|
 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
- As well
as the articles posted on this page, we have posted an article
by Joseph Brean, How to be wrongfully convicted
: Witness error, perjury, police tunnel vision among the causes, and linked to a fairly
comprehensive round-up of the wrongful convictions and on-going
prosecutorial and police abuse that we know about.
- As we watch
the courage of the Truscott family, as Canadians we should hang
our heads for a moment of shame. Then we must gather our resources
and follow the example of those who fight to do the right thing.
We will forward any messages received for Steve, Marlene and
their brave family.
- <
< <Previous on Steven Truscott
-
-
- Steven Truscott:
2004
- Current Blog discussion | June, 2005: Media
wants Kaufman report unsealed. (So do we and so do Steve
and Marlene Truscott! Truscott
2006: Ontario drags its feet > > > | Finally!
The Ontario Hearings!> > >
- Righting justice's wrongs
Wrongfully convicted group calls for independent panel to review
cases
By DENE MOORE / The
Canadian Press, Jne 12, 2005
ST. JOHN'S, Nfld. - The victims
of some of Canada's highest-profile cases of wrongful conviction
say there needs to be an independent panel to review possible
miscarriages of justice.
David Milgaard, Steven Truscott,
Ronald Dalton and Gregory Parsons recounted their stories Saturday
at a conference put together by the Association in Defence of
the Wrongly Convicted.
Milgaard, Dalton and Parsons
were all exonerated after serving prison time for murder.
Steven Truscott is awaiting
a decision by an Ontario appeal court 46 years after he was put
on death row.
"Every system makes mistakes.
The court system, the judicial systems, the legislatures, the
police - we're always going to make some mistakes," said
Dalton, who spent nearly nine years behind bars.
"That isn't the problem.
The problem is not having a system in place to correct your mistakes,
or accept that mistakes are made."
Dalton was convicted in 1989
for his wife's murder. It wasn't until nearly nine years later
that an appeal court finally heard the case and overturned the
conviction.
He was acquitted at a second
trial.
David Milgaard, who spent 23
years in prison for the murder of Gail Miller before being exonerated
by DNA evidence, said the separate inquiries and reviews that
have taken place into such cases make him wonder if the system
isn't corrupt.
There is currently a public
inquiry into Milgaard's case underway in Saskatoon.
"You go to these judicial
reviews and they say these people knew this, these people knew
that," he said.
"There has to be a break
between government and the people resolving the issues about
wrongful conviction... and compensation," Milgaard said.
"Accountability is key,"
said Gregory Parsons, who spent six weeks in prison for the 1991
murder of his mother.
Four years after his conviction,
Parsons was formally acquitted. A childhood friend has since
pleaded guilty to the crime.
On Sunday, it will be 46 years
since Steven Truscott was arrested for the murder of a 12-year-old
schoolmate near Clinton, Ont. He was 14.
Truscott spent three months
on death row before the sentence was commuted to life. He was
released on parole in 1969.
He has always maintained his
innocence, but it wasn't until 2000, when the youngest of his
three children graduated high school, that he came forward to
ask for a review of his case.
Last October, Justice Minister
Irwin Cotler referred the case to the Ontario Court of Appeal.
"I'm still waiting,"
Truscott said Saturday.
"It's getting there slowly
and we'll stick at it because of people like this," he said,
nodding to the other three men. "Because of people who have
yet to come."
Truscott is now 60. He still
lives under parole conditions and cannot leave the country because
of his criminal conviction.
In addition to the public inquiry
into Milgaard's case, a public inquiry wrapped up last week in
Newfoundland into three cases of wrongful conviction, including
those of Dalton, Parsons and Randy Druken.
But the four men had some recommendations
of their own.
They said those facing charges
should have the option of a trial by judge alone.
They also appealed to police
and law enforcement trainees in the audience to keep an open
mind during investigations.
"You have a huge responsibility,"
Parsons told the police cadets. "You'll do better justice
to the world and to yourselves and you'll feel better for it
at the end of the day."
