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 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
Herman Kaglik:
Quiet pay-off, no apology
$1.1M award for false
conviction: Alberta man jailed 5 years for rape he did not commit
Janice Tibbetts, The Ottawa
Citizen, December 19, 2001
Herman Kaglik
stands outside his Airdrie home. Mr. Kaglik was wrongly convicted
of rape and served almost five years in prison. He was awarded
$1.1 million by the federal government. In one of the largest
wrongful conviction settlements awarded in Canada, the federal
government has quietly paid $1.1 million to an Alberta man who
spent more than four years in prison for a rape he didn't commit.
In a case that
has received virtually no publicity, Herman Kaglik was exonerated
by DNA evidence of the violent sexual assault of his niece.
"Thank
God for science," the 44-year-old father of five said yesterday
in a telephone interview from his home in Airdrie, near Calgary.
The settlement
is in the same league as those awarded to Donald Marshall and
Guy Paul Morin, two men who were wrongly imprisoned for murder.
But unlike Mr. Kaglik, their plights were well publicized, as
were their protracted fights for compensation.
Mr. Kaglik
was a 35-year-old plumbing and heating contractor living in Inuvik,
N.W.T., when he was convicted in 1992 of raping his 37-year-old
niece. After serving more than a year of a four-year sentence,
he was hauled back before the courts for a second trial after
his niece levelled more rape charges. Another six years were
added on to his sentence, and he served 52 months before he was
finally cleared.
Mr. Kaglik's
settlement, which he received at around this time last year,
is revealed in the 2000-2001 federal public accounts as a single
entry under payments for the wrongly accused. The award also
includes an undisclosed amount to cover legal fees.
His lawyer
in his behind-the-scenes battle for compensation was Hersh Wolch,
who represented David Milgaard in securing $10 million, the biggest
award for a wrongful murder conviction in Canadian history.
Mr. Wolch said
Mr. Kaglik's settlement is the largest for a wrongful conviction
for something other than murder.
"There
haven't been that many altogether and this is certainly significant,"
Mr. Wolch said.
An aggravating
factor for the judge who sentenced Mr. Kaglik was his failure
to confess, a refusal that he said made prison life unbearable,
because he fought daily with other prisoners who insisted he
come clean.
"It was
a daily grind of fighting for your life and trying to convince
people you were innocent," Mr. Kaglik said. "Every
day I was in there I did that. I didn't care if I got killed."
He spent much
of his time writing and telephoning lawyers trying to get them
to take his case. Finally, a DNA test of a semen sample taken
six years earlier proved in 1998 what he knew all along -- he
was innocent.
It's a fact
that his niece had admitted to police a year earlier when she
was dying of cancer, but her confession never saw the light of
day, Mr. Kaglik said. She died soon afterwards, and although
she had once produced evidence of semen on her panties, it is
now believed that no rape occurred.
Mr. Kaglik
said his life after leaving prison three years ago has been scarred
by divorce, inability to trust people or hold down a steady job.
"The money
has made life easier, but it certainly hasn't brought back the
happiness I had before I was charged," he said.
Mr. Wolch,
who has lobbied the federal government for several settlements
for wrongful conviction, said a general rule is that there must
be hard proof of innocence.
"Being
found not guilty is not going to get you an award. It's factual
innocence that seems to be the guideline," he said. "I
have had other wrongfully convicted people who have served many
years in jail and were set free, but there has still been some
doubt as to whether they are totally innocent."
Department
of Justice spokesman Patrick Sharette confirmed that few applications
for compensation succeed.
Mr. Wolch helped
Mr. Milgaard in his battle for compensation from the federal
and Saskatchewan governments after he spent 23 years in prison
fighting to clear his name in the murder of Saskatoon nursing
assistant Gail Miller. He also was exonerated by DNA evidence.
Mr. Kaglik's
compensation package is in the same range as others who were
jailed for murders they did not commit, including the $1.25 million
awarded to Guy Paul Morin, another accused killer cleared by
DNA of the murder of his nine-year-old neighbour.
Donald Marshall,
a Nova Scotia Mi'kmaq who served 11 years after being convicted
of a 1971 murder, received a package that works out to more than
$1 million but is based on how long he lives. He was released
after another man confessed to the crime.
An inquiry
report recently recommended that Thomas Sophonow should receive
$2.6 million for a wrongful murder conviction that left him "psychologically
scarred for life."
Mr. Sophonow,
48, was imprisoned for almost four years for the 1981 murder
of 16-year-old Barbara Stoppel in Winnipeg. Police now have another
suspect.
Others who
have received compensation include:
- Richard Norris,
the Brampton, Ont., man who was awarded $507,000 in 1993 after
spending eight months in jail for a sexual assault he didn't
commit. A decade after the attack, a friend confessed to Mr.
Norris that he had committed the crime;
- Norman Fox,
who was sentenced to 10 years in Vancouver for rape and related
offences. He was granted a pardon in 1984 after new evidence
indicated he had been mistakenly identified and he was given
$275,000 in compensation;
- Wilfred Truscott,
who was convicted and sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment in
1984 in Alberta for assault and mischief by causing damage to
personal property. It was later discovered that the complaint
had been fabricated and the Alberta government awarded him $36,000
in 1986.
© Copyright
2001 The Ottawa Citizen
Ottawa quietly pays man
$1M for wrongful conviction: Accused of raping niece
Janice Tibbetts
Southam News, December 19, 2001
OTTAWA - In
one of the largest wrongful conviction settlements ever awarded
in Canada, the federal government has quietly paid $1.1-million
to an Alberta man who spent more than four years in prison for
a rape he didn't commit.
Herman Kaglik,
in a case that has received virtually no publicity, was exonerated
by DNA evidence of the violent sexual assault of his niece.
"Thank
God for science," the 44-year-old father of five said Tuesday
in a telephone interview from his home in Airdrie, just north
of Calgary.
The settlement
is in the same league as those awarded to Donald Marshall and
Guy Paul Morin, two men who were wrongly imprisoned for murder.
But unlike Kaglik, their plights were well publicized, as were
their protracted fights for compensation.
Kaglik was
a 35-year-old plumbing and heating contractor living in Inuvik,
N.W.T., when he was convicted in 1992 of raping his 37-year-old
niece. After serving more than a year of a four-year sentence,
he was hauled back before the courts for a second trial after
his niece levelled more rape charges.
Another six
years were added on to his sentence and he served 52 months before
he was finally cleared. Kaglik's settlement, which he received
at around this time last year, is revealed in the 2000-2001 federal
public accounts.
On January
23, 2002, after seeing the fifth estate, injusticebusters received
this e-mail:
My name is
Herman Kaglik, I spent four and a half years of a ten year sentence
for sexual assault that I was wrongfully convicted of.
I was released
on April 16, 1997, and given compensation on December of 2000.
Never have
received any apologies or been told by the crown that they made
a mistake!!!.
Herman Kaglik
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