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Update
on wrongful convictions in Canada, October, 2004 | Truscott
will have to wait some more | David
Milgaard Inquiry
 January 25, 2005: The
Federal government released the first
national examination of the reasons for so many wrongful convictions
in Canada.
This should be required reading for every prosecutor, cop and
criminal defence lawyer in the country. News reports
Guy Paul Morin
Crime journalist Kirk Makin
helped make Guy Paul Morin into a celebrity for justice with
his 1992 book,  Redrum the Innocent, an 800 word journey through the world
of incompetent cops, a hysterical community, misguided prosecutors
and defence lawyers in way over their heads.
Along with David Milgaard and
Donald Marshall, Guy Paul Morin is now one of the best known
wrongly convicted persons exonerated in Canada. If you can't
get Makin's book, there is lots of information out there The
Ordeal of Guy Paul Morin, National Association of Criminal Defence
Lawyers is a good start. CBC Ideas show "Trial by Jury"
-- no longer available on line -- used the Morin case to illustrate
some pitfalls in the justice system.
Perhaps the most significant
(for the rest of us) event to come out of Morin's acquittal after
many agonizing years of being branded as the worst kind of murderer
-- a man who rapes and kills a female child --was the inquiry
into what went wrong. The terms
of Reference for the Morin Inquiry, 1996 are on the internet.
We have picked up some of the news reports and posted them here.
The
Kaufman report
Morin now works with the Association in Defence
of the Wrongly Convicted as well as leading the quiet (and
private) life he had prior his harrowing ordeal with the justice
system. Kirk Makin reports regularly on crime for the Globe and
Mail and we have posted many of his pieces.
Lawyer sees similarities
in Milgaard, Morin cases
Betty Ann Adam, The
StarPhoenix, June 13, 2005
There are striking similarities
in the way police handled the cases of two wrongfully convicted
men, David Milgaard and Guy Paul Morin, says lawyer James Lockyer.
In both cases police -- desperate
to solve horrible, high-profile crimes -- decided witnesses who
had given evidence clearing suspects must be wrong, and in both
cases police returned to the witnesses and, during long, unrecorded
interviews, told the witnesses they were wrong, Lockyer has told
the Milgaard inquiry.
Those crucial, undocumented
interviews resulted in witnesses changing their earlier, exculpatory
statements and saying things that helped convict Milgaard and
Morin, Lockyer said last week at the inquiry, which continues
today.
The inquiry is looking into
the original investigation of Gail Miller's 1969 death, the prosecution
of Milgaard and whether the case should have been reopened when
police and justice officials received new information.
Morin, a 25-year-old furniture
maker, was wrongfully convicted of rape and murder in the 1984
death of nine-year-old Christine Jessop near Queensville, Ont.
In that case, two police officers decided that evidence given
by Jessop's mother, Janet, and brother, Ken, must have been wrong,
Justice Fred Kaufman found in his 1997 report on the commission
of inquiry into that wrongful conviction.
The Jessops had originally
said they arrived home at 4:10 p.m. on Oct. 3, 1984, to find
that Christine was not there. Her body was found 56 kilometres
away, almost three months later, on Dec. 31.
Suspicion turned to Morin,
who lived next door with his parents, but police determined that
Morin punched out of work at 3:32 p.m. and could not have arrived
home any sooner than 4:14 p.m.
He and his parents said he
stopped and bought groceries on the way home, so he would have
arrived even later than 4:14.
Either way, the Jessops got
home before he did.
According to Kaufman, when
police returned to interview the Jessops on March 6, 1985, "the
whole interview process was inappropriately calculated to persuade
Ken and Janet Jessop that their earlier time were wrong and to
modify those times."
During the 21/2 hour interview,
"no formal statement was taken from them, nor did the officers
preserve any detailed notes. (One of the investigating officers)
admitted that they told the Jessops that their times were wrong,"
the judge said.
"After the interview,
the officers recorded that it was found that the Jessops arrived
home around 4:35 p.m. and that Janet Jessop said it was possible
that her clock could have been slow," Kaufman wrote.
That change opened a window
of opportunity for Morin to have abducted the girl and allowed
him to be prosecuted. The conviction was overturned on appeal
in 1995, when DNA evidence showed semen found on the victim's
underclothes did not come from Morin.
At the 1997 inquiry, the Jessops
told Kaufman they firmly believe their original 4:10 time.
Lockyer noted that in the Milgaard
case, three months after Miller's death the only person suspected
by police -- Milgaard -- had two witnesses saying he had been
with them and so could not have committed the crime. The two
were Nichol John and Ron Wilson.
'The smoking gun'
Police did have one piece of
evidence that could be used in court: a statement from Albert
Cadrain, who said he had seen blood on Milgaard's clothing.
Lockyer identified a meeting,
held May 16, 1969, of three senior Saskatoon police officers
where Lockyer says police decided John and Wilson were lying
when they refused to implicate Milgaard.
Police decided John, Wilson
and Cadrain would be brought to Saskatoon so the "true story"
could be obtained, according to a five-page police briefing document.