- Truscott case dragging
on
- Police, Crowns target
wrongful convictions
Letter to The Toronto Star,
Jan. 26.
Calling the latest judicial
ministers' report "landmark" is yet another example
of the self-serving legal profession patting itself on the back
for once again really doing nothing concrete to effectively change
the justice system or to protect innocent citizens against its
excesses.
To suggest that the false testimony
of jailhouse informants be prosecuted in future is hardly "landmark"
when any self-respecting system would have charged them long
ago with perjury as a matter of due process
More to the point of real reform
would be to allow no jailhouse testimony whatsoever, considering
the already compromised morality of the behind-bars source. In
the meantime, the most egregious case of them all, that of Steven
Truscott is allowed to drag on relentlessly unresolved. A more
"landmark" gesture reflective of honest change would
have been to deal with the facts of this injustice first instead
of the fiction of system-wide reform.
Paul Pepperall, King City,
Ont
- Justice
delayed in Truscott case
- Reason to believe
miscarriage of justice: Cotler
`It is a new fight. We'll keep fighting,' Truscott son says
-
- TRACEY TYLER, LEGAL AFFAIRS
REPORTER, Toronto Star, Oct. 29, 2004
Steven Truscott will turn 60
in January with three things from his boyhood intact: his youthful
looks, a 1959 murder conviction and uncertainty about when his
pursuit of justice will end.
Truscott took an important
step forward on that road yesterday when Justice Minister Irwin
Cotler announced there is reason to believe his conviction for
capital murder in the slaying of 12-year-old Lynne Harper was
a miscarriage of justice.
But he left the final word
on the Truscott case, one of the most famous in Canadian history,
to be written by a panel of judges from the Ontario Court of
Appeal. Cotler referred the case to the court for an "open-ended"
review. The process, including hearings and judgment, could take
another two years, Truscott's lawyers said yesterday.
"I have determined there
is a reasonable basis to conclude that a miscarriage of justice
likely occurred in this case," Cotler said.
"I believe this is the
most just and appropriate remedy."
It wasn't the ending Truscott
hoped for when he asked the government three years ago to review
his conviction under a special provision of the Criminal Code.
His first choice was to have the justice minister quash his conviction
and order a new trial, setting the scene for dramatic return
to the Goderich courthouse where he was sentenced to hang as
a 14-year-old - except this time, with what his lawyers call
a mountain of evidence undermining the crown's case, prosecutors
would fold their tent and Truscott would walk away a free man.
The one man who could speed
things up is Attorney-General Michael Bryant. If Bryant, much
like his federal counterpart Cotler, would admit there was a
miscarriage of justice in Truscott's case, the appeal court process
could draw to a close in a matter of months, said James Lockyer,
who heads Truscott's legal team.
But Bryant, whose ministry
opposed Truscott's request for a new trial, shows no sign of
making such a concession.
While calling it "an historic
moment," Bryant offered a lukewarm response.
"This is an issue that's
been before Ontario and the people of Canada for many, many years.
This is the latest chapter, a new chapter and it looks like the
ending is going to finally be written by the Court of Appeal."
Surrounded by his wife, Marlene,
his children and a mob of friends and neighbours at his home
in Guelph, Truscott offered no public comment, but tried to remain
upbeat, and privately described the development as "a bump
in the road," Lockyer noted.
"Steven Truscott is proving
today that he is a formidable man with an extraordinary character,"
he said.
"The fact is Steven Truscott
did not kill Lynne Harper and the shame of our justice system
is that more than 45 years have passed since he was convicted
of a crime that he didn't commit. It now looks like it's going
to be 46, 47, 48 years before he is finally exonerated."
"But we'll all be here,"
Lockyer added. "We'll be here if we all have to live to
100."
Truscott's eldest son, Ryan,
said waiting on answers from the justice system has simply been
part of his family's life.
"You watch him grow old
and, as a child, you don't want to see your parent do that,"
he said yesterday. "You don't want to see your parent get
old. So, it is disappointing. It is a new fight. We'll keep fighting
and we'll be back tomorrow. On to the next step."
