Life for Dail hasn't been easy
Reporter: Mike Charbonneau
Posted: Sep. 29 7:03 p.m. on http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/6103463/
Raleigh, N.C. — Wrongfully convicted of raping a 12-year-old girl in Goldsboro, Dwayne Dail served 18 years in prison before DNA evidence cleared him of the crime in 2007.
Now, he counts every day as a blessing.
WATCH VIDEOWeb only: Dwayne Dail on life after prison
"I've been free for two years, one month and one day," he said Tuesday at a rally in Raleigh calling for the release of a man whom supporters says is also serving time for a crime he didn't commit.
After his release, Dail moved to Florida to start a new life and to try to get to know his 18-year-old son. He planned to go back to school and move forward with his lfie.
But it hasn't been as easy as he thought.
"The hardest part is to just put one foot in front of the other and move in the free world as a free man," he said. "It's difficult."
Two years, one month and one day later, he says he's still trying to get his life back.
"It's the mental independence that I've just recently gotten (back), because I've needed help for so long," he said.
Despite his path, he says he still has faith in justice. He now travels the country giving lectures and helping to fight for others who have been wrongly convicted.
"When someone is innocent, we can move to get them out quickly rather than compounding the injustice that's already been done."
After two years one month and one day, Dail says he's ready to go back to school now to study criminal justice. He wants to work in a district attorney's office.
"I believe I would be a great investigator of the facts and make sure the facts are the facts and not just what is being presented as the facts," he said. "That's what I would love to do."
He says sees everyday of freedom as a day to make a difference.
The state of North Carolina has since paid Dail more than $350,000 as compensation for his wrongful incarceration.
That brought a change in state law in 2008, when the General Assembly increased compensation from $20,000 a year to $50,000, with a cap at $750,000. There also provisions to pay for job skills training and waiving tuition.
Another man, William Jackson Neal Jr. has since been indicted in the case. He is already serving a maximum prison sentence of 93 months in Johnston County for a conviction on a habitual felon charge.
Dail says his one regret about his case is that while the state compensated him for the time he served in prison, no one ever apologized for what happened.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
"Victims of Justice" speak
Originally published by CTV News. 2.4.2006
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060203/wfive_VictimsofJustice_060204/20060204?hub=WFive
by Katherine Janson, W-Five
A Select Club
David Milgaard - Wrongly convicted of murder. Served 23 years.
Donald Marshall Jr. - Wrongly convicted of murder. Served 11 years.
Guy Paul Morin - Wrongly convicted of murder. Served 1½ years.
It's a select club, totalling about 30 members so far -- and the membership is growing. But theirs is a club that not one of these men ever wanted to join. Because all of them served sentences for crimes they didn't commit.
Today, they are all free -- exonerated of the heinous crimes that tarred their names -- but they may never be free of the stigma. Upon their release from incarceration, they return to a world that is forever changed and they themselves may never be the same.
"When I got of prison I was a black and white person," says Thomas Sophonow, who served four years in prison. You either trust or you don't trust, he said, but there's nothing in between.
The crime Sophonow was wrongly convicted of was heinous. On December 23, 1981, 16-year-old waitress Barbara Stoppel was found strangled and left for dead in a washroom at a doughnut shop in Winnipeg.
Three months later, Thomas Sophonow was charged with her murder. Even though he had an alibi and there was no physical evidence linking him to the attack, he was eventually convicted and sentenced to life in prison. All the while, Sophonow maintained his innocence.
After four years behind bars, Sophonow was set free when the Manitoba court of appeal unanimously overturned his conviction. But his nightmare was far from over. Everywhere Sophonow went, he was treated as a man who got away with murder.
"That was the core of my anger," he said.
So how did he survive this scrutiny and disdain? Where did he put all the frustration of living with a truth that no one else would accept?
"I just kept it bottled up inside. I would occasionally just blow up and just get mad, just totally freak out."
It was not until the summer of 2000 that the Manitoba Government finally called for a public inquiry and issued Sophonow an apology. But despite final and full exoneration--with DNA proof that he didn't attack and kill Barbara Stoppel -- Sophonow still suffers under the weight of his ordeal.
These days, he rebuilds his new life in New Westminster, BC, as he renovates the heritage home he lives in with his wife and three kids. But Sophoneow still lives under the sinister shadow cast by his conviction as a murderer.
"Until I can overcome my mental block and talk about issues, it'll always be there. But I haven't -- I'm not there yet," he said.
Putting a label on the pain
During the public inquiry into his wrongful conviction, Sophonow sought treatment from Dr. Adrian Grounds, a forensic psychiatrist at the University of Cambridge who is internationally recognized for his work on the damage done to the wrongly convicted.
"They may get panic attacks, nightmares, vivid memories of particular experiences, adverse experiences that they've had in prison," Dr. Grounds told W-FIVE in an interview.
Prison had a profound effect on Sophonow -- something his wife, Rebecca, noticed almost immediately when they met. "He used to pace, that was something that always stuck in my mind. He would put his head down and just walk back and forth across the room. A certain amount of steps it seemed, like he did when he was in jail."
W-FIVE's Victor Malarek asked Sophonow what it was like to spend four years in prison for something he didn't do.
"I don't talk about prison," said Sophonow, his eyes welling with tears. "I just don't talk about it."
Even after all these years, it's difficult to go back there.
"Take one day at a time," he said. "Take one hour at a time."
A Crime that Never Was
Across the country in St. John's, Newfoundland, Ron Dalton counted thousands of hours for a crime that never was. In 1989, the university-educated bank manager was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for strangling his wife, Brenda.
"I can always hear my mother there someplace in the background, screeching as the jury comes back in and says guilty," he said. In an instant, Dalton lost everything he held dear.
