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Truscott: 46 years of waiting!|
Steven Truscott:
2005 |2004 | Truscott 2006:
Ontario drags its feet | Finally!
The Ontario Hearings!
Release
the Kaufman Report!
MEDIA SEEK TRUSCOTT FACTS
Sealed report contains
details of original case Province opposes its release by appeal
court
Hicham Safieddine, Toronto
Star, June 22, 2005 The
public should have access to a 700- page document that may cast
new light on the murder conviction of Steven Truscott and why
his decade-long incarceration was possibly unjust, lawyers argued
at Ontario's top court yesterday.
Lawyers for several media organizations,
including the Toronto Star, Sun Media Corp., and the CBC, were
at the Ontario Court of Appeal yesterday putting forward their
case to see the document.
This is not a case-management
document," Star lawyer Paul Schabas told the court, which
is examing Truscott's 1959 conviction.
"(The Truscott case) is
before you because of the (Kaufman) report and it is essential
that it becomes something that the public too can come to understand."
Last month, the Star filed
a motion requesting the release of the report, prepared by retired
Quebec Court of Appeal justice Fred Kaufman for the federal government
and now in the possession of the Ontario Court of Appeal.
Ontario's attorney general
opposed the Star's move, expressing fears the release might prejudice
the case now before the appeal court.
In 1959, Truscott was 14 years
old when he was found guilty of slaying 12-year-old Lynne Harper
and sentenced to death. The appeal court later commuted
the sentence to life imprisonment. Truscott has always
maintained his innocence.
During yesterday's hearing,
Rosella Cornaviera representing Ontario's attorney general, said
disclosing the content of the report will inevitably taint future
witnesses because the document "contains much of the fresh
evidence both parties will be seeking to tender" at a reference
hearing.
At one point during Cornaviera's
oral submission, Justice David Doherty asked for solid reasons
as to why the court should decide in favour of the attorney general's
position.
"It seems to me people
would have concerns about us sealing things up when it's probably
the most notorious, well-known criminal case in Canada,"
he said.
Truscott's push for a review
of his case was brought back to the limelight in 2002, when the
federal justice minister Martin Cauchon asked Kaufman to investigate
Truscott's wrongful conviction claim.
The retired judge filed his
findings last year. Last October, Justice Minister Irwin
Cotler said he had reason to believe a "miscarriage of justice"
had likely taken place but referred the case to the Ontario Court
of Appeal.
The justice minister also asked
the court in writing to consider whether releasing the report
something he is in favour of in principle would impact
on the reference hearing.
Among other things, the Kaufman
report includes three volumes of unreported arguments by the
Ontario government on why it believes Truscott was rightly convicted.
It also includes all of the
material filed by Truscott and his lawyers to support his wrongful
conviction claim, including fresh new evidence. Truscott's
material had already been made public and reported extensively.
Truscott's lawyer, James Lockyer,
said his client does not oppose public access to the report.
The court reserved its decision
on the issue yesterday until a future date.
Judge questions the need
to keep Truscott file sealed as media challenge secrecy
By KIRK MAKIN, Globe and
Mail, June 22, 2005
An Ontario Court of Appeal
judge expressed irritation yesterday over a continuing clamp
on information involving the Steven Truscott murder case.
Speaking at a media challenge
of the secrecy surrounding the case, Mr. Justice David Doherty
questioned whether the Ontario government has done all it can
to open the case to public scrutiny.
A lot of people could have
concerns about sealing everything up in what is the most notorious
and well-known criminal case in Canada," Judge Doherty said
sharply. "Quite frankly, I think we could use a little more
help and a little more urgency from your side."
Mr. Truscott was sentenced
to death at the age of 16 for the 1959 killing of 12-year-old
Lynne Harper. His sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment.
He was released on parole after 10 years.
The media have challenged the
sealing of a lengthy, investigative report that lay behind federal
Justice Minister Irwin Cotler's decision last fall to turn down
Mr. Truscott's request for exoneration and refer the case to
the Court of Appeal for a rehearing.
Late yesterday, Chief Justice
Roy McMurtry said the three-judge panel will render its decision
on the media request "very shortly."
The rehearing is not likely
to take place until at least winter. In the meantime, both the
federal government and Ontario have opposed the contents of the
Truscott investigative report becoming public.
Written by former Quebec Court
of Appeal judge Fred Kaufman, the report deals with the pros
and cons of a host of witnesses and evidence.
Federal lawyer Croft Michaelson
maintained yesterday that Mr. Cotler would like to see the information
become public, but only if it does not taint the evidence of
potential witnesses or harm individuals who are mentioned in
it.