Cotler's announcement follows
a 19-month, 700-page review of the case by Fred Kaufman, a former
judge of the Quebec Court of Appeal, who presided at the inquiry
into Guy Paul Morin's wrongful 1992 murder conviction. Kaufman
delivered his report on the Truscott case, along with thousands
of pages of supporting material, to the justice minister last
spring.
Cotler said yesterday he read
"every page" of the report and was guided by "the
pursuit of justice" in making his decision, which dovetails
with Kaufman's recommendations. Under the Criminal Code, Cotler
had three options at his disposal and by referring the case to
the Court of Appeal, he chose the middle ground.
Another was Truscott's preferred
option: quashing the conviction and ordering a new trial. The
third was to dismiss Truscott's application.
Cotler is asking the Court
of Appeal to hear the case "as if it were an appeal"
by Truscott and to determine if there's a reasonable chance the
fresh evidence that has emerged in the case could have affected
the verdict.
Cotler bristled at a suggestion
he'd shied away from exercising the bolder option of ordering
a new trial.
"I don't shrink from any
decisions I have to make," he said. "I'm guided by
one principle only: that is, what is the right thing to do in
any matters that come before me."
Cotler explained his decision
this way: He said he personally wasn't able to rule on whether
fresh evidence in Truscott's case is admissible. At the same
time, Kaufman wasn't able to test the evidence by way of cross-examination,
he said.
"Both of us, for our respective
reasons, but (reasons) which converge, believe the most appropriate
and just remedy in this case is the reference before the Ontario
Court of Appeal," he said.
Lockyer said Cotler's concerns
about the admissibility of fresh evidence in the case is a "non-issue."
The Supreme Court of Canada said in three recent decisions that
it is automatically admissible in a case such as this, he said.
But Cotler said Kaufman is
the leading authority in Canada on wrongful convictions and that
counts for something.
"If the pre-eminent authority
in this country, after undertaking the most exhausting inquiry
in this case - at 19 months - and producing the most comprehensive
understanding of this case believes this is the most just and
appropriate remedy, that is certainly a consideration I have
to bear in mind in making the decision," Cotler said.
Although Truscott's lawyers
say the appeal court process could keep Truscott waiting another
couple of years, Cotler suggested the waiting time might have
been just as long had he quashed the conviction and ordered a
new trial.
If that happened, he suggested,
the crown might not have thrown in the towel and may well have
chosen to reprosecute. "That would have taken no less time
than a ... stated case before the Ontario Court of Appeal,"
he said.
Alternatively, if the passage
of 45 years made a prosecution unlikely, the crown may have simply
asked for a stay of proceedings, which would not have given Truscott
the public and decisive exoneration he so desires, Cotler said.
Among the criminal bar, his
decision was drawing mixed reviews. Privately, some called it
outrageous. But others called it a positive sign.
"This is not an absolute
victory (for Truscott), but it looks like it is going to be in
the long run," said Osgoode Hall law school professor Alan
Young. "The minister only orders these types of reviews
when there is an air of reliability in them. The weak cases get
weeded out and the strong ones make it through."
It was only because Truscott
had exhausted all other legal remedies that he could ask Cotler
to review the case. He lost his appeal in the Ontario Court of
Appeal in 1960 and the Supreme Court refused to review that decision.
After a huge public outcry about the case erupted in 1966, with
the publication of The Trial of Steven Truscott by author Isabel
LeBourdais, the federal government referred the case to the Supreme
Court of Canada, which voted 8-1 to uphold his conviction.
In the appeal court this time
around, Truscott's case will be heard by a minimum of three judges
and possibly as many as five. If, as Cotler says, they approach
the case in the normal fashion, they would have three options
in the end: upholding Truscott's conviction, quashing the conviction
and ordering a new trial, or entering an outright acquittal.
The appeal court's decision
will be final. There is no possibility of appealing it further
to the Supreme Court of Canada.
In their nearly 700-page application
filed with the federal government on Nov. 29, 2001, Truscott's
legal team, including Lockyer and co-counsel Marlys Edwardh and
Philip Campbell, called the case "a misbegotten prosecution
that has haunted our legal system for more than a generation."