When he went to prison, his sister Linda Gallant and her husband Sonny took in Dalton's three children and raised them alongside their own three kids.
"The worst part about being in prison was being away from (your children) when you're used to spending every day of your life with them," he said.
It would take eight and a half years in prison before Dalton was released on bail, his original conviction questioned, but facing a new trial on the same charges. Coming home to his family was what he always wanted, but that didn't make it easy.
"It was difficult, very difficult. Coming home my three children were still with my sister and her husband. I was out of prison, but I wasn't free to pick up the pieces," he explained.
Dalton had to split his attention between his growing children and his new trial, which he couldn't afford to lose. "I wouldn't move them back in with me and then have to give them up again a year later if I was convicted a second time."
Forensic evidence eventually proved his wife choked on cereal. Dalton was acquitted in the 2000 trail, but he is still struggling to regain the stolen years.
Linda Gallant sees her brother's loss every time she looks into his face.
"When I look at him and I remember his children it was just, just a sadness there (in his face), that he missed a lot. And it's an ongoing thing because you cannot ever make that back up," she said.
Learning to Reconnect
Of all the losses a wrongly convicted person has to cope with, losing the ability to trust people is a pervasive and lasting effect, says Dr. Grounds.
"Some people remain in a state of permanent mistrust. That sense of confidence in the stability and predictability of the world, the fact that you can rely on people has gone forever," he said.
Ron Dalton explains how prison has affected him: "It's made me much less trusting and it's harder to form close relationships. It's harder to trust people, (knowing) that you've been burned by so many people who are there."
And the scars take a very long time to fade.
"That mark of Cain is always there. You know, you're branded as a murderer," he said.
Lasting Effects
In 1995, Randy Druken was convicted of the brutal stabbing death of his 26-year-old girlfriend, Brenda Young. He was released on bail in 1999 and eventually exonerated by DNA evidence, but life has never returned to normal.
"What I want most I'll never be able to get right for things to be the way they were. But I'll settle for my life you know," he said.
Druken served his sentence in the Atlantic Institution, a maximum-security prison located in Renous, New Brunswick.
"There was times that... I even wanted to kill myself, you know. Again I had to think of reasons why not to," he said.
"I had to, you know, try to find strength in other peoples' ordeals that they were going through when they were trying to survive."
In order to cope in prison, he used to go to the library and get books on the Holocaust to read about those who had done time in concentration camps.
"Not that I went through anything what they went through, but the stories that they wrote helped me to get through what I was going through," he said.
With few places to turn in prison, Randy also turned to drugs. Although they dulled his pain, Randy eventually emerged from prison with a powerful drug addiction. And he was not equipped to deal with how much had changed.
"I got addicted to CONTIN MS's, which is a painkiller for cancer patients. When I come out I was wired into morphine and I remember there for a while I wouldn't even do Oxycontins on the street. It didn't do nothing for me -- that's how high the drug was that I was doing in jail."
Bill Collins is Randy Druken's lawyer of 20 years and probably one of his only real friends. In Collins' opinion the drugs offered Randy a crutch.
"Randy was ashamed of the fact that people thought that he was the killer. He was insecure in any social setting whatsoever. I think it was just a way to escape the world, and possibly, life," says Collins.
Unable to escape the stronghold of his wrongful conviction and the lasting psychological damage, Randy has cycled in and out of jail four more times since his release.
"Each time I come back it was because of drugs. There was times I asked the courts to put me in jail to get off this problem to get away from this drug problem," said Druken.
Getting what they deserve
The system of support for the wrongly convicted is just not good enough for James Lockyer, a prominent lawyer and co-founder of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted. He says the government has a responsibility to these men.
"They obviously need social help from professionals and those professionals, it seems to me, should be provided by and paid for by the state. As well, the other way the state can and should help is by providing compensation."
Of about 30 wrongful convictions in Canada, so far only about a dozen men have received a cash settlement for their time in prison. But getting compensation has always been, and continues to be, an uphill struggle. And that's the case for Ron Dalton.
"Compensation is the way governments apologize. They apologize with their chequebooks. An apology, a formal acknowledgement of innocence would be nice, but government's rarely do that as well," he said.
Randy Druken desperately wants to straighten out his life but he knows he's got one very big mountain to climb.
"I got to do it this time or it's going to kill me."
In March 2003, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador announced a public inquiry into alleged miscarriages of justice in the cases of three men, including Randy Druken and Ronald Dalton. Druken and Dalton are still awaiting the results of the Lamer inquiry, which should be released by June 1, 2006.
And while it's been 20 years since Thomas Sophonow walked out of prison a free man, his past continues to haunt him.
In 2003, Sophonow was awarded $2.6 million in compensation--17 years after his release. But he insists that the time he spent in jail for a crime he didn't commit can never be repaid.
"No. No. Actually no. To tell you the truth, no compensation would pay for all the years," says Sophonow.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060203/wfive_VictimsofJustice_060204/20060204?hub=WFive
by Katherine Janson, W-Five
A Select Club
David Milgaard - Wrongly convicted of murder. Served 23 years.
Donald Marshall Jr. - Wrongly convicted of murder. Served 11 years.
Guy Paul Morin - Wrongly convicted of murder. Served 1½ years.
It's a select club, totalling about 30 members so far -- and the membership is growing. But theirs is a club that not one of these men ever wanted to join. Because all of them served sentences for crimes they didn't commit.
Today, they are all free -- exonerated of the heinous crimes that tarred their names -- but they may never be free of the stigma. Upon their release from incarceration, they return to a world that is forever changed and they themselves may never be the same.
"When I got of prison I was a black and white person," says Thomas Sophonow, who served four years in prison. You either trust or you don't trust, he said, but there's nothing in between.
