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Our answers for the questions about our assigned wrongfully convicted person, Donald Marshal Jr.

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Wrongfully Convicted Case Study Final.pdf

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His successful activism after Jail in Supreme Court.

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His successful activism after Jail in Supreme Court.

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The reason for this video is to show his continued activism for aboriginal rights and the courts continued racism towards aboriginals. Without the fight against the justice system and the fight for basic human rights, treaties, and tradition, Donald would just be a man wrongfully convicted for murder, but he is a fighter and has shown the aboriginal communities that they can achieve their rights and obtain justice if they continue to fight and change the justice system one case at a time.

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Donald Marshall wins Supreme Court victory

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Treaty Mi'kmaq given right to fish out of season.

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In this video, it talks about his life before, some of the petty crimes he was charged with when he was younger and how the court used those incidences for their case against Donald. It was surely racism that put him behind bars because the police only saw where he lived, the little crimes he had committed and the poor rough community that was known for having troubled youth. Instead of searching for evidence, they looked into his past and made it seem as though it was a normal thing to happen in that community and it was obviously a troubled youth who committed the murder.

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Donald Marshall Jr., a Mi'kmaq from Nova Scotia, was destined to succeed his father as Chief. Instead, he was convicted of murder at age 17, and spent 11 years in jail. One of Canada's highest profile wrongful conviction cases, it revealed many flaws and systemic racism in the justice system.

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The reporter explains that racism and lack of evidential care was the result in the wrongful conviction. In Alex Hickman's interview, he puts Donald on a podium of pride and strength and says Nova Scotia will look up to Donald as an aboriginal hero and activist.

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Donald Marshall exonerated of wrongful conviction

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A damning royal commission report says racism and incompetence led to a Mi'kmaq Indian being convicted of murder.

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The Life, Imprisonment, and Death of Donald Marshal Jr.

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The Life, Imprisonment, and Death of Donald Marshal Jr.

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This article talks about his life leading up to the conviction. It talks about how he tried to escape and was shot, and the life he lead after he was released.

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Donald Marshall Jr., Mi'kmaq leader, Aboriginal activist, wrongly convicted of murder (born 13 September 1953 in Sydney, NS; died 6 August 2009 in Sydney, NS).

Donald Marshall Jr., Mi'kmaq leader, Aboriginal activist, wrongly convicted of murder (born 13 September 1953 in Sydney, NS; died 6 August 2009 in Sydney, NS). Donald Marshall's imprisonment (1971-82) became one of the most controversial cases in the history of Canada's criminal justice system. He was the first high-profile victim of a wrongful murder conviction to have it overturned, paving the way for others such as David Milgaard and Guy Paul Morin. In the 1990s, Marshall was also the central figure in a significant Supreme Court of Canada case on First Nations hunting and fishing rights.

Early Life

Marshall was born on the Membertou Reserve in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, the eldest of 13 children of Donald Sr. and Caroline Marshall. His father was honorary Grand Chief of the Mi'kmaq Nation.

Marshall was a rebellious youth. He got into trouble when he was sent to a white school. At age 15, he was expelled for striking a teacher. He then fell in with Membertou's Shipyard Gang - teens who engaged in panhandling and petty theft. Marshall became known to police for delinquent behaviour, but not for violence. At 17, he was sentenced to four months in the county jail for giving alcohol to minors.

Seale Murder

On the night of Friday 28 May 1971 in Sydney's Wentworth Park, Marshall ran into a casual acquaintance named Sandy Seale, a 17-year-old black youth. The teenagers encountered two men, Roy Ebsary and Jimmy MacNeil. A confrontation followed in which Ebsary stabbed Seale in the stomach and slashed Marshall on the arm. Everyone fled the scene, leaving Seale bleeding on the ground. Marshall soon returned and helped summon an ambulance. Seale died in hospital the next day.

The officers of the Sydney Police Department had little experience or training in conducting a homicide investigation. They rejected an offer of assistance from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. No autopsy was performed on the victim's body. The crime scene wasn't secured or photographed. A cursory search of the location turned up little evidence, and no murder weapon.

Marshall volunteered to assist the police, but it wasn't until two days later that police took a formal statement. Marshall gave an account of how he and Seale had met two men who asked them for cigarettes. Marshall said the older man made racist remarks about Aboriginals and blacks before pulling a knife. Marshall gave the police descriptions of the men, but police didn't search for the suspects. After a brief interview with Marshall, investigators decided he had stabbed Seale during an argument. They believed the cut on his arm was self-inflicted. They did not search Marshall's home for a murder weapon.

Under questionable circumstances, police interrogated three other teenagers who had been in Wentworth Park on the night of the murder. They obtained two statements that claimed Marshall had stabbed Seale. On 4 June, police arrested Marshall and charged him with murder.

Trial and Prison

Marshall went on trial in the Cape Breton County Courthouse in Sydney on 2 November 1971. He was found guilty of non-capital murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. He was imprisoned in the penitentiaries at Dorchester, New Brunswick, and Springhill, Nova Scotia. In October 1979, Marshall escaped from Springhill but was soon recaptured.

Throughout his time in prison, Marshall insisted on his innocence. He believed that speaking up in this way was the reason he was denied temporary passes and refused permission to attend his grandmother's funeral. It was difficult financially for his parents to make the trips to visit him. The Marshall family received threatening and racist phone calls, and Donald Sr.'s business suffered. At one point, the family was obliged to apply for welfare. Marshall wrote letters to politicians seeking to have his case re-opened, to no avail.

Reprieve

Ten days after Marshall's conviction, Jimmy MacNeil had come forward to tell the Sydney police that he had seen Ebsary stab Sandy Seale. The police dismissed the evidence, considering the case closed. MacNeil's new evidence was not disclosed to Marshall's lawyer, nor to the crown prosecutor handling Marshall's appeal of his conviction. However, in February 1982, at the request of the Sydney police, the RCMP began an investigation into MacNeil's claim, as well as other new information: Ebsary had allegedly admitted to a former roommate that he had stabbed Seale. Ebsary's daughter Donna had also told a friend that she had seen her father washing what looked like blood from his knife on the night of the murder.

In addition, Marshall had sent the Nova Scotia parole board and the Sydney police copies of a letter he'd received from Ebsary, in which Ebsary said he knew Marshall was innocent. In December 1981, Ebsary had been convicted in a separate case, following another stabbing incident.

The RCMP investigation revealed serious flaws not only in the Sydney Police Department's handling of the case, but also in the judicial proceedings. Witnesses had been intimidated by police and had perjured themselves (given false testimony). Evidence that supported Marshall's plea of not guilty had been withheld. Even Marshall's own defence lawyers had doubted his innocence and hadn't sought to verify his account of the events in Wentworth Park.

Underlying the whole mismanaged case was the taint of racism. Some officers of the Sydney Police Department had been known to have prejudiced attitudes towards First Nations people. One member of the jury that convicted Marshall admitted to bigoted feelings for non-whites.

Questioned by RCMP investigators, three witnesses recanted the evidence they had given at Marshall's trial. The murder weapon was found in Ebsary's former residence. The knife still bore fibres from the clothing Seale and Marshall had been wearing the night of the stabbing. On 29 March 1982, Marshall was released on parole after having served nearly 11 years for a crime he didn't commit. Ebsary would eventually be found guilty of manslaughter in Seale's death.

Royal Commission

In May 1983, the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia officially acquitted Marshall of Seale's murder. But the judges absolved the Sydney police and the Crown prosecutors, while holding Marshall partly responsible for his own misfortunes. Not until 1990, under a royal commission called by federal Justice Minister Jean Chrétien, and headed by Chief Justice T. Alexander Hickman of Newfoundland, was Marshall exonerated of all blame. The commission said the wrongs done to Marshall were a result of racist attitudes and also incompetence on the part of police, prosecutors and judges at every step in the process. The commissioners declared: "The criminal justice system failed Donald Marshall, Jr. at virtually every turn from his arrest and wrongful conviction for murder in 1971 up to, and even beyond, his acquittal by the Court of Appeal in 1983."

The commissioners produced 82 recommendations that fundamentally changed the criminal justice system in Nova Scotia. For Marshall, however, the fight for justice had taken a toll on him psychologically, resulting in lifelong struggles with depression and alcoholism. Still, his case was a judicial trailblazer for other Canadians wrongly convicted of murder. It drew considerable interest from the general public, prison reform groups and organizations opposed to the reinstatement of capital punishment. Marshall was awarded a lifetime pension of $1.5 million in compensation for his suffering.

Treaty Rights

In August 1993, after catching and selling eels near Antigonish, NS, Marshall was convicted on charges of fishing out of season and without a licence. That began a six-year legal battle over First Nations treaty rights that went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. In a landmark ruling reached in 1999, the court upheld fishing and hunting rights that the Crown had granted the Mi'kmaq Nation in a treaty signed in 1760. The "Marshall case" remains an important Aboriginal rights ruling affirming the right of First Nations people to earn a "moderate" commercial livelihood from fishing and hunting, subject only to conservation requirements. Marshall, who never considered himself a political activist, said, "I wasn't there for myself. I was there for my people."

Death

In 2003, suffering from a chronic respiratory disease, Marshall underwent a double lung transplant. His last years were troubled by poor health, domestic difficulties and a financial dispute stemming from the treaty rights case. (In 2001 Marshall had been promised $2-million by a group of Atlantic First Nations chiefs, in recognition of his struggle on behalf of Aboriginal people for historic fishing and hunting rights. Six years later Marshall's wife made it known that he had only received a small fraction of the money from the chiefs.)

In August 2009, suffering from kidney failure, Marshall was admitted to hospital in Sydney, where he died, aged 55. He was buried as a First Nations hero.

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Donald Marshall Jr., Mi'kmaq leader, Aboriginal activist, wrongly convicted of murder (born 13 September 1953 in Sydney, NS; died 6 August 2009 in Sydney, NS). Donald Marshall Jr., Mi'kmaq leader, Aboriginal activist, wrongly convicted of murder (born 13 September 1953 in Sydney, NS; died 6 August 2009 in Sydney, NS).

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This article refers the movie that was created about the case and the struggle that Donald encountered during his trial and his fight against racism, fishing rights, and the fight against the corrupt justice system.

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Donald was born in Sydney on September 13th, 1953 and died on August 2009 from kidney failure.

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This document provides details and facts about the case. Some surprising information pertaining to the case was that they did not perform an autopsy on Sandy's body or cover off the crime scene. All of the mistakes made by the police as well as the justice system were unforgiveable.

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Donald was  released after 11 years. He started giving speeches about being wrongfully convicted, fishing rights, and the mistreatment from the justice system. He fought for compensation and eventually earned $1.5 million for his years in jail, and also won the trial against him for the fishing rights for the Mi'kmaq people.

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Donald was arrested for the murder of Sandy Seale, a friend of his.
Sandy was stabbed in the stomach buy two men who were confronting Donald and Sandy. Donald was slashed in his arm after Sandy was stabbed and everyone fled the scene, expect for Donald who ran tp summon an ambulance. Unfortunately, Sandy died in the hospital the next day.