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This is my word document of the questions that needed to be answered for this assignment that I did on Romeo Phillion

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TORONTO

Romeo Phillion - a 75-year-old man who spent almost half his life in prison for a wrongful murder conviction - says he wants to be compensated for the decades he spent behind bars before he dies.

Now his claim for compensation for the 31 years he was in prison faces another delay as the Ontario attorney general is waiting to find out if the Supreme Court of Canada will hear its appeal of the compensation order.

"I just want to be compensated before I die," Phillion said at an emotional press conference held Thursday at the Toronto office for the Association in Defence of the Wrongfully Convicted (AIDWC).

After new information became available in his conviction in the 1967 murder of an Ottawa firefighter, a new trial was ordered in 2009. The Crown withdrew the charge in 2010 because they had no reasonable hope of convicting him after 43 years.

Phillion sought damages from the province in 2012 but a Superior Court judge dismissed the claim.

However, the Ontario Court of Appeal set aside the dismissal in July of this year but the province announced last week it wanted the high court to hear their appeal.

"The Ontario government and the Crown attorneys are still dragging their feet on trying to compensate the poor man for the ordeal that he went through," AIDWC co-president Ron Dalton said Thursday. "He just wants to be compensated before he dies and at this point, after taking most of his life, that's the least the system owes him."

Ministry of the Attorney General spokesman Brendan Crawley said since the case is before the courts, "it would be inappropriate to provide any further comment."

Lawyer James Lockyer - who has represented Phillion in the past but is not his current counsel - said the Ontario government is "obfuscating and delaying Romeo's claim for compensation and making sure he doesn't get compensated.

"Let's take his case to a mediator, let an experienced retired judge look at his case," Lockyer said.

Phillion wiped away a tear as Dalton and Lockyer outlined the delays he's faced over the past several years.

"They want me to drop dead, that's what they want," Phillion said. "I want justice before I go. I need help. So help me."

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Romeo Phillion seeks compensation 'before I die'

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TORONTO Romeo Phillion - a 75-year-old man who spent almost half his life in prison for a wrongful murder conviction - says he wants to be compensated for the decades he spent behind bars before he dies.

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Prosecutors would never have suppressed evidence that could have cleared an Ontario man who spent 31 years in prison for a murder conviction now being challenged in court, a Crown lawyer said Monday.

During an Appeal Court hearing for Romeo Phillion, who was convicted of second-degree murder in the 1967 stabbing of Ottawa firefighter Leopold Roy, Crown lawyer Lucy Cecchetto maintained that the guilty verdict was rightfully deserved.

"If there was a verified alibi, nobody would have suppressed it," Cecchetto said.

"[Phillion] murdered Leopold Roy 41 years ago. He received justice. He is entitled to that and nothing more."

The Ontario Court of Appeal is investigating whether 69-year-old Phillion's conviction in 1972 was a miscarriage of justice. Although it was recanted almost immediately, Phillion's confession to the crime when he was arrested four years after the 1967 slaying provided the basis for his conviction.

In 1998, documents came to light showing that police had removed Phillion's name from the suspect list in 1967 after a witness said that at the time of the crime, Phillion was getting his car repaired at a service station in Trenton, Ont., about 200 kilometres away.

While the lead detective, John McCombie, testified earlier this year that he did travel to Trenton to investigate the alibi after Phillion's confession, he couldn't remember details of the 1968 report he prepared. Nor could he recall the evidence he collected that supported the alibi - including a radio Phillion supposedly pawned to pay for the car repair and his tow-truck ticket. That evidence was later misplaced.

In separate testimony earlier this year, then-Crown prosecutor Malcolm Lindsay also said he didn't remember being aware of the police report at the time of the murder trial - despite evidence showing Lindsay's notes written inside it.

Cecchetto argued Monday that no one paid much attention to the alibi because police had discounted it. That didn't mean the Crown never shared the information with Phillion's then-defence lawyer, Arthur Cogan, she said.

Phillion's lawyers, who are seeking to overturn the conviction in the 41-year-old case, allege the original defence team was never provided with the alibi report. Cogan has testified that he was "shocked" to learn of the report's existence, which a parole officer sent to Phillion in 1998.

Indeed, the three Appeal Court justices hearing the case expressed skepticism Monday that Cogan would have known the alibi and never introduced it during the original trial.

"Mr. Cogan would have been on this like a greyhound after a rabbit - he would have tracked this down," Justice Michael Moldaver said.

"I'm looking at this as a sort of common-sense picture, and I don't see it."

There was "not a shred of evidence" that the original prosecutors provided that information at the 1972 trial, Justice John Laskin said.

Phillion - the oldest person convicted of murder to seek exoneration in Canada - claims he is innocent of the crime despite other run-ins he had with the law throughout the years. Originally from the northern Ontario town of Cobalt, Phillion unexpectedly confessed to the stabbing when he was arrested for an attempted robbery of an Ottawa taxi driver in January 1972.

His lawyers have alleged that he provided the confession to cover for a friend who was also a suspect in the robbery.

The justices have challenged that argument in court last week, pointing out Phillion's detailed confession was nearly factually correct.

"To me, it is an overwhelmingly accurate confession," Justice James MacPherson said last Wednesday.

"Not only is it accurate; it is accurately remembered 4½ years later."

Phillion's lawyer noted that the man had also falsely confessed to other murders and that his dubious statements were regarded by police with some skepticism.

The federal government asked in 2004 that the Ontario court review Phillion's case although appeals filed in the Ontario Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada in the 1970s were dismissed.

Phillion was released on bail in 2003.

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Crown denies evidence withheld in Phillion's 1972 murder trial | CBC News

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Prosecutors would never have suppressed evidence that could have cleared an Ontario man who spent 31 years in prison for a murder conviction now being challenged in court, a Crown lawyer said Monday.

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I found this article very descriptive and informative about Romeo Phillion and what was more currently happening before he passed away

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The justice system is not infallible. Romeo Phillion knew that better than most.

Wrongfully convicted of murder in 1972, he would spend almost 32 years in prison - a life robbed by the failure to acknowledge what is not so surprising today: that confessions can be false; that evidence is sometimes withheld; that the courts can get it wrong.

Phillion died Monday morning at the age of 76 in a Mississauga hospital, following a long illness. He was the longest-serving inmate in Canada to have a murder conviction thrown out.

What he wanted most in his years of freedom, he never received: a finding by the court that he was innocent of the 1967 stabbing death of Ottawa firefighter Leopold Roy, an apology for the decades spent cut off from society and compensation from the government.

"I think it was a case that was worth a public inquiry," said lawyer James Lockyer, who represented Phillion in his push to have his conviction quashed.

"When you keep someone in jail for 31 and a half years, that is a quote-unquote mistake that requires more than just a courtroom dealing with it, because the courts don't get to the systemic issues involved."

Romeo Phillion poses for a photo with his sister Simonne Snowdon and brother Armand Phillion after being exonerated from a long standing murder conviction on March 5, 2009. (Tony Bock/Toronto Star)

Phillion was granted bail in 2003, shortly after a request was made for the justice minister to review his case.

By that point, the case had been taken on by the Innocence Project at Osgoode Hall Law School and the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted (AIDWYC), of which Lockyer is a co-founder.

"He would want to be remembered as a fighter, as a man who spent many years trying to fight on principle for what was right," said lawyer Alan Young, co-founder of the Innocence Project.

Romeo Phillion in a police mugshot from 1972, when he began serving a sentence for murder.

The government referred Phillion's case to the Ontario Court of Appeal, which ordered a new trial - but not an acquittal - in 2009.

The court found that it was never disclosed to the defence at the first trial that police had verified Phillion's alibi, showing his innocence.

The police report confirming the alibi might never have surfaced, had a parole officer not shown it to Phillion in 1998, according to his biography on the AIDWYC website.

Romeo Phillion at his sister's home in Mississauga in 2003 along with his cat, Tiger, who was his companion for 2 1/2 years in prison. (Tobin Grimshaw/Toronto Star)

The Crown withdrew the murder charge against Phillion on his 71st birthday, April 29, 2010, arguing too much time had passed.

He would continue to fight after the charge was dropped.

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court of Canada paved the way for his $14-million lawsuit against the Crown and police.

His civil lawyer, David Robins, said he'll be seeking instructions from Phillion's estate about continuing the lawsuit.

"I didn't do 32 years for nothing," Phillion told the Star when he first launched the lawsuit in 2012. "I lost my freedom. Somebody's got to pay for that."

Phillion was "never well treated by the system," said Lockyer.

He was convicted by a jury largely based on a confession he reportedly made to impress his lover, Neil Miller, and that he recanted almost immediately.

"I was so naïve, so stupid. I kick my butt for what I did," he would tell the Star years later. "I ruined my life, for a stupid thing."

Lockyer said he recalled the confession was because Phillion wanted his "15 minutes of fame."

"He was boasting in the cells to the police about how he had fooled their fellow officers, and was asking to see a newspaper so he could see his face on the front page," Lockyer said.

Phillion's trial lawyer, Arthur Cogan, told the Star that Phillion suffered from mental health issues, and would often tell stories that were difficult to verify.

"He told a number of things that were inconsistent, several places that he was at all at the same time," he said, adding Phillion did not take the stand on his advice. "It was very hard to determine which was correct."

Cogan said one lasting impact Phillion's case had on the criminal justice system is found in a Supreme Court ruling that concluded polygraph evidence could not be submitted to prove innocence.

Cogan had tried to have a lie-detector operator testify that Phillion's polygraph readings were consistent with his claims that he had falsely confessed.

Phillion maintained his innocence in prison, refusing to apply for parole because he believed it would be seen as an admission of guilt.

Lockyer said he believed Phillion's 12 years of freedom were happy ones.

He was a staunch supporter of AIDWYC, appearing in his scooter at many of their events, as well as in court when a wrongfully convicted individual was being released.

"He had friends he never had before and he had a sense of being someone, because people were really interested in meeting him and hearing him speak publicly," said Lockyer.

"It was remarkable how much everyone always liked him."

Phillion is survived by four sisters.

Funeral arrangements have yet to be confirmed.

With files from Star staff and The Canadian Press

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Romeo Phillion, wrongfully imprisoned for 32 years, dies at 76 | The Star

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The justice system is not infallible. Romeo Phillion knew that better than most. Wrongfully convicted of murder in 1972, he would spend almost 32 years in prison - a life robbed by the failure to acknowledge what is not so surprising today: that confessions can be false; that evidence is sometimes withheld; that the courts can get it wrong.