The crime Sophonow was wrongly convicted of was heinous. On December 23, 1981, 16-year-old waitress Barbara Stoppel was found strangled and left for dead in a washroom at a doughnut shop in Winnipeg.
Three months later, Thomas Sophonow was charged with her murder. Even though he had an alibi and there was no physical evidence linking him to the attack, he was eventually convicted and sentenced to life in prison. All the while, Sophonow maintained his innocence.
After four years behind bars, Sophonow was set free when the Manitoba court of appeal unanimously overturned his conviction. But his nightmare was far from over. Everywhere Sophonow went, he was treated as a man who got away with murder.
"That was the core of my anger," he said.
So how did he survive this scrutiny and disdain? Where did he put all the frustration of living with a truth that no one else would accept?
"I just kept it bottled up inside. I would occasionally just blow up and just get mad, just totally freak out."
It was not until the summer of 2000 that the Manitoba Government finally called for a public inquiry and issued Sophonow an apology. But despite final and full exoneration--with DNA proof that he didn't attack and kill Barbara Stoppel -- Sophonow still suffers under the weight of his ordeal.
These days, he rebuilds his new life in New Westminster, BC, as he renovates the heritage home he lives in with his wife and three kids. But Sophoneow still lives under the sinister shadow cast by his conviction as a murderer.
"Until I can overcome my mental block and talk about issues, it'll always be there. But I haven't -- I'm not there yet," he said.
Putting a label on the pain
During the public inquiry into his wrongful conviction, Sophonow sought treatment from Dr. Adrian Grounds, a forensic psychiatrist at the University of Cambridge who is internationally recognized for his work on the damage done to the wrongly convicted.
"They may get panic attacks, nightmares, vivid memories of particular experiences, adverse experiences that they've had in prison," Dr. Grounds told W-FIVE in an interview.
Prison had a profound effect on Sophonow -- something his wife, Rebecca, noticed almost immediately when they met. "He used to pace, that was something that always stuck in my mind. He would put his head down and just walk back and forth across the room. A certain amount of steps it seemed, like he did when he was in jail."
W-FIVE's Victor Malarek asked Sophonow what it was like to spend four years in prison for something he didn't do.
"I don't talk about prison," said Sophonow, his eyes welling with tears. "I just don't talk about it."
Even after all these years, it's difficult to go back there.
"Take one day at a time," he said. "Take one hour at a time."
A Crime that Never Was
Across the country in St. John's, Newfoundland, Ron Dalton counted thousands of hours for a crime that never was. In 1989, the university-educated bank manager was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for strangling his wife, Brenda.
"I can always hear my mother there someplace in the background, screeching as the jury comes back in and says guilty," he said. In an instant, Dalton lost everything he held dear.
When he went to prison, his sister Linda Gallant and her husband Sonny took in Dalton's three children and raised them alongside their own three kids.
"The worst part about being in prison was being away from (your children) when you're used to spending every day of your life with them," he said.
It would take eight and a half years in prison before Dalton was released on bail, his original conviction questioned, but facing a new trial on the same charges. Coming home to his family was what he always wanted, but that didn't make it easy.
"It was difficult, very difficult. Coming home my three children were still with my sister and her husband. I was out of prison, but I wasn't free to pick up the pieces," he explained.
Dalton had to split his attention between his growing children and his new trial, which he couldn't afford to lose. "I wouldn't move them back in with me and then have to give them up again a year later if I was convicted a second time."
Forensic evidence eventually proved his wife choked on cereal. Dalton was acquitted in the 2000 trail, but he is still struggling to regain the stolen years.
Linda Gallant sees her brother's loss every time she looks into his face.
"When I look at him and I remember his children it was just, just a sadness there (in his face), that he missed a lot. And it's an ongoing thing because you cannot ever make that back up," she said.
Learning to Reconnect
Of all the losses a wrongly convicted person has to cope with, losing the ability to trust people is a pervasive and lasting effect, says Dr. Grounds.
"Some people remain in a state of permanent mistrust. That sense of confidence in the stability and predictability of the world, the fact that you can rely on people has gone forever," he said.
Ron Dalton explains how prison has affected him: "It's made me much less trusting and it's harder to form close relationships. It's harder to trust people, (knowing) that you've been burned by so many people who are there."
And the scars take a very long time to fade.
"That mark of Cain is always there. You know, you're branded as a murderer," he said.
Lasting Effects
In 1995, Randy Druken was convicted of the brutal stabbing death of his 26-year-old girlfriend, Brenda Young. He was released on bail in 1999 and eventually exonerated by DNA evidence, but life has never returned to normal.
"What I want most I'll never be able to get right for things to be the way they were. But I'll settle for my life you know," he said.
Druken served his sentence in the Atlantic Institution, a maximum-security prison located in Renous, New Brunswick.
"There was times that... I even wanted to kill myself, you know. Again I had to think of reasons why not to," he said.
"I had to, you know, try to find strength in other peoples' ordeals that they were going through when they were trying to survive."
In order to cope in prison, he used to go to the library and get books on the Holocaust to read about those who had done time in concentration camps.
"Not that I went through anything what they went through, but the stories that they wrote helped me to get through what I was going through," he said.
With few places to turn in prison, Randy also turned to drugs. Although they dulled his pain, Randy eventually emerged from prison with a powerful drug addiction. And he was not equipped to deal with how much had changed.
"I got addicted to CONTIN MS's, which is a painkiller for cancer patients. When I come out I was wired into morphine and I remember there for a while I wouldn't even do Oxycontins on the street. It didn't do nothing for me -- that's how high the drug was that I was doing in jail."
