Quinney died during the spring of 2003. His testimony was recorded in the discovery process for the civil trial. We are also told that Ellen Gunn, now a judge, was the director of public prosecutions during the time the Klassens and Kvellos were charged and then had the charges stayed.

If you are not familiar with this story, a good starting point would be Scandal of the Century where you will find the original news reports and the beginnings of this case. The actions of Quinney in instructing his prosecutors to proceed with this case and try and get convictions despite evidence to the contrary are confirmed in an interview with Matt Miazga in Dan Zakreski's 1999 piece, Lies and Shattered Lives 

Richard Quinney, as the director of prosecutions, would seem also to be the director of this cover-up. He had access to all the information. He knew the foster parents were innocent. He knew that the deaf birth parents could be easily tricked by unsympathetic sign-translators and over-worked legal aid lawyers! He got his convictions in 1992. But those convictions were overturned by the Supreme Court of Canada in 1995!

Richard Quinney proceeded with defamatory libel charges against John and Johanna Lucas even though he knew that the statements they made against Sgt. Dueck were true.

In a February, 1998 StarPhoenix interview Quinney was asked about the various malicious prosecution lawsuits against his office to which he replied with the words quoted under his picture on the right:

Those who are suing might want not only to get to the position they were in prior to the charges being laid but to be at the place they would be if the charges had never been laid!

Now Richard Quinney has managed to carry his deceptions all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. In their effort to get the public's attention, John and Johanna Lucas put their complaints about Dueck in stark language which many people thought was offensive and others thought were unwise. That is all they were ever guilty of and that is not a crime. However, in Saskatchewan these two people have done time for exercising their right to free speech. Richard Quinney is responsible for this shameful blot on our province.

In Saskatchewan, people have gone to jail for saying true words!

Two of the original 12 plaintiffs in the $10M lawsuit have died since it was launched.

Full text of Supreme Court Decision on R. v Lucas

Star Phoenix feature article by Dan Zakreski, June 19, 1999

Globe and Mail feature (1995)

Scandal of the Century

There is evidence that Matt Miazga wanted to drop the charges against the foster parents in this case right after the preliminary hearing. As reported by the StarPhoenix, he met with Quinney and other top officials in Regina and returned to Saskatoon to push for a conviction on Peter Klassen, the most vulnerable of those charged who had a prior conviction for child molestation. Under pressure from other members of his family Peter agreed to plead guilty in exchange for a two year sentence. His understanding was that the charges against the rest of his family would be dropped. Instead, Peter received a four year sentence which he fully served between 1993 and 1997. His family members' names were not cleared. Rather they were smeared with Miazga's announcement that the trials would stop because the children were too traumatized to continue testifying. The clear implication was that the Crown was having to release dangerous sex offenders into the community because the Crown could not meet its burden of proof against them.

Code of Professional Conduct, Adopted by The Law Society of Saskatchewan

10. When defending an accused person, the lawyer's duty is to protect the client as far as possible from being convicted except by a court of competent jurisdiction and upon legal evidence sufficient to support a conviction for the offence charged. Accordingly, and notwithstanding the lawyer's private opinion as to credibility or merits, the lawyer may properly rely upon all available evidence or defences including so-called technicalities not known to be false or fraudulent. Quinney's remarks are cynical when one looks closely at how he has violated the code of his own profession.