Lockyer has referred to the
document as "the smoking gun" because it shows the
police theory, which included information John and Wilson later
included in statements.
John and Wilson were brought
to Saskatoon from their Regina homes between May 22 and 24, 1969,
during which they gave new statements "that were in stark
contrast to their original statements and which, to a considerable
degree, matched the theory presented on the last page of the
five-page briefing document," Lockyer said.
The Morin investigators decided
the Jessops "must be wrong," just as Saskatoon police
decided that John and Wilson must have been wrong.
In both cases the witnesses
were re-interviewed "to get it right," and in both
cases "there's a completely inadequate record of what happened,"
Lockyer said.
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2005
Morin inquiry slams investigation
cbc newsworld 1998/04/09
After 10 months of testimony
and 120 witnesses, an Ontario judge has released his report on
how Guy Paul Morin came to be convicted of a crime he didn't
commit. The reports says everyone involved made serious mistakes.
The final report says mistakes
by forensic scientists, police and prosecutors all combined to
send an innocent man to jail.
Kaufman made 119 recommendations
in his report. He said there are problems with the system that
have to be changed to prevent similar mistakes from happening
again.
Kaufman said that judges should
be far more critical of hair and fibre comparisons before allowing
them to be admitted as evidence. He also said judges should tread
carefully before allowing the testimony of jailhouse informants.
Kaufman said the mistakes in
Morin's case were the result of poor judgement. He said he doesn't
believe anyone purposely set out to put an innocent man in jail.
Morin was sent to prison for
the 1985 murder of his nine-year-old neighbour, Christine Jessop.
He was cleared by DNA evidence in 1995.
The crime is still unsolved.
Jessop investigation called
off
Mar 12, 1998
A police task force set up
to find the killer of Christine Jessop is calling off its review
of the case.
Police have cleared more than
300 possible suspects. They won't re-open their investigation
unless there's new information.
In October 1984 Jessop was
stabbed and sexually assaulted.
Guy Paul Morin was wrongfully
convicted of killing Jessop. His wrongful conviction sparked
a lengthy inquiry into the miscarriage of justice.
The inquiry heard numerous
allegations of how badly police bungled their investigation.
The special task force was
set up three years ago after Morin's conviction was overturned
when new DNA evidence exonerated him.
Commission on proceedings involving
Guy Paul Morin
'Tunnel vision' in justice
system put Morin in jail: report
blasts police, scientists, prosecutors
John Ibbitson The Ottawa
Citizen, Friday 10 April 1998
TORONTO -- The wrongful conviction
of Guy Paul Morin for the killing of Christine Jessop was "not
an aberration," but was rooted in a flawed justice system,
commissioner Fred Kaufman concluded in a scathing report released
yesterday.
In two volumes with 1,380 pages
and 119 recommendations, the Report of the Commission on the
Proceedings Involving Guy Paul Morin weaves a bleak tale. It
tells how local police, Crown attorneys and forensic scientists
convinced themselves of Mr. Morin's guilt, lost all objectivity,
and then fell victim to what Mr. Kaufman called "tunnel
vision in the most staggering proportions."
And the former Quebec Appeal
Court judge concluded that the same "systemic problems"
had undoubtedly led to the conviction of other innocent people.
For Mr. Morin, the end of the
inquiry lays to rest an odyssey of accusation and vindication.
"In dealing with the system,
I've always questioned why, why, why," he said after the
release of the report. "Based on what's been given today,
my questions have been answered."
To limit the chances of such
a travesty happening again, Mr. Kaufman called for strict new
limits on the use of forensic evidence and testimony of so-called
jailhouse informants. He also called for extensive education
and training for police, lawyers and scientists, and for the
creation of a national DNA bank.
"Science helped convict
him. Science helped exonerate him," Mr. Kaufman told a crowded
room that contained Mr. Morin, his mother, and the mother and
brother of Christine Jessop.
"We will never know if
Guy Paul Morin would ever have been exonerated had DNA results
not been available," Mr. Kaufman said. "One can expect
that there are other innocent persons, swept up in the criminal
process, for whom DNA results are not obtainable."
Mr. Morin was charged in 1985
with the murder of the nine-year-old Christine, who disappeared
from her Queensville, Ont., home in 1984, and whose raped and
battered body was found months later.
One jury acquitted Mr. Morin
of the murder charge. But an appeal court ordered a new trial,
and in 1992 he was found guilty.
He served a total of 14 months
of incarceration before being released and finally declared innocent,
after DNA evidence proved he could not have committed the crime.
While Mr. Morin welcomed the
answers provided by the report, Tim Danson, the lawyer for the
Jessop family, noted that "Christine is still dead and her
murderer is still at large." For the Jessops, he added,
"there is no closure until this case is solved."
A Toronto police task force
into Christine's killing was abandoned last month for lack of
leads.
Mr. Danson said he will be
asking the Ontario government for financial compensation for
her family.
The inquiry called by the Ontario
government into the circumstances surrounding Mr. Morin's wrongful
conviction conducted 146 days of public hearings, called 120
witnesses, and amassed 100,000 pages of court transcripts, depositions
and other evidence.