Bill Collins is Randy Druken's lawyer of 20 years and probably one of his only real friends. In Collins' opinion the drugs offered Randy a crutch.
"Randy was ashamed of the fact that people thought that he was the killer. He was insecure in any social setting whatsoever. I think it was just a way to escape the world, and possibly, life," says Collins.
Unable to escape the stronghold of his wrongful conviction and the lasting psychological damage, Randy has cycled in and out of jail four more times since his release.
"Each time I come back it was because of drugs. There was times I asked the courts to put me in jail to get off this problem to get away from this drug problem," said Druken.
Getting what they deserve
The system of support for the wrongly convicted is just not good enough for James Lockyer, a prominent lawyer and co-founder of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted. He says the government has a responsibility to these men.
"They obviously need social help from professionals and those professionals, it seems to me, should be provided by and paid for by the state. As well, the other way the state can and should help is by providing compensation."
Of about 30 wrongful convictions in Canada, so far only about a dozen men have received a cash settlement for their time in prison. But getting compensation has always been, and continues to be, an uphill struggle. And that's the case for Ron Dalton.
"Compensation is the way governments apologize. They apologize with their chequebooks. An apology, a formal acknowledgement of innocence would be nice, but government's rarely do that as well," he said.
Randy Druken desperately wants to straighten out his life but he knows he's got one very big mountain to climb.
"I got to do it this time or it's going to kill me."
In March 2003, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador announced a public inquiry into alleged miscarriages of justice in the cases of three men, including Randy Druken and Ronald Dalton. Druken and Dalton are still awaiting the results of the Lamer inquiry, which should be released by June 1, 2006.
And while it's been 20 years since Thomas Sophonow walked out of prison a free man, his past continues to haunt him.
In 2003, Sophonow was awarded $2.6 million in compensation--17 years after his release. But he insists that the time he spent in jail for a crime he didn't commit can never be repaid.
"No. No. Actually no. To tell you the truth, no compensation would pay for all the years," says Sophonow.
Need to study prosecutor's role in WC cases
Panelists say prosecutor job is intense, powerful. "The author of a 2003 study on prosecutorial misconduct and founder of an Innocence Project group on the MU campus, said local prosecutors have tremendous power. He said the news media needed to do a better job of covering what prosecutors do, beyond merely covering what happens in the courtroom. Prosecutors have considerable discretion over whether to pursue or dismiss cases." http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2009/sep/18/panelists-say-prosecutor-job-is-intense-powerful/
Monday, September 28, 2009
Arar as wrongful conviction case?
I get my information about crime from the media just like everybody else. Like most people I know who Maher Arar is because he has been awarded $10 million, legal costs and an apology for Canada's role in getting him a reservation for a year-long stay in a Syrian jail.
But I have to confess I wasn't really paying attention in 2002 when articles first started appearing in the news. While there are still newspapers who report that Maher "says" he was tortured during the year he was jailed in Damascus as if it is a suspect claim, in general coverage has changed substantially over five years.
What happened to Arar prompted a public inquiry and the final report placed the blame for Arar's deportation on the RCMP for giving inaccurate information to U.S. authorities. The former RCMP commissioner, Giuliano Zaccardelli, resigned over the case last December.
In this case it doesn't matter that there might have been good reasons for a bad mistake. It doesn't matter that in the aftermath of 9/11 security was tightened up. An innocent man was convicted without a trial. This is unconscionable.
So I am intrigued by statements such as 'anonymous leaks in the Canadian security establishment that have never been traced fuelled suspicion.' To do catch-up on the story I went back to find news articles which leaked information damaging to Arar's reputation from unattributed sources. I found out more than I knew but less than I hoped.
For example, I found out from ctv.ca that the RCMP has shared information about people who have done nothing wrong with U.S. police and security agencies if they have associated with persons suspected as security threats.
Further, that 'extraordinary rendition' is the technical term for sending persons suspected as terrorists for questioning in foreign countries which use torture to extract 'confessions.'
I also found out from Talk Left, an online magazine of crime-related injustice news, that in 2004 when Ottawa Citizen reporter Juliet O'Neill wrote an article citing "a security source" giving details of what Arar told Syrian military intelligence officials during his incarceration that the RCMP armed with a search warrant searched her home trying to find the source of the leaked information.
I learned from www.injusticebusters.com that in 2004 an Ontario Superior Court Judge ruled that court orders sealing the reasons for security raids against O'Neill violated constitutional guarantees of a free press, freedom of expression and the public's right to an open court system.
The RCMP request to keep the reasons secret for the raid on her home came under the Security of Information Act, a law passed following the 9/11 attacks as part of the omnibus Anti-Terrorism Act.
The Security of Information Act replaced the Official Secrets Act adopted on the eve of the Second World War. The National Post writes that there have been only six criminal investigations since the early 1960s dealing with spying or leaked information. One of the last cases was in 1979 against the Toronto Sun for publishing a 1976 RCMP report related to Russian spies in Canada.
News accounts from 2003 say the RCMP was waiting at Dorval on Sept. 27, 2002, for Arar to return from Tunisia through JFK Airport. However, CBS's 60 Minutes reports Canadian intelligence approved of the U.S. decision to deport Mr. Arar to Syria. The U.S. had offered to deport Arar to Canada but sent him to Syria instead after the RCMP said it did not have enough evidence to detain or charge him if he was sent home.
So he was innocent, evidence which could have proved it was not released, and he was sent to jail without a trial. This doesn't sound like justice to me. Not at all.
The O'Connor Inquiry into the wrongful conviction of Maher Arar released its report on Sept. 18, 2006, clearing Maher of all terrorism allegations, and found that the actions of Canadian officials lead to his ordeal.