Depending on the ruling, he
said, federal lawyers may edit the report to remove the names
of third parties, then release it. However, Ontario Crown counsel
Rosella Cornaviera warned that publicizing the contents of the
report could induce several witnesses to change their testimony.
"What basis do you have
for saying they would not comply with a court order?" Judge
Doherty asked, saying the Crown had produced nothing but "vague
generalities" to back up its concerns.
Ms. Cornaviera said that two
or three witnesses are the type who might tailor their evidence.
Association lawyer James Lockyer told the judges yesterday that
Mr. Truscott has no objection to the report being made public.
Decision on Truscott
trial has yet to be made
News-Record staff, Wednesday
August 17, 2005, Clinton News-Record -
The Attorney General of Ontario's
office is now home to nearly 6,000 postcards requesting a new
trial for Steven Truscott.
And though an office spokesman
once said the receipt of 5,000 postcards usually draws attention
from Attorney General Michael J. Bryant, there have been no new
developments to expedite the matter, according to communications
spokeswoman Valerie Hopper.
To date, 5,765 postcards have
been sent to the attorney general's office.
The postcard campaign's founder,
Clinton native Mary Yanchus who, as well as Truscott, now lives
in Guelph, had originally hoped 16,000 cards would arrive at
the attorney general's doorstep when the protest was launched
in the fall.
Hopper says the decision of
whether to hold a new trial rests with the Ontario Court of Appeal,
which is currently reviewing the extensive case review completed
by retired justice Fred Kaufman for the federal justice department.
The timeline followed by the
court is not an issue within the purview of the Attorney General.
"It's up to the Court of Appeal to set up a time table,"
says Hopper. Document to be revealed
Meanwhile, James Lockyer, one
of Steven Truscott's Association in Defence of the Wrongfully
Convicted (AIDWYC) lawyers, is welcoming news that a version
of an investigative report into the 1959 slaying of a Clinton-area
school girl will be released.
"We're quite happy with
his decision," says Lockyer about federal Justice Minister
Irwin Cotler's decision to release former Quebec Court of Appeal
justice Fred Kaufman's report to the public -- perhaps as early
as October.
His report reached the justice
minister in April 2004 after two years of sifting through the
evidence.
Cotler's decision "does
not necessarily mean the entire report will be made public,"
says Kerry Scullion, senior counsel for the Justice Department's
criminal conviction review Group. "There are other considerations,
like our federal Privacy Act."
There are a host of exceptions
to the law, however, including a section that allows the government
to release information considered "personal" if it
believes the public interest in disclosure clearly outweighs
any potential invasion of privacy, he said.
However, that act was most
recently cited by police as grounds for not releasing the name
of the No. 1 suspect in the 1990 rape and murder of Lynda Shaw,
an engineering student at University of Western Ontario. -- With
notes from The London Free Press
SUN SCRIBE SHINES LIGHT
ON INJUSTICE
Calgary Sun, Wednesday,
October 26, 200, BY LICIA CORBELLA, EDITOR
Louis B. Hobson is wearing
his heart on his wrist. The Calgary Sun movie critic is sporting
one of those rubber bracelets -- first made popular by cyclist
Lance Armstrong for cancer. But Louis' bracelet is white, not
yellow, and it says, JuSTice Now. The letters S and T are capitalized
because they stand for Steven Truscott.
While Louis has only been wearing
this bracelet for three weeks, he's been carrying around a burden
for the injustices endured by Truscott for decades.
That burden was the figurative
grain of sand that irritated Louis' conscience and like an oyster,
Louis has turned the irritant into a pearl -- a pearl of wisdom
and great art.
Beginning tomorrow, Albertans
will have an opportunity to see Louis' latest and, I believe,
greatest play to date: Steven: The Steven Truscott Story.
Truscott, who will attend tomorrow
night's showing, will also take part in a workshop on the wrongfully
convicted Friday at the Canadian Criminal Justice Association's
30th National Congress at the Westin Hotel, which will bring
experts in criminal justice from around the world to Calgary.
Truscott was Canada's youngest-ever
death-row inmate, when at the age of 14 he was convicted of killing
12-year-old Lynne Harper in the idyllic military town of Clinton,
Ont.
As Louis' play so masterfully
shows, the Crown prosecutor and police officers cared more about
winning than justice. They massaged and even hid important evidence
that would have acquitted Truscott all those years ago.
Louis says the person who implanted
the Truscott grain of sand into his psyche was his mother, Jeanne,
who passed away nine years ago.
