Canada and the World
Current Events with a Canadian Perspective
Last update
30 August 2011
Justice System Puts Public at Risk
Despite solemn pledges to uphold the law
and protect all citizens some of the people
charged with that duty are failing badly
Madam Justice Elizabeth Bennett gave the Mounties an earful. In fraud hearings before the B.C. Supreme Court in June 2007 she ordered the police force to hand over every scrap of paper relating to the case.
The RCMP and the Crown Prosecutor had been finding all sorts of excuses for not disclosing material that might be helpful to the defence. They even said such evidence didn’t exist. Judge Bennett didn’t believe them; she said they’d broken the rules.
The Crown must hand over to the defence everything uncovered during an investigation even if it helps the defence – especially if it helps the defence. The goal is to ensure that everybody gets a fair trial and to protect the innocent from being wrongfully convicted.
There’s not supposed to be any cherry-
Teenager Sentenced to Hang
All too often though, the cherry-
Evidence suggesting the person charged has a solid alibi goes missing. The celebrated
case of Steven Truscott is an example. He was convicted of murdering 12-
Police ignored witness statements that suggested Mr. Truscott was innocent and distorted other witness evidence that made him look guilty. Anything that pointed away from Mr. Truscott as the murderer was suppressed by the Crown and police.
At the tender age of 14 Steven Truscott was sentenced to hang. There was an enormous public outcry that such a young person should be executed and the sentence was reduced to life.
He was released after ten years always professing his innocence. In August 2007, Mr. Truscott was finally declared innocent by an Ontario Court of Appeal—48 years after his conviction.
All that happened in the dark ages back in 1959. Surely, that sort of thing doesn’t go on today. Well, unhappily it does.
Polish Immigrant Killed by Taser
In October 2007 Robert Dziekanski arrived at Vancouver Airport after a long flight from Poland. Unable to speak any English he then wandered about the airport for hours looking for assistance he never got.
Distraught and exhausted he was confronted by four Mounties who wrestled him to the ground and then Tasered him at least four times. Dziekanski died at the scene.
Had the horrible event not been captured on a citizen’s cell phone camera little more would be known of it. The four Mounties involved lied about the incident and their deceptions were uncovered at the Braidwood Inquiry. Mr. Justice Thomas Braidwood was highly critical of the actions of the officers involved and their subsequent attempt to cover it up.
Expert Testimony can be Unreliable
Witnesses do lie. Police do screw up investigations. Crown Prosecutors do hide evidence that might help the defence. And, some experts turn out to be incompetent.
One such expert is Dr. Charles Smith. He seems to have been a bit of a bungler, to say the least. Until the late 1990s, Dr. Smith was a highly regarded pediatric pathologist in Toronto. It was his task to examine the bodies of dead children to find out what killed them. Did they die of natural causes or did something sinister happen?
His experience and qualifications made him a compelling witness when he gave evidence in court. If he said that a child was killed by being hit on the head with a blunt instrument there were few people with enough expert knowledge to challenge his findings. But, now it turns out that Dr. Smith’s work was sloppy.
In 2007, the Ontario government released a review of 44 of Charles Smith’s cases where he found evidence of foul play. The review uncovered problems with 20 of the cases. As many as 13 of those cases involved people being convicted in the deaths of children.
Bill Mullins-
After dark clouds gathered over Dr. Smith’s abilities, the little girl’s body was
re-
In that case, Dr. Smith found evidence where there was none.
In the case of Sharon Reynolds he misinterpreted evidence. The seven-
But, another pathologist, Dr. James Ferris, was called in. He said Sharon’s wounds had the classic characteristics of dog bites.
Louise Reynolds and Bill Mullins-
Unreliable Informants
In the fight against crime, authorities sometimes turn to experts of another kind for help. Crooks themselves provide tips in exchange for money. They also hand over information in exchange for lighter sentences and other favours.
Investigators learn to be careful with these people; after all they are villains and, therefore, not the most trustworthy citizens.
The most expensive prosecution in Canadian history came unstuck in January 2007 because of the use of an unreliable witness.
For 16 years, prosecutors in Ottawa tried to prove that Richard Trudel, James Sauve, Robert Stewart, and Richard Mallory murdered two people. They built their case around the word of Denis Gaudreault. He supplied details of the killings to investigators and was put into the Witness Protection Program (WPP).
Under this scheme witnesses thought to be in danger from the people they are testifying against are sheltered by police.
Mr. Gaudreault had good reason to enjoy the benefits of the WPP. He had ripped off a drug dealer and had a reasonable fear that dealer might be looking for him. Hiding out under police protection was as good a way as any of avoiding something nasty.
But, Denis Gaudreault is an accomplished liar. While in the WPP he misspent lavish amounts of the money given him and even defrauded the welfare system. He also kept up with his criminal activities.