Mr. Kaufman, who said the Ontario
justice system is no worse and in some respects is better than
other jurisdictions in Canada and the English-speaking world,
targeted four key areas in which the system failed Mr. Morin
and could fail others.
First, the Centre for Forensic
Sciences in Toronto substantially contributed to the miscarriage
of justice when scientists contaminated fibres from Christine's
clothing and Mr. Morin's car. Mr. Kaufman also concluded that
two scientists at the centre knew of the contamination but failed
to disclose it. Further fibre evidence that might have helped
exonerate Mr. Morin was not communicated to the prosecution or
defence.
Second, the prosecution relied
on two jailhouse informants who said they heard Mr. Morin confess,
even though their testimony was "patently unreliable."
Third, police mishandled numerous
aspects of the investigation, including the collecting of physical
evidence and the interviewing of family members and Mr. Morin.
They failed to dust for fingerprints at the Jessop residence
and conducted interviews that led witnesses inadvertently or
deliberately to alter their testimony to incriminate Mr. Morin.
Fourth, Crown prosecutors failed
to question the evidence gathered by police. "Their relationship
with the police at times blinded them to the very serious reliability
problems with their own officers," Mr. Kaufman maintained.
In his recommendations, he
urged that forensic fibre evidence be treated more skeptically
in trials and that forensic scientists employ more rigorous standards
in testing and presenting evidence.
He also urged more provincial
funding for the Centre for Forensic Sciences, as well as for
police and Crown attorneys, to reduce backlogs and improve training.
Mr. Kaufman also urged the
creation of a registry of police informers to keep track of what
is being offered to them for their information, along with strict
limits on the use of jail inmates as informers. He stopped short
of the recommendation of James Lockyer, Mr. Morin's lawyer, that
their use be banned.
Mr. Lockyer, however, said
he was so pleased with the bulk of Mr. Kaufman's recommendations
that "you tend to focus on the 99 per cent, and not on the
one per cent."
Mr. Kaufman recommended that
missing persons investigations be treated as potential serious
crimes from the outset, and that police immediately begin to
collect and protect evidence if circumstances warrant.
He also recommended extensive
additional training in investigative skills for police and Crown
attorneys, including "the identification and avoidance of
tunnel vision," which he defined as "the single-minded
and overly narrow focus on a particular investigative or prosecutorial
theory."
And he urged:
limits on the
use of "consciousness of guilt" evidence, in which
the mere attitude of the suspect is used to implicate him or
her;
that a person
charged with an offence be allowed to sit with his or her lawyer
rather than in a separate box, and be referred to by name, rather
than as "the accused";
the increased
use of videotaping when interviewing witnesses;
that increased
importance be given to fresh evidence following a conviction
that might have altered the verdict.
Attorney General Charles Harnick
said the Ontario government will do whatever it takes to prevent
another wrongful conviction such as Mr. Morin's.
"What happened to Guy
Paul Morin was a tragedy," he told reporters. "We need
to learn from this in order to prevent this from ever happening
again."
The attorney general said he
assured both Mr. Morin and the family of Christine Jessop during
a meeting yesterday morning "that all necessary changes
to the criminal justice system in Ontario will be made as quickly
as possible."
"We want to implement
these recommendations ... so these kinds of things don't happen
again ... so families don't have to go through the tragedies
of the Morin and the Jessop experience. It is a tragedy and it
is unacceptable and it has ruined lives."
The report also contained several
recommendations for the federal government that, if implemented,
could significantly affect criminal trials.
Mr. Kaufman urged the federal
government to consider limiting the ability of a trial judge
to express an opinion on issues of credibility before a jury.
It also recommended that the federal government consider restricting
the right of the Crown to appeal an acquittal by a jury, unless
there is "a reasonable degree of certainty that the verdict
would likely have been different had the error of law not been
committed."
And he threw his support behind
legislation before Parliament that would establish a national
DNA bank.
A spokesman for Justice Minister
Anne McLellan said she was looking forward to reading Mr. Kaufman's
report and will not comment until his recommendations are studied.
A Chronology
of the Guy Paul Morin Case
- Oct. 3, 1984: Christine Jessop
disappears.
- Dec. 31, 1984: Her battered
body is found 50 kilometres from her Queensville, Ont., home.
- April 22, 1985: Guy Paul Morin
is charged with first-degree murder.
- Feb. 7, 1986: Mr. Morin is
acquitted.
- June 5, 1987: Ontario Court
of Appeal orders new trial.
- Nov. 17, 1988: Supreme Court
of Canada agrees with Ontario Appeal Court.
- July 30, 1992: Mr. Morin is
convicted of first-degree murder.
- Jan. 23, 1995: Mr. Morin is
acquitted by Ontario Court of Appeal.
- Sept. 3, 1996: Public inquiry
into wrongful conviction begins.
- Jan. 24, 1997: Ontario government
awards Mr. Morin and his parents $1.25 million in compensation.
- Feb. 10, 1998: Final summations
conclude in inquiry.
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