Lynne Harper disappeared after
supper on the sweltering early summer night of June 9, 1959,
after hitching a ride on the crossbars of Truscott's bike. They
were schoolmates in Clinton, a small town in southwestern Ontario
which was also the home of a Royal Canadian Air Force base.
Lynne was the daughter of a
flying officer and Truscott was a warrant officer's son. He would
later tell police that she asked him for a ride down a county
road to Highway 8. After dropping her off, he headed home, stopping
part way near a bridge across the Bayfield River. When he looked
towards the road, he said, he saw her getting into a 1959 Chevy
with yellow plates.
Two days later, her body was
found in a woodlot on a farm property off the county road. She
had been raped and strangled with her own blouse. Ontario Provincial
Police Inspector Harold Graham arrived on the scene that night.
Less than 24 hours later, he announced he had solved the crime.
Truscott, then a Grade 7 student,
was arrested before a single witness statement was taken, his
lawyers noted in their application to Cotler.
In the end, it was a combination
of police tunnel vision, shoddy science and the suppression of
evidence that led to his conviction, they said.
Graham at one point said he
made up his mind to arrest Truscott on the basis of two key pieces
of information, which would become the focal points of the prosecution's
case at Truscott's trial. But they have both been thoroughly
discredited by new evidence as well as evidence that was in police
files but never disclosed, Truscott's lawyers say.
The first was the time of Lynne's
death based on an analysis of her partially-digested stomach
contents. Graham said he received a call from the attorney-general's
crime lab indicating that food had been in her stomach for about
one to two hours before she was killed.
Dr. John Penistan, the district
pathologist, who performed the autopsy, testified before the
jury in Sept. 1959 that Lynne died sometime between 7 and 7:45
p.m., which would have made Truscott the last person known to
have been seen with her.
But Penistan would later offer
a dramatically different estimate of the time of death, information
that was never disclosed to the jury or to the Supreme Court
at a hearing into the case in 1966-67. In a 1966 memo, which
he described as an "agonizing reappraisal" of his trial
testimony, Penistan said she might have been killed as late as
the following day.
The second plank of the case
centred on testimony from Joycelyne Gaudet, a classmate of Truscott's
in Clinton, whose testimony provided prosecutors with a motive
for the crime. Truscott, they theorized, was a lust-driven teenager
bent on raping a girl in the woods.
Gaudet told the jury she and
Truscott had a "date" and arranged to meet at the woodlot
around 6 p.m. on June 9. When Gaudet didn't show up, the crown
argued, Truscott found a substitute in Lynne.
Truscott, however, had always
denied ever having an arrangement to meet Gaudet. And now, sworn
affidavits from two women who say they met her in Montreal in
1966 back him up. The women say Gaudet told them she had lied
on the witness stand.
Gaudet, who later moved to
Alberta and was reportedly in poor health, sent word through
her brother that she no longer wants to have anything to do with
the Truscott case.
With files from Harold Levy,
Tonda MacCharles, Richard Brennan and Hicham Safieddine.
Truscott 'likely' innocent
Wins review - and delay
Janice Tibbetts, CanWest
News Service, October 29, 2004
OTTAWA - Steven Truscott was
told yesterday for the first time by the government that he was
likely innocent of raping and killing 12-year-old Lynne Harper
in the controversial murder case that has haunted the nation
since 1959.
But even as Irwin Cotler, the
Justice Minister, conceded that he was probably wrongfully convicted,
Truscott's hopes for an exoneration were dashed by Mr. Cotler's
decision to refer the case to the Ontario Court of Appeal for
a review, a process that could take years to clear his name.
"There is a reasonable
basis to conclude that a miscarriage of justice likely occurred,"
Mr. Cotler told an Ottawa press conference, admitting his decision
might be unpopular.
While Truscott lawyer James
Lockyer did not hide his disappointment with the decision, the
mild-mannered Truscott described it merely as "a bump in
the road" in his pursuit of justice.
It has been a long wait for
the 59-year-old father of three, who at age 14 was sentenced
to hang for Lynne Harper's murder near a Canadian military base
outside Clinton, Ont.
Truscott found himself at the
centre of one of Canada's most sensational murder trials after
giving the girl a lift on his bicycle down a country road near
a popular swimming hole. He was the last known person to see
her alive.
As Truscott waited on death
row, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment and he served
10 years before being paroled.
With his wife, Marlene, and
their two grown children, Mr. Truscott emerged from his home
in Guelph yesterday flanked by his angry legal team.
"Why on Earth can't we
do something about it straight away?" asked Mr. Lockyer
of the Toronto-based Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted.
"Everyone is going to
be older, quite a lot older unfortunately, before we finally
have that day of joy and happiness when Steven Truscott's reputation
is returned to him."
The association applied to
the federal government three years ago to review the case under
a seldom-used Criminal Code provision that remedies miscarriages
of justice.
Mr. Cotler defended his decision
to send the case to the Court of Appeal, which will now sift
through thousands of pages of documents and hear arguments from
lawyers and witnesses about fresh evidence that has surfaced
in recent years.
"On a personal level,
I, like many others of my generation, grew up with the Truscott
case," Mr. Cotler told reporters.
"When this case came before
me, I said I have to do the right thing."
He said the Court of Appeal
is the appropriate venue because it will produce a strong conclusion.
A new trial, on the other hand,
could be lengthy and potentially result in a mere stay "that
would not have given Mr. Truscott the exoneration he seeks,"
Mr. Cotler said.
Mr. Lockyer, however, said
a new trial would have presumably led to dropping charges against
Mr. Truscott for lack of evidence to proceed.
Ontario Attorney-General Michael
Bryant told reporters the provincial government, which would
have made the decision on whether to drop charges, has no power
to expedite the case now that it is in the hands of the Ontario
Court of Appeal, which could dismiss the appeal, quash the conviction
or order a new trial.
It is the second time the case
has gone to the appeal court -- in 1960 it threw out Mr. Truscott's
application.
A Justice Department official
conceded that the process could take years and one of Truscott's
lawyers, Marlys Edwardh, predicted ''we're probably a couple
of years from conclusion."
Mr. Cotler would not comment
on the evidence that led to his conclusion that Truscott likely
suffered a miscarriage of justice.
The recommendation was in a
report from retired justice Fred Kaufman, whom the government
hired almost three years ago to investigate the wrongful conviction
application. That report has been sealed until the appeal court
decides it can be released.
Truscott's lawyers, in a 561-page
brief to then-justice minister Anne McLellan in November, 2001,
claimed that police, in their haste to arrest the teenager, were
blind to other suspects who were around in the summer of 1959.
The brief alleged police overlooked
a pedophile who was stationed at the military base and a rapist
who had repaired a clothes dryer at the Harper home and moved
to the United States shortly after the girl's death.
The submission contained fresh
evidence crafted from archival material that had not been previously
released. A central pillar of the Crown case, which pinpointed
the time the girl died based on the contents of her stomach,
has since been proven to be false, the brief says.
Truscott spent most of his
adult life in self-imposed hiding under an assumed name, and
only emerged publicly four years ago in a television documentary.
His hope had been to return
to the Goderich, Ont., courthouse where he was sentenced to death
and have the Ontario Attorney-General stand up and acknowledge
that he did not commit the crime.
Mr. Cotler does not have the
power to personally clear Truscott's name.
© National Post 2004
Truscott saga to drag
on as appeal court reviews case
Sue Bailey, Canadian Press,
October 28, 2004
OTTAWA -- Steven Truscott's
45-year wait to clear his name will likely drag on for at least
another two years.
The man who says he was unjustly
convicted of murder at the age of 14 had hoped Justice Minister
Irwin Cotler would order a new trial.
Under Truscott's best-case
scenario, that would have cleared the way for the Ontario government
to decline to prosecute - effectively exonerating him.
Instead, Cotler referred the
legal labyrinth to the Ontario Court of Appeal where evidence
that wasn't presented at trial can be tested.
