A public inquiry into how the use of faulty forensic pathology evidence by Ontario prosecutors may have led to as many as 13 people being wrongfully convicted of killing children will be led by Court of Appeal Justice Stephen Goudge with assistance from the former coroner who inspired the television hit Da Vinci’s Inquest.
“Public confidence has been shaken. The commissioner’s job is to get to the bottom of what happened, and to make recommendations to prevent it from ever happening again,” Attorney General Michael Bryant told the legislature Wednesday.
“We will be receiving a report and recommendations in one year’s time to prevent this kind of unacceptable situation from ever reoccurring.”
The inquiry is the result of a recent investigation by Ontario’s chief coroner of 45 cases that involved forensic pathology evidence or testimony produced by pediatric pathologist Dr. Charles Smith.
The coroner concluded Smith’s work was erroneous in 13 cases where people were convicted of killing children.
Lawyers with the Association in Defence of the Wrongfully Convicted say they believe at least nine people were wrongfully convicted between 1991 and 2001.
A re-examination of Smith’s work on child death cases for the period 1981 to 1991 is underway and is expected to turn up other potential miscarriages of justice.
Bryant said that the matter of compensating the wrongfully convicted will be dealt with by the government separately from the inquiry.
He insisted Goudge will be looking into the individual cases as part of his investigation into what went wrong and how similar problems with the province’s pediatric forensic pathology system can be avoided.
Goudge, who was appointed to the Ontario Court of Appeal in 1996, will be assisted by an expert panel of scientists and medical professionals that will be chaired by Senator Larry Campbell.
Campbell, a former chief coroner of British Columbia, former mayor of Vancouver and a 12-year veteran of the RCMP, was also the inspiration for Da Vinci’s Inquest.
Marlys Edwardh, a lawyer with the Association in Defence of the Wrongfully Convicted, said the group is pleased with Goudge’s appointment.
Defence laywer David Bayliss said he hopes the inquiry will examine the role of the police, the Crown and other pathologists as part of its work.
Bayliss is representing William Mullins-Johnson in a review of his murder conviction that is still before the federal justice minister.
The coroner’s review of Smith’s work found he’d misplaced crucial forensic evidence showing Mullins-Johnson didn’t murder his four-year-old niece.
He is currently free on bail after spending 12 years in jail.
“Charles Smith was the go-to guy,” in the coroner’s office when there was a suspicious death of a child in the 1990s, said Bayliss, but the lawyer suggested Smith’s attitude was common in the coroner’s office at that time.
“There was a tendency to see abuse everywhere,” Bayliss said.
Acknowledgement: Canada.Com