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Milgaard
Inquiry | Pre-inquiry
| Federal working group report on wrongful
convictions |
Joyce Milgaard
It's a simple matter
of faith
Randy Burton, The StarPhoenix,
January 29, 2005
Even back when she lived in
the Langenburg, Saskatchewan, of the 1960s, Joyce Milgaard was
a woman of faith.
Many times over the 23 years
that she fought to get her son David out of jail, she drew strength
from the Bible, particularly the story of David and Goliath.
She sees herself as God's instrument,
and had she not felt she was serving some higher purpose, Milgaard
believes she never could have summoned the strength to see her
through.
Even today, 12 years after
David was released on the strength of DNA evidence that exonerated
him of Gail Miller's murder, Joyce has maintained a quiet sense
of mission with regard to justice reform.
A Christian Scientist since
before David was arrested in 1969, Joyce credits her now legendary
persistence to her religious faith. "If I hadn't had it,
I probably would have fallen by the wayside," she said in
an interview outside the Milgaard Inquiry room in Saskatoon this
week.
"It gave me the strength
to turn it over to The Big Guy each day and say, 'OK Father,
what do you want me to do tomorrow?'
"I think there was a purpose
for this. I think Joyce Milgaard was meant to fight the justice
system to help others. My faith has been a strong support throughout
the years."
Faith certainly, and no small
measure of patience. Even now, there is a long road ahead in
the search for answers to how the justice system got this case
so horribly wrong. Justice Edward MacCallum is having the case
dissected in minute detail here in a process that will occupy
most of 2005 simply to hear the testimony, never mind produce
a report.
No doubt there will be numerous
instances where the evidence will show the outcome could have
gone the other way had events unfolded differently.
This week, for example, the
inquiry heard that if a semen sample collected from Miller's
vagina had been retained, it may well have exonerated Milgaard
10 years sooner.
In spite of things like that,
Joyce is trying to take the long view on these proceedings. There
are a range of critical issues to be examined, from how David
was arrested to the conduct of the provincial prosecutions branch.
But one particular chapter of the saga sticks out for her.
"If there was one most
important point of all, I guess I'd like to know why when (Larry)
Fisher was caught, he went through the system in Regina. Nobody
knew about it. It never made the papers. How did they manage
that and why? I mean that doesn't make sense. You've got a serial
rapist and you don't tell anybody about it? You don't tell the
victims about it, you don't put it in the paper so people can
be relieved? There was a coverup in no uncertain terms, as far
as I'm concerned, and that's what needs to come out. What happened
and why and who did it. Who was responsible."
Her lawyer Hersh Wolch has
his own list of critical questions.
For example, "how did
Nicol John give a statement witnessing a crime that didn't happen?"
Wolch wonders.
"I'd like to hear from
Larry Fisher as to whether he committed the crime in a car or
on the street. I'd like to hear from a lot of people as to how
it was ignored. It couldn't have happened the way it was described.
It just couldn't have. And why it took so long to undo. Why (former
Justice Minister) Kim Campbell turned us down; just thousands
of questions."
Any number of people who opposed
Joyce Milgaard's campaign have learned something about her resolve.
The steel backbone she has displayed throughout has made her
a symbol of hope for others fighting wrongful convictions.
It also led to her involvement
in the Association In Defence of the Wrongly Convicted, (AIDWYC)
led by lawyer James Lockyer.
Right after David was released,
Lockyer called Joyce to ask her if she would help with the case
of Guy Paul Morin, who was tried twice for the murder of Christine
Jessop and improperly jailed for 18 months.
"I said absolutely not.
After all I've gone through, I wasn't interested in doing anything.
The next phone call I got was Guy Paul Morin's mother. How could
I say no to her?"
Thus began the second phase
of Joyce's career as a justice crusader. A nucleus of lawyers
was gathered to form AIDWYC, and Joyce agreed to sit on the board
of directors.
"For me it was ideal because
then when people phoned me I had a place I could send them to.
I became one of the directors and I guess if you ask for the
main reason, at one point I promised The Big Guy that if he got
David out of prison then I would help anyone else who was wrongfully
convicted."
While every case is different,
Joyce says that to the layperson, they do have something in common.
"There's a smell to a
wrongful conviction. You can start reading documents on it and
the next thing you know, you think 'A-ha, this is one.' It's
very quick to find, and again it's the tunnel vision that was
very evident in this case, and evident in the (Thomas) Sophonow
case and with all of the other wrongful convictions. There's
just a familiar strain there," she says.
Whatever, the eventual findings
of this inquiry, Joyce and her legal team are looking for a significant
structural change in the way such cases are handled in the future.
What they want is an independent
board established that would examine cases of wrongful conviction,
thereby taking it out of the hands of governments and prosecutors
with vested interests.
Britain established such a
board in 1996, called the Criminal Cases Review Commission. It
has all the powers of a court, including subpoena, search warrant
and investigation. In the eight years of its existence, the commission
has overturned more than 50 homicide convictions.
In spite of all the wrongful
convictions that have come to light in recent years, Joyce believes
that the same thing that happened to David could happen to someone
else's son today.
And so she still has unfinished
business. Saskatoon will be her home for most of this year, as
the story of how the justice system failed her family unspools.
One wonders though, how life
might have unfolded for Joyce Milgaard had none of this ever
happened.
Without a moment's hesitation
she laughs at the question and says "I'd probably still
be in Langenburg, Saskatchewan, baking bread and making pickles."
© The StarPhoenix
(Saskatoon) 2005
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Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd.