One of the main purposes of the CLP blog is to bring awareness to the funding issues crime labs across the US face. Unfortunately, jobs that depend on government funds also often depend on strong unions or activists to make sure that they receive sufficient resources. Education has a natural platform, as something that impacts a high percentage of voters.
It is both fortunate, and unfortunate, that more people don’t have a reason to be concerned about adequate crime lab funding. It’s easy for politicians to overlook, it’s easy for funding to be cut when balancing the books because the protests will be minimal.
And let’s face it, politicians are here today, gone tomorrow. They often do what’s good for their profile at the moment, and don’t always concern themselves with the needs of the people in the future.
I come at this from a slightly different perspective. As a Canadian, there’s little I can do about funding issues south of the border. I’ve been to the local ME’s office, toured the facilities. I’ve taken the
Death in the Gym training program. When I read about the state of some labs elsewhere, I think people would be shocked to know that the local ME’s office has a central area with benches and plants, like an indoor garden. It’s respectful and comforting at the same time. It’s actually a beautiful building. And where they do the autopsies? The facilities are impressive.
However, we too have flaws in our system, and our justice system is currently reeling with the repercussions.
Next month, a public inquiry will begin. The subject is Dr. Charles Smith. Smith was the chief pediatric pathologist at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children and
was involved in more than 1,000 autopsies for the Ontario Office of the Chief Coroner. An independent review of his work has already turned up startling results.
A review of discredited pathologist Charles Smith has found he made errors in 20 child autopsies, 13 of them resulting in criminal charges.
"In 20 cases, the reviewers expressed concerns with respect to the conclusions reached by Dr. Smith or with a significant fact arising from the work that he did," Ontario Chief Coroner Dr. Barry McLellan told reporters Thursday.
Of that number, 13 cases had resulted in an individual's "restriction of liberty," and one person is still behind bars. Those cases will now be reviewed by Crown and defence lawyers.
Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant called the errors an "unspeakable tragedy" and said he will possibly call for a full public inquiry.
"This is not supposed to happen," he said. "It should not have happened, it's unacceptable that it happened, it's wrong.The magnitude, and repercussions, of those errors were felt in an Ontario court room today, when a man convicted of raping and murdering his four-year-old niece was acquitted after spending twelve years behind bars.
Another Canadian joined the growing ranks of the wrongly convicted Monday after an Ontario Court of Appeal panel acquitted William Mullins-Johnson of the 1993 rape and murder of his four-year-old niece - a crime evidence now suggests never happened.
Tears, hugs and congratulatory handshakes filled the Toronto courtroom where the three-judge panel quashed the northern Ontario man's first-degree murder conviction at the request of both defence lawyers and Crown prosecutors.
"It is regrettable that as a result of the flawed pathological evidence, you were wrongfully convicted, and you spent so long in custody," Justice Dennis O'Connor said just before Crown prosecutors issued an apology on behalf of the province's attorney general.
"I wish to extend our sincere, profound and deepest apologies to Mr. Mullins-Johnson and to his family for the miscarriage of justice that occurred in this case and all he had to endure as a result," Michal Fairburn added.
The Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., man, who spent 12 years behind bars for the crime, was overcome with emotion and practically speechless as he tried to take it all in.Subsequent investigation has shown that there was no evidence of sexual assault and the girl died of natural causes.
As that article states, this isn’t the first time a person has been wrongfully convicted and imprisoned here, and it certainly won’t be the last. However, it should also be noted that Canada is not as litigious in nature as the US, and civil suits aren’t as common. I expect Mr. Mullins-Johnson to seek financial compensation, along with others who’ve been wrongfully convicted, and the payouts are high.
A recent ruling means we’ll likely see more lawsuits in the future.
Police forces can be sued for sloppy criminal investigations, the Supreme Court of Canada said Thursday in a decision viewed as a major victory for the wrongful conviction movement.
In a 6-3 majority, the Supreme Court ruled police are not immune from liability and "owe a duty of care to suspects," noting "their conduct during an investigation should be measured against the standard of how a reasonable officer in like circumstances would have acted."This is a wake-up call for those involved in criminal cases, at every level. Adequate funding must be ensured so that the people involved in processing evidence are thorough and accurate. In the article on Mullins-Johnson, including his case, three of the five examples of wrongful convictions cited involved the murders of children. In such cases, public pressure is intense, and resources are tapped while the public demands results.
The problem is, we want to hear there’s been an arrest when a case scares us, jolts us out of our comfort zone. We then conveniently forget the staff shortages, inadequate resources and funding cuts crime labs often face, and the consequence of short-changing crime labs today means wrongful conviction lawsuits with payouts in the millions tomorrow.
If politicians continue to ignore funding issues for crime labs, the result will be more lawsuits with bigger price tags for the public in the future, while criminals go free, cases go unsolved, and crime lab funding issues remain unaddressed.
There should be no higher standard of justice afforded to the rich, but equal justice for all. Politicians have to stop thinking about making their electorate happy enough to reelect them. Politicians are elected to lead, and part of leadership is not placating the public by meeting all their demands, but addressing the things they may not even realize they need, as well as the things they want.