Maher has extensive resources devoted to this case at www.maherarar.ca and the report can be found at www.ararcommission.ca.
This article originally appeared in the Daily Gleaner, Feb 1, 2007 as "Canada's latest wrongful conviction case?"
But I have to confess I wasn't really paying attention in 2002 when articles first started appearing in the news. While there are still newspapers who report that Maher "says" he was tortured during the year he was jailed in Damascus as if it is a suspect claim, in general coverage has changed substantially over five years.
What happened to Arar prompted a public inquiry and the final report placed the blame for Arar's deportation on the RCMP for giving inaccurate information to U.S. authorities. The former RCMP commissioner, Giuliano Zaccardelli, resigned over the case last December.
In this case it doesn't matter that there might have been good reasons for a bad mistake. It doesn't matter that in the aftermath of 9/11 security was tightened up. An innocent man was convicted without a trial. This is unconscionable.
So I am intrigued by statements such as 'anonymous leaks in the Canadian security establishment that have never been traced fuelled suspicion.' To do catch-up on the story I went back to find news articles which leaked information damaging to Arar's reputation from unattributed sources. I found out more than I knew but less than I hoped.
For example, I found out from ctv.ca that the RCMP has shared information about people who have done nothing wrong with U.S. police and security agencies if they have associated with persons suspected as security threats.
Further, that 'extraordinary rendition' is the technical term for sending persons suspected as terrorists for questioning in foreign countries which use torture to extract 'confessions.'
I also found out from Talk Left, an online magazine of crime-related injustice news, that in 2004 when Ottawa Citizen reporter Juliet O'Neill wrote an article citing "a security source" giving details of what Arar told Syrian military intelligence officials during his incarceration that the RCMP armed with a search warrant searched her home trying to find the source of the leaked information.
I learned from www.injusticebusters.com that in 2004 an Ontario Superior Court Judge ruled that court orders sealing the reasons for security raids against O'Neill violated constitutional guarantees of a free press, freedom of expression and the public's right to an open court system.
The RCMP request to keep the reasons secret for the raid on her home came under the Security of Information Act, a law passed following the 9/11 attacks as part of the omnibus Anti-Terrorism Act.
The Security of Information Act replaced the Official Secrets Act adopted on the eve of the Second World War. The National Post writes that there have been only six criminal investigations since the early 1960s dealing with spying or leaked information. One of the last cases was in 1979 against the Toronto Sun for publishing a 1976 RCMP report related to Russian spies in Canada.
News accounts from 2003 say the RCMP was waiting at Dorval on Sept. 27, 2002, for Arar to return from Tunisia through JFK Airport. However, CBS's 60 Minutes reports Canadian intelligence approved of the U.S. decision to deport Mr. Arar to Syria. The U.S. had offered to deport Arar to Canada but sent him to Syria instead after the RCMP said it did not have enough evidence to detain or charge him if he was sent home.
So he was innocent, evidence which could have proved it was not released, and he was sent to jail without a trial. This doesn't sound like justice to me. Not at all.
The O'Connor Inquiry into the wrongful conviction of Maher Arar released its report on Sept. 18, 2006, clearing Maher of all terrorism allegations, and found that the actions of Canadian officials lead to his ordeal.
Maher has extensive resources devoted to this case at www.maherarar.ca and the report can be found at www.ararcommission.ca.
This article originally appeared in the Daily Gleaner, Feb 1, 2007 as "Canada's latest wrongful conviction case?"
Marshall was a fighter to the end
Donald Marshall died last week. I first heard of him in the 1980s.
The royal commission into his wrongful incarceration had just concluded. It was the first public investigation into a wrongful conviction in Canada. It would not be the last.
I certainly hadn't heard about Marshall's conviction and incarceration in the early 1970s. His conviction would have been minor news outside the province, but by 1989 it was major news. And it would go on to have echoes far beyond the lives of those involved at the time.
To me the story of Donald Marshall was incredible because it said the legal system is not always just and that sometimes justice is a long time coming, if it comes at all.Marshall was a young native man who was arrested after his friend Sandy Seale was fatally stabbed in Wentworth Park in Sydney on May 29, 1971. The two were 17, and the stabbing occurred after a teenage dance at a church hall.
The boys had met after the dance at a local park. They were standing on a bridge talking when a white-haired man approached them and asked for a cigarette and a match. When Sandy said he had none, the man said he didn't like blacks or Indians, and stabbed him in the stomach and slashed Donald on the arm.
This story would become lost, and not resurface for a dozen years. The rest is history, as they say, but history has a way of not going away.
Local police Sergeant MacIntyre investigated, but the crime scene was not secured, and statements were not taken at the scene or at the hospital.
Witness accounts which corroborated Donald's version of events were discounted in favour of accounts which pointed to his guilt.
Juvenile witnesses were interrogated in the absence of their parents and threatened with charges if they did not corroborate. One witness who was coerced was a 14-year-old girl.
On June 5 Marshall was charged with murder. Police would not elaborate on the break in the case that allowed them to lay charges, but at trial a teenager said he saw Donald stab Sandy in an argument.
We now know that witness was coerced to testify to events he did not see.Crown prosecutor MacNeil pursued a case based on shaky witness testimony, and the defense was, by all accounts, weak. When one of the witnesses attempted to alter his testimony, the prosecutor made it apparent he could be charged with perjury. Judge Drubinsky made it clear the defense had to stick to the agreed-upon statement of facts about what happened that night in the park.
We now know that statement was false, but a case built on lies could never arrive at the truth. It took four hours for the jury to convict.
The case was appealed, but weakly, because attorney Rosenblum didn't really expect the outcome to change. However, he was operating without full disclosure of the facts.
Evidence arose which affirmed Marshall's version of events and pointed to Roy Ebsary as the mystery assailant. Furthermore, evidence collected by RCMP Staff Sergeant Wheaton showed that eyewitness testimony had been perjured, and that Ebsary was probably responsible.
When the case did go to appeal in 1982 the deputy attorney general tried to prevent the acquittal. And a prosecutor on the original case sat on the appeal, raising issues of conflict of interest.
However, in the end, the appeal court judges concluded that Marshall was responsible for whatever injustice had happened. And the Supreme Court ultimately decided that those judges could not be questioned about their decision.
In a stinging indictment of that decision, the royal commission said there had been a grievous miscarriage of justice, which meant all those people involved in the investigation and prosecution were part of the injustice. Yet none of them went to jail or suffered in any way - not the police, the lawyers or the judges.
Marshall was finally exonerated during the inquiry and he went on to win another fight, in his appeal against being charged for fishing eels in 1993. The 1999 Supreme Court decision recognized native sovereignty based in historic treaties.The wrongful conviction case opened up a new understanding of problems in the criminal justice system. And the fishing case opened up new opportunities for natives in Canada.
Would he have picked these fights if he had a choice? Probably not, but he didn't back away from them either.
He might not have chosen it, but he had quite a life.
This article originally appeared in the Daily Gleaner, Aug 11, 2009
The royal commission into his wrongful incarceration had just concluded. It was the first public investigation into a wrongful conviction in Canada. It would not be the last.
I certainly hadn't heard about Marshall's conviction and incarceration in the early 1970s. His conviction would have been minor news outside the province, but by 1989 it was major news. And it would go on to have echoes far beyond the lives of those involved at the time.
To me the story of Donald Marshall was incredible because it said the legal system is not always just and that sometimes justice is a long time coming, if it comes at all.Marshall was a young native man who was arrested after his friend Sandy Seale was fatally stabbed in Wentworth Park in Sydney on May 29, 1971. The two were 17, and the stabbing occurred after a teenage dance at a church hall.
The boys had met after the dance at a local park. They were standing on a bridge talking when a white-haired man approached them and asked for a cigarette and a match. When Sandy said he had none, the man said he didn't like blacks or Indians, and stabbed him in the stomach and slashed Donald on the arm.
This story would become lost, and not resurface for a dozen years. The rest is history, as they say, but history has a way of not going away.
Local police Sergeant MacIntyre investigated, but the crime scene was not secured, and statements were not taken at the scene or at the hospital.
Witness accounts which corroborated Donald's version of events were discounted in favour of accounts which pointed to his guilt.
Juvenile witnesses were interrogated in the absence of their parents and threatened with charges if they did not corroborate. One witness who was coerced was a 14-year-old girl.
On June 5 Marshall was charged with murder. Police would not elaborate on the break in the case that allowed them to lay charges, but at trial a teenager said he saw Donald stab Sandy in an argument.
We now know that witness was coerced to testify to events he did not see.Crown prosecutor MacNeil pursued a case based on shaky witness testimony, and the defense was, by all accounts, weak. When one of the witnesses attempted to alter his testimony, the prosecutor made it apparent he could be charged with perjury. Judge Drubinsky made it clear the defense had to stick to the agreed-upon statement of facts about what happened that night in the park.
We now know that statement was false, but a case built on lies could never arrive at the truth. It took four hours for the jury to convict.
The case was appealed, but weakly, because attorney Rosenblum didn't really expect the outcome to change. However, he was operating without full disclosure of the facts.
Evidence arose which affirmed Marshall's version of events and pointed to Roy Ebsary as the mystery assailant. Furthermore, evidence collected by RCMP Staff Sergeant Wheaton showed that eyewitness testimony had been perjured, and that Ebsary was probably responsible.
When the case did go to appeal in 1982 the deputy attorney general tried to prevent the acquittal. And a prosecutor on the original case sat on the appeal, raising issues of conflict of interest.
However, in the end, the appeal court judges concluded that Marshall was responsible for whatever injustice had happened. And the Supreme Court ultimately decided that those judges could not be questioned about their decision.
In a stinging indictment of that decision, the royal commission said there had been a grievous miscarriage of justice, which meant all those people involved in the investigation and prosecution were part of the injustice. Yet none of them went to jail or suffered in any way - not the police, the lawyers or the judges.
Marshall was finally exonerated during the inquiry and he went on to win another fight, in his appeal against being charged for fishing eels in 1993. The 1999 Supreme Court decision recognized native sovereignty based in historic treaties.The wrongful conviction case opened up a new understanding of problems in the criminal justice system. And the fishing case opened up new opportunities for natives in Canada.
Would he have picked these fights if he had a choice? Probably not, but he didn't back away from them either.
He might not have chosen it, but he had quite a life.
This article originally appeared in the Daily Gleaner, Aug 11, 2009
Another wrongful conviction surfaces in Manitoba
Last week CBC news reported there was a strong likelihood that a wrongful conviction has surfaced in Manitoba.
If true, it is another in a string of wrongful convictions in a province which sent Thomas Sophonow to prison for a murder he didn’t commit in the 1980s and then James Driskell in the 1990s.
Stanley Ostrowski has submitted a bail application pending review of his trial for murder, a crime he has spent 23 years in jail for, a crime he says he didn’t commit.
He was convicted of firstdegree murder for the execution of Robert Nieman, a police informant, in 1987. Three other men were also charged in the slaying.
Ostrowski has always said he didn’t commit the crime, and now his lawyers, James Lockyer and Alan Libman of the Association in Defence of the Wrongfully Convicted, have filed a petition for his release on bail while they await a review by the justice minister.
The federal Justice Department and its conviction review group tasked a Halifax lawyer with reviewing the case. It is reported he says there’s a reasonable basis to believe a wrongful incarceration occurred.
It is not known on what basis he came to that conclusion, but in similar cases, new evidence has turned up since the original conviction which would support the innocence of the accused. Such new evidence could include witness recantation, evidence of police coercion, legal error or DNA evidence.
The minister of justice is pretty much the last hope for the wrongfully convicted, and he or she must be satisfied there is a reasonable basis to conclude that a miscarriage of justice has occurred. In the past this has resulted in either a new trial or a referral to the Court of Appeal.
In Nova Scotia, the Marshall case resulted in an Appeal Court hearing in 1982, while in Saskatchewan, the Milgaard case resulted in a Supreme Court hearing. Both cases involved failures in the administration of justice, although officials involved in those cases were exonerated of any wrongdoing.
What is characteristic of most wrongful convictions is that they are based on factors such as eyewitness misidentification, legal error or police tunnel vision. In the Morin case, for example, police quickly focused on a young man and pursued his guilt single-mindedly.
However, what is interesting in this case is that attention is not being pointed at the usual suspects — the police, witnesses or a judge. In this case questions are being raised about the prosecutor. Prosecutors have been found to be responsible in many U.S. cases of wrongful conviction.
Ostrowski’s case was prosecuted by George Dangerfield, a high-ranking Crown attorney in charge of trying both James Driskell and Thomas Sophonow.
Suspicion was raised about Dangerfield in 2006 during the public inquiry into Driskell’s wrongful conviction, in part because of the large volume of cases he conducted in the 1980s and the 1990s and the fact that no other Crown prosecutor has been responsible for prosecuting two wrongful convictions.
In response to criticisms, Manitoba has retained a retired Ontario judge to review some of Dangerfield’s cases.
The key issue seems to be whether evidence was disclosed by the prosecution which could have worked to the advantage of the defense.
Given that the test in a criminal court is “beyond a reasonable doubt,” evidence that might sway a jury to acquit the accused is highly important.
Given the large number of cases prosecutors handle and the fact that there is a lot of pressure to win, and a work culture which rewards individual success, there are situational inducements to deviate. The nature of the trust relationship puts prosecutors in a special position with both responsibility and yet the power to abuse.
There is no evidence yet of wrongdoing, but it is instructive that the focus of the judicial review is going to be disclosure. At the time of Ostrowski’s trial, there was no legal requirement to disclose evidence which might have helped his defense.
No legal requirement perhaps, but there certainly was a moral one.
This article originally appeared in the Daily Gleaner, Sept 24, 2009. http://dailygleaner.canadaeast.com/opinion/article/801901
If true, it is another in a string of wrongful convictions in a province which sent Thomas Sophonow to prison for a murder he didn’t commit in the 1980s and then James Driskell in the 1990s.
Stanley Ostrowski has submitted a bail application pending review of his trial for murder, a crime he has spent 23 years in jail for, a crime he says he didn’t commit.
He was convicted of firstdegree murder for the execution of Robert Nieman, a police informant, in 1987. Three other men were also charged in the slaying.
Ostrowski has always said he didn’t commit the crime, and now his lawyers, James Lockyer and Alan Libman of the Association in Defence of the Wrongfully Convicted, have filed a petition for his release on bail while they await a review by the justice minister.
The federal Justice Department and its conviction review group tasked a Halifax lawyer with reviewing the case. It is reported he says there’s a reasonable basis to believe a wrongful incarceration occurred.
It is not known on what basis he came to that conclusion, but in similar cases, new evidence has turned up since the original conviction which would support the innocence of the accused. Such new evidence could include witness recantation, evidence of police coercion, legal error or DNA evidence.
The minister of justice is pretty much the last hope for the wrongfully convicted, and he or she must be satisfied there is a reasonable basis to conclude that a miscarriage of justice has occurred. In the past this has resulted in either a new trial or a referral to the Court of Appeal.
In Nova Scotia, the Marshall case resulted in an Appeal Court hearing in 1982, while in Saskatchewan, the Milgaard case resulted in a Supreme Court hearing. Both cases involved failures in the administration of justice, although officials involved in those cases were exonerated of any wrongdoing.
What is characteristic of most wrongful convictions is that they are based on factors such as eyewitness misidentification, legal error or police tunnel vision. In the Morin case, for example, police quickly focused on a young man and pursued his guilt single-mindedly.
However, what is interesting in this case is that attention is not being pointed at the usual suspects — the police, witnesses or a judge. In this case questions are being raised about the prosecutor. Prosecutors have been found to be responsible in many U.S. cases of wrongful conviction.
Ostrowski’s case was prosecuted by George Dangerfield, a high-ranking Crown attorney in charge of trying both James Driskell and Thomas Sophonow.
Suspicion was raised about Dangerfield in 2006 during the public inquiry into Driskell’s wrongful conviction, in part because of the large volume of cases he conducted in the 1980s and the 1990s and the fact that no other Crown prosecutor has been responsible for prosecuting two wrongful convictions.
In response to criticisms, Manitoba has retained a retired Ontario judge to review some of Dangerfield’s cases.
The key issue seems to be whether evidence was disclosed by the prosecution which could have worked to the advantage of the defense.
Given that the test in a criminal court is “beyond a reasonable doubt,” evidence that might sway a jury to acquit the accused is highly important.
Given the large number of cases prosecutors handle and the fact that there is a lot of pressure to win, and a work culture which rewards individual success, there are situational inducements to deviate. The nature of the trust relationship puts prosecutors in a special position with both responsibility and yet the power to abuse.
There is no evidence yet of wrongdoing, but it is instructive that the focus of the judicial review is going to be disclosure. At the time of Ostrowski’s trial, there was no legal requirement to disclose evidence which might have helped his defense.
No legal requirement perhaps, but there certainly was a moral one.
This article originally appeared in the Daily Gleaner, Sept 24, 2009. http://dailygleaner.canadaeast.com/opinion/article/801901
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Milgaard Inquiry Quotable Moment
In looking at the Milgaard Inquiry report, trying to find an explanation of 'who did what that led to what went wrong', I came across this quote in the Executive Summary:
"In the practice of the day, [Prosecutor] Caldwell did not see the complete police file. He received some police reports, but not all, and reviewed 95 civilian statements at the request of defence counsel Tallis, looking for evidence tending to show that the accused might be innocent. [Similarly] Caldwell's disclosure to Tallis met the standards of the day ... [but] did not disclose evidence of certain sexual assaults in the area in 1968 ... Evidence of these assaults, had they been known to Tallis at the time, might have led him on lines of inquiry ... that the murder could have been committed by a third party, thus possibly raising a reasonable doubt of Milgaard's guilt. This non-disclosure was the product of an honest, if mistaken, belief by Caldwell that the evidence was not useful to the defence. By present standards, such evidence would have been disclosed as a matter of course ..."
By present legal standards, certainly, but one would think by moral standards, even then ...
"In the practice of the day, [Prosecutor] Caldwell did not see the complete police file. He received some police reports, but not all, and reviewed 95 civilian statements at the request of defence counsel Tallis, looking for evidence tending to show that the accused might be innocent. [Similarly] Caldwell's disclosure to Tallis met the standards of the day ... [but] did not disclose evidence of certain sexual assaults in the area in 1968 ... Evidence of these assaults, had they been known to Tallis at the time, might have led him on lines of inquiry ... that the murder could have been committed by a third party, thus possibly raising a reasonable doubt of Milgaard's guilt. This non-disclosure was the product of an honest, if mistaken, belief by Caldwell that the evidence was not useful to the defence. By present standards, such evidence would have been disclosed as a matter of course ..."
By present legal standards, certainly, but one would think by moral standards, even then ...
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Wrongful Convictions and Media Tunnel Vision
There does not seem to be much research on the relationship between the media and wrongful convictions. The main theme seems to be: 1/ that wrongful convictions happen when the police are pressured to find a suspect in the face of media panic; 2/ that the media sensationalize cases of wrongful conviction when they are discovered; and, 3/ that the media are instrumental in exposing cases of wrongful convictions.
While not doubting any of the foregoing it seems to me that a more intimate connection between the media and wrongful convictions might be theorized. For example in looking at media coverage of Donald Marshall in the Globe and Mail, the first mention comes in 1982 when his wrongful becomes evident and he is released on appeal. There are many different spokespeople, including him. Initially the main reason offered is eyewitness perjury, and not until later is a more nuanced explanation available.
However in 1971 the main source is the Cape Breton Post. The only authority is the police, and it is their version of events which is accepted and relayed to the public. At a point in the reporting of the trial it is mentioned how one witness recants in a courthouse corridor only to re-recant in court. At this tipping-point a very different story could have been written but was not.
This is media tunnel vision, where one direction is pursued to the exclusion of others.
While not doubting any of the foregoing it seems to me that a more intimate connection between the media and wrongful convictions might be theorized. For example in looking at media coverage of Donald Marshall in the Globe and Mail, the first mention comes in 1982 when his wrongful becomes evident and he is released on appeal. There are many different spokespeople, including him. Initially the main reason offered is eyewitness perjury, and not until later is a more nuanced explanation available.
However in 1971 the main source is the Cape Breton Post. The only authority is the police, and it is their version of events which is accepted and relayed to the public. At a point in the reporting of the trial it is mentioned how one witness recants in a courthouse corridor only to re-recant in court. At this tipping-point a very different story could have been written but was not.
This is media tunnel vision, where one direction is pursued to the exclusion of others.
Friday, September 11, 2009
CCTV and eyewitness misidentification
This is an interesting article about the role of CCTV in wrongful convictions, in producing images with visual certainty ... http://forensicphotoshop.blogspot.com/2009/08/cctv-at-heart-of-wrongful-conviction.html The link goes to an article in the Guardian, where it says "Four people said they recognised William Mills as the man who robbed a bank in Glasgow's West End – but all of them were wrong. Having endured a dawn raid on his family home and roughly a year in prison, Mills was freed earlier this year. With more eyewitness evidence being gathered than ever before, could he be part of a growing trend of wrongful convictions?": http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/aug/18/eyewitness-evidence-wrongful-conviction
cases in the news
Three incredible stories of prosecutorial wrongdoing, judicial error, and police tunnel vision.
"Blinded by tunnel vision: What the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham can teach us about wrongful convictions," Huffington Post, September 9, 2009, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-maki/blinded-by-tunnel-vision_b_281545.html
"Man returns to share story of wrongful conviction," Ironton Tribune, September 11, 2009, http://www.irontontribune.com/news/2009/sep/09/man-returns-share-story-wrongful-conviction/
"Retrial starts in Drumgold conviction suit," Boston Globe, September 11, 2009, http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/09/11/retrial_starts_in_drumgold_conviction_suit/
"Blinded by tunnel vision: What the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham can teach us about wrongful convictions," Huffington Post, September 9, 2009, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-maki/blinded-by-tunnel-vision_b_281545.html
"Man returns to share story of wrongful conviction," Ironton Tribune, September 11, 2009, http://www.irontontribune.com/news/2009/sep/09/man-returns-share-story-wrongful-conviction/
"Retrial starts in Drumgold conviction suit," Boston Globe, September 11, 2009, http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/09/11/retrial_starts_in_drumgold_conviction_suit/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