"I'm just a few months
older than Steven," explains Louis, 60, "so when I
was 14 that's how old Steven was. My mother, even though we were
living out here in Alberta, like so many mothers across Canada,
was outraged by the idea that a 14-year-old boy could be arrested,
convicted and sentenced to hang within four months on purely
circumstantial evidence and she was a real fighter. She talked
to the Catholic Women's League, she got people to write letters
and she never let me forget that story," recalls Louis.
"She would say: 'That could have been you.' "
When Louis began writing plays
about three decades ago, his mom often asked when he was going
to write about Steven.
"Her dream became my dream."
Recently, from Oct. 5 to Oct.
20, Steven was played in Guelph, Ont., where Truscott lives with
his wife, Marlene. One of Truscott's two grandchildren, 16-year-old
Jeff Bowers, acted two roles throughout that run.
Here in Calgary and in Guelph,
the adult character of Steven is played by J.D. Hanson and the
younger Steven is played by Matthew Buzahora. Both play their
roles with masterful understatement.
Following the opening-night
performance in Guelph, Truscott told reporter Magda Konieczna
of the Guelph Mercury: "Very seldom in one's lifetime does
a person get a chance to see someone else's view of what you
lived through.
"Hopefully if any (government
officials) ever watch the play, it will have more effect than
what we've had so far," added Truscott. "Hopefully
it will make a difference, not just for me but for others."
Thanks to Truscott's courage,
books by journalists, this play and help from those Canadian
heroes, like lawyer James Lockyear with AIDWYC -- The Association
in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted -- things have changed for
the better and will likely continue.
The death penalty was abolished
in Canada in 1967, largely due to the outrage Canadians felt
about what happened to Truscott, who spent 10 years in prison
for a crime he didn't commit. In 1991, a precedent-setting case
now requires the Crown to disclose ALL evidence -- whether it
helps their case or not.
But justice still hasn't been
done. Truscott still fights for a new trial to clear his name.
And of course, the real killer has never been held accountable.
"JuSTice Now," says
Louis' bracelet. So does this play -- a Canadian classic that
will endure like a pearl.
Tomorrow's show at the W.R.
Castell Central Library, 616 Macleod Tr. S.E., is sold out but
tickets are still available for Friday and Saturday's shows by
calling 263-0079.
MEDIA want Truscott file
Appeal court to decide on release to public
by Ian McDougall, Courts
Bureau, Toronto Sun
A REPORT on the Steven Truscott
case remains under wraps while Ontario Court of Appeal judges
decide if it can be released to the public.
Lawyers for the Toronto Sun,
Toronto Star and the CBC argued yesterday for the public's right
to know what is contained in a 700-page federal government report
on the Truscott case.
"The investigation that
lead the (federal) minister of justice to conclude there might
be a miscarriage of justice has to be public," Sun lawyer
Alan Shanoff said after the court of appeal hearing.
"This isn't titillation
or sensationalism. This is about shining a light on the most
notorious criminal prosecution in the last 50 years."
Truscott was convicted in the
late-1950s of murdering 12-year-old Lynne Harper. He was supposed
to hang, but the then 14-year-old's sentence was commuted to
life. He was paroled in 1969 and has been fighting to clear his
name.
Rosella Cornaviera, lawyer
for the attorney general, said the report should be kept from
the public because it could taint potential witnesses.
"You can't predict what
effect (publishing) the report would have until it's too late,"
she said. Paul Schabas, a lawyer for the Toronto Star, said the
Truscott case must be conducted as openly as possible.
"Subjecting things to
public scrutiny brings people forward," he told court. "It
enhances the evidentiary process."
Schabas said the report has
already been given to the court as well as to lawyers for Truscott
and the Crown -- effectively neutralizing any claim of solicitor-client
privilege by the federal justice minister who asked for the report
in 2002.
Cornaviera said a probe, including
talking to witnesses, has been continuing and could be wrapped
up by the fall.
But her argument was too vague
for Justice David Doherty, who wanted more specifics on the status
of the attorney general's investigation and what harm could come
from releasing the report to the media.
- Miscarriage 'likely'
in Truscott case
- Ex-judge's study on
Truscott case made public Substantial evidence not disclosed
at trial
-
- TRACEY TYLER, Toronto Star,
LEGAL AFFAIRS REPORTER, Nov. 29, 2005.
A key witness at Steven Truscott's
1959 murder trial claims she was awakened in the dead of night
and taken to a police station at an air force base in Clinton,
Ont., where an OPP inspector and three other officers pressured
her to change her evidence.
"Here's this 12-year-old
kid, half asleep, and these bastards are trying to change my
story," the woman, then known as Jocelyne Gaudet, testified
in 2003 during an investigation into Truscott's conviction for
the slaying of Lynne Harper.