9. When engaged as a prosecutor, the lawyer's prime duty is not to seek a conviction, but to present before the trial court all available credible evidence relevant to the alleged crime in order that justice may be done through a fair trial upon the merits. The prosecutor exercises a public function involving much discretion and power and must act fairly and dispassionately. The prosecutor should not do anything that might prevent the accused from being represented by counsel or communicating with counsel and, to the extent required by law and accepted practice, should make timely disclosure to the accused or defence counsel (or to the court if the accused is not represented) of all relevant facts and known witnesses, whether tending to show guilt or innocence, or that would affect the punishmentof the accused. Throughout Martensville, the Foster Parent cases, and in many other instances, the Crown, under Richard Quinney's direction has used bias and trickery to gain convictions. In the Lucas matter, Quinney and everyone working under him knew the Lucases' so called "defamatory" remarks against Dueck were essentially true and were made in an effort to bring to public account an errant police officer. Quinney knew then and he must certainly know now (since the convictions against the birth parents were overturned by the Supreme Court) that the children's testimony was preposterous and that Julie was being further victimized while Dueck and Bunko-Ruys were conducting their interrogations in the "soft room." Yet Quinney assigned his top prosecutors to use technical tricks that are available to defense lawyers but not to prosecutors in order to bait, foil and ultimately convict and jail the Lucases. At the end of the Lucases's trial, in 1995, when Judge Hrabinsky sentenced John to two years and Johanna to eighteen months, he dribbled on at great length about Sgt. Brian Dueck's honour and how the besmirchment of such honour was a terrible crime.The Supreme Court picked this up and went even further in blurring the line between speech and action, going so far as to protect Dueck's name, even though it had already been published in the Globe and Mail and other respectable media. This portrayal of Dueck as the suffering victim of unfair words was Richard Quinney's dishonest artfulness, employed to create a new lie in his cover-up.

See Sgt. Dueck's record | Letter to Roy Romanow, July 25, 1993, Actions and exoneration, and Saskatchewan cover-up in the foster parent scandal.

injusticebusters!say:

Shame on Saskatchewan Justice! As long as it continues to cover-up the rape and torture of Kathleen Ross by her brother, Michael Ross and fails to prosecute those responsible, it has no moral right to prosecute anybody for anything. In fact, many of them should be in jail themselves! The minute social worker Carol Bunko Ruys informed Corporal Brian Dueck this was happening, he had an obligation to protect Kathy. Instead he brushed the concern aside because he felt it was more important to keep the children together so he could coerce them into naming more adults so he could get in on the trend of prosecuting innocent people on the uncorroborated testimony of children. Because the children were kept together and Michael was encouraged to make up his stories, his sisters, Michelle and Kathy were subjected to hundreds of rapes which could have been prevented.

This case took place during a time when Saskatchewan was actively prosecuting citizens based on the uncorroborated testimony of children. Many unjustly charged and prosecuted people have claims working their way through the Courts to clear their names. There is no question that Dueck aided and abetted. The Saskatoon Police Department also aided and abetted. And it tried to cover its complicity by promoting Dueck to Sergeant and moving him over to narcotics where he jumped on the Ritalin bandwagon. Brian Dueck does not give a damn about street kids buying and selling ritalin any more than he gave a damn about Kathy.

When the Klassens and Kvellos got a good look at the Crown's disclosure against them after the charges against them were stayed, they discovered the lengths to which Dueck had gone in his relentless, ruthless and illegal investigation.

Letters were written to every possible official department asking for an official explanation. None was forthcoming. More letters were written and the media also became involved in calling for a public inquiry. Thousands of faxes were sent. The evidence was hand-delivered to the police department.

John and Johanna Lucas then took to the streets. They were charged with defamation against Dueck. Their signs said: "Did Dueck just allow or help with the rape/sodomy of an 8 year old?" ,"If you admit it Dueck, then you might get help with your touching problem.," "Did Sgt. Dueck help/or take part in the rape & sodomy of an 8 year old. The Thompson papers prove Dueck allowed his witness to rape"; and "The Thompson papers prove Sgt. Dueck allowed the false arrest & detention of Mrs. Lucas, with a falsified information".

