quits.
"In my view, on what we now know of the case, he (Cain)
should not be reprosecuted."
Man released on bail
after 18 years
CBC, Junuary 28, 2004
TORONTO - A Halifax man who
spent nearly two decades in jail trying to clear his name in
a murder case was freed on bail on Monday.
Rodney Cain was released from
a Kingston, Ont., jail.
Cain had been convicted of
second-degree murder of a man in a 1986 Toronto after-hours club
shooting.
Cain, a 45-year old former
drug dealer, has always maintained he acted in self-defence.
He spent years calling politicians, lawyers and private investigators
trying to track down witnesses to back his claim he wasn't guilty.
Upon his release, Cain said:
"It felt like I was drowning and nobody would help. I've
written so many different people hoping that they would listen
to me. I explained to them all that the witnesses had lied against
me. Nobody wanted to believe. But as time went on, everybody
started to see some truth."
Last month, Federal Justice
Minister Irwin Cotler ordered a new trial after witnesses came
forward with new evidence supporting Cain's self-defence claim.An
Ontario court is expected to decide on July 19 whether to proceed
with a new trial, or to simply free Cain altogether.
N.S. man's murder conviction
overturned
CBC, May 26, 2004
HALIFAX - A Halifax man who
has spent the last 18 years in an Ontario jail has had his murder
conviction overturned.
Federal Justice Minister Irwin
Cotler has ordered a new trial for Rodney Cain, 45, after witnesses
came forward with new evidence.
In 1985, Cain was convicted
of second-degree murder for shooting Joel Jordan Willis, 32,
outside a Toronto nightclub. He was sentenced a year later to
life in prison.
"Mr. Cain's position at
trial was that his life was in danger and he acted in self defence,"
says lawyer Sean MacDonald, who worked to overturn Cain's conviction.
Cain appealed his conviction
in 1987, but lost. Years later a special government-appointed
investigator turned up new evidence from an eyewitness, backing
up Cain's self-defence claim.
"Well, it felt like a
ton of bricks coming off my shoulders. My lawyers, they have
worked hard," says Cain from prison in Kingston, Ont. "The
evidence, it was overwhelming, but for years the provincial attorney
general ignored it."
The federal justice minister
has ordered a new trial. But the next move is up to Ontario's
attorney general, who can decide to proceed with a new trial,
or to simply free Cain altogether.
Delay in retrial of Rodney
Cain
CBC News, September 16,
2004
Toronto There has been another delay in the
case of Rodney Cain, who has spent 19 years in prison for a crime
he says he didn't commit.
The Nova Scotia man says he
shot a Toronto man in self defence. However, he is serving a
term for second-degree murder.
Cain had hoped a judge would
set him free on Wednesday, but he left court disappointed again.
Cain's case is one of only
two in Canada that has been reviewed by the Justice Minister
and ordered retried.
The decision on whether he'll
be going through a new trial or walking free won't happen until
at least October.
"I just have to hope that
the attorney general does the right thing but only time will
tell," says Cain's lawyer Sean MacDonald.
Cain was convicted of second-degree
murder for shooting a Toronto club owner in 1985.
He protested his innocence
from behind bars - until he won a review of his case by the federal
Minister of Justice.
Witnesses came forward with
new evidence and that led to the order for a retrial
|
Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
