OTTAWA — Students and staff at the University of Toronto law school are launching a new database this week documenting dozens of cases of wrongful convictions…
Lawyer and database project co-founder Amanda Carling said in particular the hope is that Canadians will realize that getting your case even looked at as a possible wrongful conviction is difficult, particularly if you are Indigenous or racialized.Sign up to receive daily headline news from Ottawa Citizen, a division of Postmedia Network Inc.By clicking on the sign up button you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.
The new database comes days after Justice Minister David Lametti introduced legislation to create a new federal commission to review potential cases of wrongful conviction in part because so many of the current cases being reviewed don’t reflect the makeup of Canada’s prison population. Almost one in five cases of wrongful conviction in the database happened because of a false guilty plea, and one-third were for “imagined crimes” that never actually happened.
Roach said imagined crimes often arise when a system that is supposed to demand proof beyond a reasonable doubt fails to do so. Many of the wrongful conviction cases in the database tie back to Charles Smith, the disgraced Toronto forensic pathologist whose fundamentally flawed testimony led to people wrongfully being put behind bars over the course of more than 20 years at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children.Article content
Roach said Smith’s work often stereotyped Indigenous or racialized people and resulted in wrongful convictions.
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