A year later, Richard Klassen, Rob Klassen and Sheila Steele were arrested: Rick and Rob carried signs saying"Carol Bunko-Ruys helped/took part in the rape and sodomy of an eight year old girl." and "Sgt. Brian Dueck helped/took part in the rape and sodomy of an eight year old girl." Steele's sign said "Sgt. Dueck and Bunko-Ruys should be arrested and tried for their crimes." and "Arrest and charge those responsible for the rape of an eight year old"

Although the message is stated different ways, all the signs were created to pressure the government and police to address Dueck's manufactured case. The signs were all carried in a spirit of free speech. See Defamation | John Lucas' lawsuit |

More about prosecutors: The Seven Deadly Sins of prosecutors | Lessons from the Proulx case | Courageous prosecutor Terry Hinz | Miazga | Hansen | Quinney | Defence lawyers who perhaps love the Crown too much : Holgate | Dufour | Axworthy | the lawyers in the following waltzes of their clients to guilty verdicts: Gerald Morris | Howard Gowan | Leon Walchuk | Don Smith | Jay Watson |

Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell

Truth suppress'd, whether by courts or crooks, will find an avenue to be told. Sheila Steele, injusticebusters.com

If you hold the mouth of Truth, It will burst out its rib-cage. Somali proverb

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Publisher : Sheila Steele

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injusticebusters court advice :

How to walk yourself through the justice system

 

Why you should dump your preliminary hearing (written July 1998 and still valid)

 

Sermonette: Sucked in, Diegested and spit out by Saskatoon police (You will find links to many more sermonettes in the sidebar on this page

Another target of Dueck's malice:

Wilf Hathway

Our activism contributed greatly to the good vibes which happened around the civil trial.

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Index to Saskatoon Police stories

This is a pretty good scrapbook for the 1998-2002 period.

Hatchen and Munson: These two drove Darrell Night to the edge of Saskatoon on a freezing January night in 2000. They were found guilty of unlawful confinement, did some time and are acknowledged by the Saskatoon Police Service for each having served for 17 years. The Police Association stood by them and paid for their defence until they were convicted. Only then were they fired.

 

Edmonton police

Halifax

Toronto police

Vancouver police

Winnipeg police

 

2005: In the United States the proven wrongful convictions just keep coming at us!

Canadians who have been wrongfully convicted because of improper investigations combined with zealous Crown

Supreme Court orders new trial and quashes conviction in two more cases with improper disclosure issues

A round-up of wrongful convictions in Canada

Robert Baltovich

Michael Burns

Sebastian Burns

Rodney Cain

Wilbert Coffin (hanged, 1953)

Jason Dix

Jim Driskell

Jody Druken

Randy Druken

Hugues Duguay

Michel Dumont

Peter Frumusa

Walter Gillespie and Robert Mailman

Clayton Johnson

Yvonne Johnson

Herman Kaglik

Darren Koehn

Kulaveeringsam "Kulam" Karthiresu

Stephen Leadbeater

Donald Marshall

Chris McCullough

Michael McTaggart

Felix Michaud

David Milgaard

Guy Paul Morin

Shannon Murrin

Jamie Nelson

Greg Parsons

Benoit Proulx

Atif Rafay

Louise Reynolds

Thomas Sophonow

Gary Staples

Billy Taillefer

Steven Truscott

Joe Warren

Leon Walchuk

 

AIDWYC

Innocence Project (Canada)

Innocence Project (U.S.)

Northwest Law Center on Wrongful Convictions

 

Kirstin Lobato

Jeffrey Scott Hornoff

Willie Upshaw

Hurricane Carter

Guildford 4

Birmingham 6

Amirault

Houston

U.S. wrongful convictions: Exonerateed

Laurence Adams

Ludrate Burton

Stephen Cowans

Wilton Dedge

Albert Johnson

Kenneth Marsh

Dwayne McKinney

James Bernard Parker

Peter Reilly

Peter Rose

Sylvester Smith

Clifford St. Joseph

John Stoll

Marty Tankleff

Wilton Dedge

Ray Krone

 

Still working on it:

Dennis Deschaine

Dennis Perry

Tim Sandfort