''There is a reasonable basis
to conclude that a miscarriage of justice likely occurred in
this case,'' Cotler said.
''What Mr. Truscott seeks .
. . is public exoneration. This is the most appropriate process
for that purpose.''
Truscott's legal team disagreed.
Lawyer James Lockyer said the
move will mean a much longer wait for justice than if a new trial
had been ordered. He suggested Truscott's name could be cleared
in six months if the Ontario government agreed that justice likely
wasn't done and chose not to go to the appeal court.
A spokesman for the Ontario
Ministry of the Attorney General said that won't happen.
''It will be up to the court
of appeal to decide,'' said Brendan Crawley in an interview.
''There's a process that's been set in motion and we will abide
by that process and participate in it.''
Lockyer spoke outside Truscott's
modest yellow-brick bungalow in Guelph, Ont.
Truscott ''feels that he's
been struggling for 45 years, from when he was 14 years old,
from death row to here we are in 2004, and he's still struggling,''
Lockyer said.
As Lockyer spoke, Truscott
and his family stood, arm-in-arm, a few metres away. Truscott
did not wish to comment so soon after the decision. His wife,
Marlene, her head resting on his shoulder, appeared to be fighting
tears.
Their son, Ryan, said Truscott
took the news as well as could be expected. ''He is very positive
about everything, as he has been with this whole thing.''
Truscott's only daughter, Lesley,
was more obviously distressed. ''It means more waiting, which
means everybody ages twice as fast.''
However, Cotler said the cloud
that has hovered over Truscott since 12-year-old Lynne Harper
was murdered in 1959 would not otherwise be lifted.
''The Crown might have said:
'Forty-five years later we can't really make a case at this point'
. . . and they would have asked for a stay.
''That would not have given
Mr. Truscott the (full) exoneration that he seeks.''
Cotler called it a ''tragic
and painful case'' for both the Harper and Truscott families.
He also stressed that he has no power to determine guilt or innocence.
''Only a court can do that.''
Cotler would not describe the
new evidence that led him to doubt whether Truscott was justly
treated. To offer details could prejudice the proceedings, he
said.
But he said he'll ask that
a secret 700-page review of the case by former Quebec Court of
Appeal judge Fred Kaufman be made public at the Ontario appeal
court's discretion.
Not even Truscott has seen
the review that guided Cotler's actions. Kaufman also concluded
that a reference to the appeal court - which dismissed Truscott's
appeal in 1960 - is the best route, Cotler said.
The matter of who will foot
Truscott's legal bills is still being discussed, said the justice
minister.
Conservative justice critic
Vic Toews said he sympathized with the complexity of the decision
Cotler had to make.
Canadians may never know what
really happened to Lynne Harper, he said.
''I think it's very difficult
now to try to reconstruct a trial of an incident that occurred
45 years ago. This should have been dealt with on a more timely
basis.''
Truscott has always maintained
his innocence.
His death sentence was commuted
to life in prison in 1960 after he spent four months on death
row. He was released on parole in 1969 at the age of 24.
Lawyers with the Association
in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted filed a thick legal brief
in November 2001 asking the federal Justice Department to review
Truscott's case.
They cited flawed pathology,
shoddy police work and said evidence was suppressed at Truscott's
1959 trial that would have backed up his claim of innocence.
Police tunnel vision coupled
with the desperate search for a culprit helped corner a scared
young teenager, they argued.
Truscott met and married his
wife in 1970 and the couple moved to Guelph, where they lived
as Steve and Marlene Bowers - Truscott's mother's birth name.
The family lived in anonymity,
not able to openly associate with Truscott relatives or attend
family functions.
They raised three children.
Truscott has spent most of his working life as a millwright in
the same Guelph factory, a trade he learned in jail at Collins
Bay Penitentiary.
In 2000, his children grown,
Truscott reclaimed his identity to plead for justice in a CBC
documentary.
On Thursday, about two dozen
friends, family and supporters were at Truscott's house.
Les Horne of the Defence for
Children International Canada was also present the day police
delivered a teenaged Truscott to jail in irons.
''He's obviously very disappointed.
He's always been a brave guy. He doesn't share his emotions.''
Albert Buffinga, 60, who went
to school with Truscott, said the decision was a ''downer,''
but the mood in the house was still quite upbeat.
Buffinga said he still remembers
well the day Lynne's body was found.
''When I heard on the radio
that they had taken him in, I just couldn't believe it.''
''It's been a shock all along.
We kept in contact and about four years ago we came together
again and saw each other quite often.''
Bob Lawson, a farmer who was
23 at the time and owned the property where the dead girl was
found, said he always believed in Truscott's innocence.
''He wasn't the kind of kid
who would do anything like that,'' said Lawson.
© Canadian Press 2004
"It was very sombre
and we all felt disappointed"
HAROLD LEVY, STAFF REPORTER,
Toronto Star, Oct. 29, 2004
GUELPH-The peaceful little
street in Guelph where Steven Truscott lives with his family
was unusually busy yesterday.
By the time Justice Minister
Irwin Cotler began making his statement at 1 p.m., it was lined
with TV satellite vans and dozens of reporters were pacing back
and forth on the sidewalk.
Well-wishers beat a steady
stream to the door, bringing flowers, plants, balloons and food
inside, where the family was gathered with friends and supporters.
The atmosphere was almost festive.
Inside, it was anything but,
as Truscott had learned through his lawyers that his quest for
vindication was not yet over - that he would not receive the
new trial he yearned for.
"It means more waiting,
which means everybody ages twice as fast," daughter Lesley
said later.
As 1 p.m. approached, Truscott
and his family moved to a television in the crowded living room.
"It was very sombre and
we all felt disappointed," said a friend who was present,
adding that most of those in the room were struggling with emotion
as Cotler announced his decision.
"Steven didn't say anything,"
she said. "No, Steven was very quiet."
She said that, after the news
had sunk in that Truscott might have to wait several more years
to clear his name, people gathered around the Truscotts, hugged
them, and assured them of their continued support.
A new trial would have meant
that Truscott would once again be presumed innocent, no longer
a parolee and a convict.
Gone was the vision advanced
by Truscott's lawyers: that he would be exonerated, his family
at his side, in the very courtroom where he had been found guilty
of murder and sentenced to hang so many years ago.
Gone was the joyous anticipation
of his many supporters, who had begun to believe that by the
end of the day Truscott would finally be a free man. Some had
even expected he would receive an apology.
Albert Buffinga, a long-time
supporter and friend who said he had been with Truscott and Lynn
Harper in the same Grade 7 class, was clearly perplexed by Cotler's
decision. "The courts have to do this, I guess," he
said. "I figured it would have been, you know, a done deal
after all this. But it isn't. I just don't know what to say."
Win Wahrer, of the Association
in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted, which has backed Truscott's
fight, shared the disappointment. "There is something enormously
courageous about a willingness to go back again," she said.
"But the burden of not finishing is huge."
Wahrer said she would like
to see Canadians petition Attorney General Michael Bryant not
to oppose Truscott in the appeal court, "and to end this
now."
Truscott's son watches
dad grow old
CANADIAN PRESS, Oct. 28,
2004
GUELPH - The distraught family
of Steven Truscott stood arm-in-arm today, vowing to soldier
on despite being denied a quick resolution to their father's
45-year legal odyssey.
"It's been a difficult
day, obviously," said Ryan Truscott, after word came from
Ottawa that it may take three more years to clear his father's
name.
"Obviously, it's not what
we wanted to hear," he said. "But we will go to the
Court of Appeal and we'll win."
Truscott emerged from his modest
yellow-brick bungalow just hours after his request for a new
trial was denied by Justice Minister Irwin Cotler. Instead, his
1959 murder conviction will go to the Ontario Court of Appeal
- a lengthy process.
Choking back tears, Truscott's
wife laid her head on his shoulder while taking comfort in the
embrace of her children. But her husband, a millwright who lives
a seemingly quiet existence despite a colossal battle with the
justice system, remained stoic as he contemplated waging a legal
battle well into his 60s.
