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Walsh speaking to the media after his exoneration in 2008, after 10 years of wrongful imprisonment

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Walsh at his exoneration in 2008

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Walsh arriving to a press conference at New Brunswick's Court of Appeal in March of 2008

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This article talks about Erin Walsh telling the media that he did not commit the murder in 1975, explaining what he has gone through the last 30 plus years, and also talking about his battle with colon cancer. The article also talks about Walsh's tough time gaining access to his court file leading to a reason to believe a miscarriage of justice had occurred.

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Thirty-two years ago today, it took a jury just over an hour to convict Erin Walsh of a murder that began with a shotgun blast in a car weaving through Saint John, N.B., and a dying man spilling onto the street.

The accused was a common criminal who later had the audacity to take his own lawyer hostage, making headlines two weeks before the trial.

But Walsh, who's always insisted he was innocent, has waged a long battle for access to his court file. And evidence recently uncovered from government archives is raising serious doubts about his conviction for the murder of Melvin Eugene "Chi Chi" Peters, 24.

Federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson has concluded there may be reason to believe a miscarriage of justice occurred. A report from an independent investigator appointed by the government is expected in a matter of weeks.

But for Walsh, 59, now a stained-glass artist living in Kingston, it's a race against time. Battling terminal colon cancer, he was told by his doctors last February he had about six months to live.

"I've been on a roller coaster for 32 years," Walsh, who's married with a grown daughter, told the Star.

"I'm no angel. Believe me, I'm a terrible person. I'm the first person to admit it," he said.

"But I was in prison for a crime I didn't commit."

In many ways, his case has become a test of the legal system's commitment to the principle of justice for all.

Walsh and others like him, who have little money and a checkered past, have been far too easy to sweep under the rug, even with the country more enlightened about wrongful convictions, said Sean MacDonald, his lawyer.

"Sadly, these cases still exist."

Four years ago, Walsh gained access to his file after making a Freedom of Information request to the New Brunswick Archives.

Perhaps the most crucial information recovered is a police report of a cellblock conversation - never reported to the jury - between two key Crown witnesses, David Walton and Donald McMillan.

Both were in the car and implicated Walsh in the Aug. 12, 1975, murder.

But the conversation, less than an hour after the slaying, appears to contradict their testimony.

"What did you shoot Chi Chi for?" Walton asks McMillan, who was the driver.

"You're going to help me, aren't you Dave?" McMillan replies.

MacDonald and co-counsel Philip Campbell and Gus Camelino say the report was never disclosed to Walsh's lawyers during his trial or appeals.

Calls to Thomas Burke, New Brunswick's justice minister, were not returned. Justice William McCarroll, a former Crown lawyer who prosecuted the case, declined comment.

But in a statement of defence to a civil lawsuit filed by Walsh and his wife, Angela, McCarroll's lawyers say the report was included in the police file inspected by Walsh's trial lawyer John MacCallum.

Alternatively, McCarroll's lawyers say any decision to disclose evidence was solely within his discretion as a prosecutor. Any failure to do so was driven by honest and good-faith motives, says the statement of defence, which also characterizes the cellblock exchange as inadmissible, hearsay evidence.

MacCallum, who replaced Walsh's first lawyer after the hostage taking at the local jail, had just a week to prepare for the trial.

In submissions to the justice minister, Walsh's lawyers say it's no surprise he was convicted, given his credibility problems.

That summer, Walsh was en route from Montreal to Halifax in a brown Cadillac, with 2 1/2 kilos of methamphetamine in the trunk of his car and warrants out for his arrest.

At an after-hours bar, Walsh met up with McMillan and expressed interest in buying a gun. They drove to a farmhouse where McMillan's friend, Walton, had a sawed-off shotgun.

McMillan told the jury Walsh bought it for $80, which Walsh denies doing, saying he wanted a pistol.

The next day, after drinking in Walton's apartment, they were joined by Peters and set off for Tin Can Beach.

Walsh said as he made his way back from the water, he saw Peters, McMillan and Walton at the back of his car, with the trunk open, and suspected they were trying to steal the drugs.

When he got to the car, they assaulted him and threatened him with the gun, he says.

Fearing for his life, Walsh said he ran to a Canadian National Railway work gang and made up a story about being an undercover Mountie whose life was in danger and asked them to call police.

Seven CN workers gave statements corroborating his story but none testified at the trial.

Walsh said he was later forced into the front seat of the car at gunpoint. Peters, seated in the back behind McMillan, pointed the rifle at him. Walsh said he initiated a struggle for the gun, which went off twice and ended up in McMillan's hands. Walsh denies firing either shot.

At the trial, the Crown alleged a racial motive for the murder. Walton testified that Walsh uttered a racial insult at Peters, who was black.

Walsh denies it to this day.

"That disgusts me," said Walsh, who grew up in Mulgrave Park, a racially diverse housing project in Halifax's north end.