Eventually, it dawned on authorities that they didn’t have much of a case. Denis
Gaudreault’s testimony was going to be ripped to shreds by any even half-
Four men had spent more than a dozen years each in prison awaiting trial, and the whole fiasco had cost taxpayers in excess of $30 million.
Jailhouse Snitches
But, the use of unreliable informants is not uncommon. And, the least reliable of all is the jailhouse snitch.
In 1985, the testimony of Robert Dean May and Mr. X (a prisoner whose identity has been kept secret) was central to convicting Guy Paul Morin of murder. The two men told police that Mr. Morin had confessed to the crime while in jail with them.
Mr. Morin denied ever making a confession. Both informants had long rap sheets and had to be seen as very unreliable. DNA evidence later cleared Guy Paul Morin and an inquiry was set up to look into how the miscarriage of justice could have happened.
The Honourable Fred Kaufman, a former judge of the Quebec Court of Appeal, found astonishing failures at almost every level. Forensic tests on fibres and hairs were mishandled. Police behaved like Keystone Cops. Prosecutors hid evidence that suggested Mr. Morin was innocent. And, then there was the reliance on jailhouse snitches.
Judge Kaufman wrote that “[Mr.] May has a substantial criminal record for crimes of dishonesty. He admitted that he had a problem with lying in the past and had lied to the police and correctional authorities. He wanted badly to be released from jail in 1985 and would do whatever was necessary to accomplish this. He offered to implicate other inmates. (So did Mr. X.)”
Just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Chillingly, Guy Paul Morin said after his conviction was quashed: “It could happen to you.”
Sources
“The Search for Justice.” CBC News, July 7, 2008.
“Mounties Acted Like Dziekanski Arrest was a ‘Barroom Brawl’: Braidwood Report.” Suzanne Fournier, The Province, June 19, 2010.
Image Credit
Ken Mayer
© Canada and the World, September 2007
Updated June 2010
All Rights Reserved
Former assistant commissioner of the RCMP, John Spice told a House of Commons committee in May 2007: “During my tenure as ethics adviser I dealt primarily with bad behaviour and I was working probably 12 and 14 hours a day and sometimes on weekends. We should have had zero tolerance for all sorts of unethical behaviour and quite frankly as much as I would like to say that we tried, we failed miserably.”
Others have accused the federal police force of having a culture of covering up mistakes and wrongdoing to protect its reputation and of intimidating its critics.
THE BLUE WALL
Police often complain that when trying to solve street-
In 2002, Inspector Robert G. Hall of the Winnipeg Police Service wrote that: “A common theme expressed by many who have studied the police culture is the attitude that police must protect each other, whatever the cost, and that loyalty counts more than anything.”
Following that principle means that officers “are expected to turn a blind eye to another officer’s blatant criminal behaviour or serious misconduct, either by failing to report it, or lying when asked about it.”
This is the view of John Westwood of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association. Mr. Westwood says that he doesn’t know how widespread this culture of silence and secrecy is. However, he adds that he has “no doubt that it exists to varying degrees in most police departments.”
A HAIR’S BREADTH
The analysis of hair left behind at a crime scene has put many a bad guy behind bars.
Now, it seems, some of those “bad guys” weren’t bad guys at all. 
Barry Gaudette was a forensic scientist working for the RCMP in the 1970s. He carried out a study on hair comparison.
He said a trained specialist could match hairs under a microscope. The probability of a false match, said Mr. Gaudette, was one in 4,500 times.
It was that near certainty that helped put James Driskell in prison. In 1990, he
was convicted of murdering a friend, Peter Harder, a small-
Police found three hairs in Mr. Driskell’s van that an expert said matched those taken from Mr. Harder’s body. Later DNA analysis found the hairs had not come from Mr. Harder. In fact, they had come from three different people.
It turns out Mr. Gaudette’s study in the 1970s wasn’t all that scientific. Far from
delivering that 4,500-
James Driskell spent 13 years in prison and is seeking to clear his name.
MISTER BIG
Police sometimes use elaborate tactics to get a confession. One of these is the so-
Police officers posing as members of a crime gang befriend a suspect. Patiently, the police develop the relationship, sometimes going to enormous lengths to win the confidence of the suspect.
The target is eventually told he or she might be invited to join the gang and get the opportunity to make a lot of money.
First, they have to gain the trust of the gang’s boss – Mr. Big. A meeting is set
up and the suspect is encour-
Nelson Hart of Gander, Newfoundland fell for the deception in 2007. He told Mr. Big that he had drowned his two daughters in 2002 and the confession was caught on RCMP videotape.
A few months earlier, George Allen of Edmonton also told a Mr. Big how he’d killed his friend Garry McGrath.
Both men were convicted of first degree murder and received life sentences.
Defence lawyers, naturally, hate tactics such as these, but the courts generally accept them as a legitimate investigative technique.
In February 1956, Wilbert Coffin was executed in Bordeaux Jail, Montreal for the murder of three American hunters. He maintained his innocence to the end and there have always been strong feelings that he was the victim of a terrible miscarriage of justice.