Her testimony is summarized
in a lengthy report on the case prepared for the federal government
by former Quebec Court of Appeal judge Fred Kaufman.
In the report, made public
yesterday, Kaufman said Truscott's "innocence has not been
demonstrated." But a substantial amount of evidence was
not disclosed to his lawyers at trial or at a 1966 hearing before
the Supreme Court of Canada, he said.
That evidence could have affected
the verdict and provides a basis for concluding that "a
miscarriage of justice likely occurred," he said.
Kaufman sent his report to
the government 19 months ago and it formed the basis for Justice
Minister Irwin Cotler's decision in October 2004, to refer Truscott's
case to the Ontario Court of Appeal for a rehearing. It may take
place next year.
Earlier this year, the Toronto
Star and other media outlets asked the court to make the
report public. The court said there "can be no doubt"
that the report was a matter of public interest, but it was also
covered by solicitor-client privilege and could only be released
by Cotler.
Soon after, Cotler announced
he would release it.
The at times "highly significant"
evidence not provided to Truscott's lawyers includes initial
police statements given by children who testified at the trial
and, like Truscott, lived at the Royal Canadian Air Force base
in Clinton when 12-year-old Lynne was killed.
There were "profound"
dangers associated with not disclosing the statements, which
could have been used to challenge the credibility of witnesses,
support Truscott's case and unlock other avenues of investigation
for the defence, Kaufman said.
Much of it was found in the
Ontario archives by Truscott's lawyers. But new evidence has
also come from witnesses questioned under oath as part of the
investigation, he said.
"The prosecution's case
was not an overwhelming one. It is highly likely that the undisclosed
evidence, if not the `new' evidence, would further weaken - in
my view substantially - that case."
Lawyers for Ontario's attorney
general - who oppose Truscott's bid to overturn his conviction
- argued that the evidence had either been disclosed or was readily
available to the defence.
Truscott's assertions of innocence
are based on nothing more than his own account of what happened
and he's not a credible witness, they said.
In the four months since Cotler
announced he would release the report, federal justice department
officials have been engaged in an extensive editing process and
consulting with lawyers for Truscott and the Crown to ensure,
they said, that the report complies with Privacy Act requirements.
Some or all of more than 100
pages of the 700-page report appear to have been removed, the
majority at the request of the Crown. They include a section
in which Kaufman appears to have concerns about the accuracy
of statements from Jocelyne Gaudet, who couldn't elaborate on
what evidence police tried to get her to change.
At the trial, the Crown relied
on her testimony to establish a motive for Lynne's murder.
Lynne was with Truscott when
she was last seen alive, riding on the crossbars of his bike
on the county road outside Clinton, northwest of Stratford, on
June 11, 1959.
Gaudet told the jury that she
had made a date for a secret rendezvous with Truscott to look
for calves at a woodlot known as Lawson's Bush, where Lynne's
body was later found. Gaudet said she cancelled and the Crown
used her testimony to argue that Truscott, a 14-year-old Grade
7 student, was a lust-crazed teenager who tried to lure another
girl into the bush before settling on Lynne.
After Truscott's conviction,
he was sentenced to death by hanging, but the federal cabinet
later commuted his sentence to life in prison. He served 10 years
before being paroled.
An application filed in 2001
by Truscott's lawyers asking the justice minister to reopen his
case included affidavits from two women who said they were at
nursing school with Gaudet in the 1960s when she broke down and
said she'd lied at the trial.
Gaudet denied their claims
under questioning in 2003 by lawyer Mark Sandler, who assisted
Kaufman with the investigation.
But she said she was convinced
of Truscott's innocence and told police at the time that he wouldn't
hurt a living creature. She remembered he had given her a lizard
but warned her not to pick it up by the tail because it would
fall off.
"He can't even kill a
fly."
Kaufman also heard from Truscott,
who said he didn't really understand what was happening during
the Supreme Court hearing into his case.
"All of a sudden, you're
thrown up in front of nine judges, your lawyers are over here,
and you're scared," he said.
Truscott said he had only brief
meetings with his trial lawyer, Frank Donnelly, and lawyer Arthur
Martin, who represented him at the Supreme Court, and he didn't
spend a lot of time with them preparing for the case.
But lawyers for the attorney
general told Kaufman that's "incapable of belief."
Truscott only said that to cover up his "lacklustre"
performance at the Supreme Court, which didn't believe him, they
said.
But Kaufman said the attorney
general is placing "undue weight" on the Supreme Court's
decision and the only thing that matters now is whether there
is new evidence suggesting a miscarriage of justice.
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Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