"You watch him grow old,"
Truscott's son said about the toll the legal fight is taking
on his life. Although Truscott declined to speak, his resolve
has been strong, his son said.
"He said it's a bump,
and tomorrow we'll start fighting again."
Despite their resolve to view
today's decision in a positive light, emotions were running high
as the family received the news.
"It was tense, it was
sad," said his daughter Lesley. "It was anger,"
she said. "I don't think we were prepared for it."
While their father's optimism
gives them strength, the children admitted they were hoping for
a new trial.
"He doesn't get his hopes
up as high as we do," said Ryan.
Truscott was just 14 years
old when he was convicted of the rape and murder of a 12-year
old school mate near Clinton. His death sentence was commuted
to life in prison in 1960. In 1969, when he was 24, he was released
on parole.
He has always maintained his
innocence.
- Wrongful conviction
cost would be 'stratospheric'
- Lawyers predict huge
payout if Truscott exonerated
By Donald McArthur, October
23rd, 2004,
WINDSOR, Ont. -- The compensation
government may have to pay Steven Truscott for a wrongful conviction
would be "stratospheric" if he becomes the latest Canadian
to be exonerated for murder he did not commit, a group of high-profile
lawyers predicted here yesterday. The lawyers, who were in town
for a conference on wrongful convictions, said any payment would
far outstrip the $10-million paid to David Milgaard and the $1.25
million paid to Guy Paul Morin for his wrongful conviction in
the death of Christine Jessop in Oct. 1984.
The conference comes just days
before Justice Minister Irwin Cotler is expected to render a
decision on Truscott's fate and just two months before a Saskatchewan
inquiry is set to publicly probe Milgaard's wrongful conviction
in the rape and murder of 20-year-old nursing aide Gail Miller
on Jan. 31, 1969.
Harvey Strossberg, a Windsor
lawyer specializing in civil litigation, said he couldn't even
ballpark the compensation that would be owed Truscott if his
conviction is overturned.
"The number would be stratospheric,"
he said. "I can't even imagine if you could set a number
that could actually compensate someone under those circumstances.
It would have to be the highest number that has ever been given
in Canada."
The lawyers, among whom included
James Lockyer -- who founded The Association in Defence of the
Wrongfully Convicted -- also called on the government to establish
an independent tribunal to review cases of wrongful conviction
similar to a British tribunal.
Milgaard, Morin and Truscott
came together in the same room for the first time yesterday at
the University of Windsor.
Milgaard and Morin were both
exonerated for murders they didn't commit after serving a combined
quarter-century in prison, and Truscott, who was sentenced to
death in 1959, but released on parole a decade later, is nearing
the end of his 45-year-battle for exoneration.
Truscott, then 14, was arrested
by police in Clinton, Ont. on June 12, 1959, the day after the
partially nude body of 12-year-old Lynne Harper was found in
a wooded area known as Lawson's Bush.
He was charged with her murder
early the next morning and was convicted and sentenced to death
on a charge of capital murder on Sept. 30, 1959. His appeal was
dismissed by the Ontario Court of Appeal on Jan. 21, 1960, the
same day his death sentence was commuted to a sentence of life
in prison.
Truscott was released on parole
after serving 10 years in prison and moved to Guelph where he
settled down under an assumed name.
In November of 2001, Lockyer
filed an application on Truscott's behalf, calling on the Ministry
of Justice to review Truscott's case and, on Jan. 24, 2002, then
Justice minister Martin Cauchon appointed retired Appeals Court
Judge Fred Kaufman to review the file.
Kaufman handed an 800-page
report to Justice Minister Irwin Cotler six months ago and Cotler
is expected to announce his decision next week.
-- CanWest News Service
© 2004 Winnipeg Free
Press. All Rights Reserved.
June, 2005: Media
wants Kaufman report unsealed. (So do we and so do Steve
and Marlene Truscott! Truscott
2006: Ontario drags its feet > > > | Finally!
The Ontario Hearings!> > >
|