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I wasn't killer, dying man insists | The Star

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Thirty-two years ago today, it took a jury just over an hour to convict Erin Walsh of a murder that began with a shotgun blast in a car weaving through Saint John, N.B., and a dying man spilling onto the street.

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This article goes over Erin's determination in getting his name dropped from his conviction while battling colon cancer. The article mainly focuses on his health, and how he is not letting his health issue stop him from proving his innocence. The article also explains what happened in his case and what led to his conviction. Along with the evidence that Walsh's defence attorneys were not provided with, that would have helped prove his innocence years prior.

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In a race against time to exonerate a dying man, New Brunswick conceded yesterday that 59-year-old Erin Walsh's conviction for a 1975 murder was likely a miscarriage of justice.

In the case - apparently New Brunswick's first wrongful conviction - the province's Court of Appeal could overturn Mr. Walsh's non-capital murder conviction within a month.

If Mr. Walsh is fully exonerated in the shooting of Melvin "Chi Chi" Peters, he will have spent longer in prison than any previous victim of a wrongful conviction. Factoring in a series of parole revocations that added years to his sentence, the father of five spent almost 28 years behind bars.

Federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson yesterday referred the case to the N.B. Court of Appeal because "there is a reasonable basis to conclude that a miscarriage of justice likely occurred."

New Brunswick Chief Justice Ernest Drapeau scheduled a hearing for March 14 to decide whether Mr. Walsh deserves a complete exoneration before he dies of cancer.

In an interview, Mr. Walsh said that the Crown's offer of a stay of proceedings falls short of what it would take to allow him to rest easy.

"Unfortunately, time isn't on my side, and so it looks like it will end in the Court of Appeal," he said. "So, the important thing to me is that, when I lay my head down for that final time, that I lay it down with my conviction overturned. Finally, I will die with the law treating me as an innocent man.

"What has kept me alive is my faith, the support of my family and the hope that the day would come when I would wake up and this nightmare was finally over," he said.

Mr. Walsh's defence team - Phil Campbell, Sean MacDonald, James Lockyer and Gus Camelino - were exultant yesterday, but they emphasized that time is running out.

"When we think that justice is close at last, we are brought back to earth by the realization that Erin will have only a few weeks to enjoy it, after living with injustice for three decades," Mr. Campbell said in an interview. "Now, with Erin dying and the case back before the court, it still feels like we are staggering to the finish line and desperately hoping we get there before he drops."

On Aug. 11, 1975, Mr. Walsh and a travelling companion - George Ferguson - befriended three local roustabouts after pulling into Saint John. A 24-hour drinking binge ended in the shooting death of Mr. Peters.

Key to yesterday's dramatic development were two elements of evidence that were not given to the defence before Mr. Walsh's trial. The first was statements from a group of CNR workers that corroborate Mr. Walsh's account of pleading for their help shortly before he ended up in the car with Mr. Peters and his associates where the shooting took place.

In addition, the defence was unaware that within an hour or two of the killing, police overheard Mr. Peters' friends apparently cooking up a plan to frame Mr. Walsh.

"Dumped in a cell by police trying to figure it all out, the two friends agreed on a story that protected each of them - and put Erin Walsh in prison for most of his life," Mr. Campbell said. "The fact that the police were making notes as the collusion occurred - and the jury heard nothing of it - was inexcusable."

The two Crown witnesses, David Walton and Donald McMillan, testified that Mr. Walsh shot Mr. Peters because he hated black people.

The jury had no trouble rejecting Mr. Walsh's claim that Mr. Peters was accidentally shot during a struggle for possession of a sawn-off shot gun that one of Mr. Peters' associates had aimed at his chin, and that the men stole drugs and money from him.

Mr. MacDonald noted that the jury took less than an hour to convict Mr. Walsh. "With the power of his case today, as we now know it, there is not a jury in this country that would not acquit him in half that time," he said.

Unlike many individuals who are wrongfully convicted, Mr. Walsh was a vagabond scofflaw who sold hard drugs, drank liquor to excess, and got himself in and out of trouble as he drove about North America in an aging Cadillac.

Mr. Walsh was at a terrible disadvantage at his trial. Not only was it easy for the Crown to paint him as a lawless drifter, but shortly before the trial, he took his lawyer and several correctional officers hostage at the local jail. He released them after several hours, but the incident received massive publicity.

"I have never claimed to be an angel," Mr. Walsh said yesterday. "What I have claimed is that I am a wrongfully convicted man. All I am asking is that I get justice."

Mr. Lockyer praised New Brunswick's attorney-general yesterday for "a spirit of co-operation that I hope we will see in future cases in other provinces. All too often, prosecutors deny even the obvious in a case like this," he said in an interview.

However, a civil lawsuit launched last year by Mr. Walsh carried a sharply different tone. It accused police and prosecutors in the case of targeting him in a manner that was "malicious, high-handed, outrageous, reckless, wanton, entirely without care, intentional, deliberate, callous, disgraceful, willful, exploitative, and in disregard of Erin's rights and indifferent to the consequences."

It alleged that prosecutor McCarroll, now a New Brunwick Provincial Court judge, failed to disclose key evidence that would almost certainly have demolished the charge against him and spared him the loss of his freedom and a prison life dominated by psychiatric turmoil and physical abuse.

"Erin has always known that the only beneficiaries of the lawsuit would be his family," Mr. MacDonald said. "He is living out his final days in semi-poverty. The lawsuit has always been primarily a vehicle to secure justice for Erin. My hope is that with respect to compensation that all the parties involved act swiftly and fairly before Erin dies. He deserves that."

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Dying man in a race against time to clear his name

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In a race against time to exonerate a dying man, New Brunswick conceded yesterday that 59-year-old Erin Walsh's conviction for a 1975 murder was likely a miscarriage of justice. In the case - apparently New Brunswick's first wrongful conviction - the province's Court of Appeal could overturn Mr. Walsh's non-capital murder conviction within a month.

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CBC on Erin Walsh's Unfortunate Death After Years of Fighting His Wrongful Conviction 

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CBC on Erin Walsh's Unfortunate Death After Years of Fighting His Wrongful Conviction 

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This article explains how wrongfully convicted Erin Walsh finally brought to light that he did not commit the crime that he was convicted with. He spent over 30 years (after being released from a 10 year jail sentence) trying to prove his innocence. He sadly passed away shortly after his innocence was brought to justice.

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Erin Michael Walsh, who was wrongfully convicted of a fatal shooting 35 years ago, has died in his home in Kingston, Ont. He was 62.

A funeral will be held on Friday in Kingston, said Sean MacDonald, Walsh's friend and lawyer.

Walsh died Monday, surrounded by his family, after a four-year battle with colon cancer.

MacDonald said Walsh's health had been deteriorating since the start of 2010.

Although Walsh had been sleeping most days, on Sept. 13 he got out of bed and danced with his wife, Angela, on their wedding anniversary.

MacDonald said he will remember Walsh as a fighter.

"The fact that a doctor gave him six months to live in August of 2006 and he went on to engage in what would become an epic fight for justice after being disagnosed with terminal cancer speaks for itself," MacDonald said on Thursday.

He was convicted in October 1975 in the shooting death of Melvin (Chi Chi) Peters in Saint John.

New Brunswick's Court of Appeal quashed the conviction in March 2008 after Walsh uncovered new evidence that raised questions about his guilt.

The evidence, obtained by Walsh as part of a 2005 access-to-information request, included reports of jailhouse conversations that suggested someone else shot Peters.

At the time of Peters's death, Walsh, who had a criminal record, was travelling from Toronto and had stopped in the southern New Brunswick city.

He met a group of people, including Peters, for drinks at a beach.

When the group left in a car, a fight broke out, a shotgun went off and Peters was killed.

When the trial went to court, Walsh was convicted by a jury in less than one hour. He was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 10 years.

That murder conviction was upheld on appeal in 1982.

Miscarriage of justice

The federal government opened the door to the appeal when it reviewed the new evidence that was unearthed by Walsh.

Federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson referred Walsh's case to the New Brunswick Court of Appeal in February 2008.

With Walsh in attendance, the province's top court overturned the 1975 conviction in a ruling from the bench.

That decision sparked another legal battle between Walsh and the New Brunswick government over compensation for the time he spent in prison.

The New Brunswick government reached an out-of-court settlement with him in October 2009.

The provincial government acknowledged that "a miscarriage of justice may have occurred respecting the 1975 conviction because of the timeliness, processes and procedures of the day."

Then justice minister Michael Murphy refused to disclose the financial details of the settlement when it was reached. Walsh had been seeking $50 million in compensation.

Walsh had been suing the provincial government, the Saint John police and William McCarroll, a sitting judge who was the Crown prosecutor at the time, for compensation.

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Man wrongfully convicted in N.B. murder dies | CBC News

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Erin Michael Walsh, who was wrongfully convicted of a fatal shooting 35 years ago, has died in his home in Kingston, Ont. He was 62. A funeral will be held on Friday in Kingston, said Sean MacDonald, Walsh's friend and lawyer. Walsh died Monday, surrounded by his family, after a four-year battle with colon cancer.

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The Aftermath of Erin Walsh's Wrongful Conviction 

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The Aftermath of Erin Walsh's Wrongful Conviction 

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This video shows the process of how Erin Walsh's innocence came to light. In 2008, the New Brunswick court of appeal overturned his conviction, the court ruled that the case was a miscarriage of justice. The video also goes on to explaining that Walsh launched a multi million dollar civil-suit against then prosecutor, now judge, William Mccarrol, the city of St. John, and the police for withholding a key piece of evidence from his defence lawyer that would have cleared him in 75'.

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This video explains Erin Walsh's story; what occurred on August 11 1975, why he was convicted so fast, and how this case was brought to justice  proving Walsh's innocence.

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This video is another video that describes the story of Erin Walsh's wrongful conviction, but in a little more detail. The video goes over the sequence of events that led to his imprisonment, and all the events that led to his exoneration.