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GNED 1307 - Assignment 2 - Padlet Wall Assignment

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William Mullins-Johnson long awaited apology

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William Mullins-Johnson long awaited apology

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This image was taken outside a public hearing that involved disgraced pathologist Dr. Charles Smith and William Mullins-Johnson. William had an opportunity for an apology from the pathologist who played a critical role in sealing his guilty verdict. William said, “Nothing the college does now will rectify or smooth over what this man was allowed to do. It is way too late. There is no way to change what has happened, and although Smith is at the centre of this madness, he was allowed to continue his reign of terror even after complaints had been registered.”

Source:
https://www.thestar.com/life/health_wellness/news_research/2011/02/01/charles_smith_stripped_of_medical_licence.html

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An interview with William Mullins-Johnson

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An interview with William Mullins-Johnson

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This video outlines what happened to William Mullins-Johnson in his own words. From the disgraced Dr. Charles Smith to the Children's Aid Society's role in the wrongful conviction of William Mullins-Johnson. It is apparent in many articles and videos the profound impact the false pathology report by Dr. Charles Smith had on this case and, subsequently, the wrongful conviction of an innocent man. However, little light has been shed on the damaging role the Children's Aid Society played with his sentence and the remaining nieces and nephews who were left to be questioned relentlessly in hopes of getting a supporting statement proving William's wrongdoing. William himself discusses the highly unethical lengths the Children's Aid went to obtain cooperating comments from William's other niece, who also lived in the home at the time of Valin's death. The Children's Aid Society went to efforts such as buying the living niece small gifts and taking her out, all while trying to establish a statement to help prosecute William. William points out that parents were not allowed to be present when the niece was being interviewed. One tactic often used by CAS is to interview children without an audio recorder or camera present, so they can not get caught coaching children or asking them leading questions. The children's aid society (CAS), the police and the Crown Attorney's office all played a role in the destruction of his family and the wrongful conviction of William Mullins-Johnson.

Source:
https://vimeo.com/14527916

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An interview with wrongly convicted William Mullins-Johnson

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A Canada Court Watch video interview with Canadian William Mullins-Johnson who spent more than 12 years in jail for a crime he did not commit and for a crime which never happened. The children's aid society (CAS), the police and the Crown Attorney's office all played a role in the destruction of his family.

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A detailed account of disgraced pathologist Dr. Charles Smith

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A detailed account of disgraced pathologist Dr. Charles Smith

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This article outlines the disgraced former chief pathologist at the Hospital for Sick Children, Dr. Charles Smith. Dr. Charles Smith played a critical role in the pathology report that aided in the conviction of William Mullins-Johnson. The Canadian government launched an audit of suspicious child deaths investigations involving Smith, which resulted in devastating results. Ultimately, there were issues with twenty cases, fourteen of which involved convictions. Based on Dr. Charles Smith's testimony, people were wrongly convicted. In August of 2008, when Dr. Smith's medical license expired, he did not renew it; in 2011, the Disciplinary Committee of the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons revoked his ability to practice medicine in Ontario due to finding him incompetent.

Source:
https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2017/02/19/detailed-account-of-pathologist-charles-taylor-scandal.html

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In June1992 a woman named Graciela Montans died tragically of injuries caused by a car crash and her autopsy supported that conclusion. But further police investigations resulted in her husband being charged with strangling her to death and then staging the crash to make it look accidental. A second autopsy supported that conclusion.

Using this example, as John Chipman does early in his book, Death in the Family, suggests forensic pathology is far from an exact science. On the basis of his detailed reporting of the wrongful convictions for child murder or child abuse of a number of Ontario women in the early 1990s, Chipman shows how the "inexactitude" of forensic pathology altered the lives of the women he chronicles.

The villain is the disgraced former chief pathologist at the Hospital for Sick Children, Dr. Charles Smith. When the government finally launched an "audit of suspicious child death investigations involving Smith," the results were devastating. Reviewers took issue with twenty cases, fourteen of which resulted in convictions. But the damage had been done. On the basis of his testimony in court, women were either unjustly sent to jail for years - Tammy Marquand, for one - or are vilified unfairly as a child abuser - Lianne Gagnon - or live under the suspicion that they got away with murder, as did Anthony Kporwodu and Angela Veno.

The atmosphere in which Smith was working was one of the big problems, suggests Chipman. After the Montans case, a Coroner's Council was set up in 1994 to determine what went wrong, and concluded that, henceforth, coroners should view "all deaths as homicides until they are satisfied they are not," or as then chief coroner, James Young, more pithily put it, "Everyone should be 'thinking dirty.'"

The results of such "dirty thinking" are tragically evident in Chipman's book where stories of lives upended by wrongful convictions are put under the microscope. The stories of Tammy, Lianne, Brenda and the others are at turns tragic - the death of one child, the seizure of another by Children's Aid, jail time - and then redemptive as the women are exonerated.

One of the few of Smith's victims to avoid jail time was Lianne Gagnon, who was solidly middle class. Her father Maurice, a senior manager in the Ontario government, stepped up as an advocate for his daughter's innocence. The Crown ultimately decided to not prosecute the case because of Smith's shoddy work but the young woman's life had been, of course, upended, with Children's Aid adding her name to the Ontario Child Abuser Registry and the care of her newborn child taken out of her hands.

Many of the other women led hardscrabble existences so, when the full force of the law shattered their lives, they floundered. But justice ultimately prevailed. Fifteen years after her conviction Tammy Marquardt heard Mr. Justice Rosenberg say hers was "a miscarriage of justice based on flawed pathology."

This story has been corrected from a previous version that misspelled the names of Dr. Charles Smith and Tammy Marquardt.

When his medical license expired in August 9, 2008, he failed to renew it. But the Disciplinary Committee of the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons ordered on February 1, 2011, that Smith's certificate to practice medicine in Ontario be revoked after the committee found him to be incompetent.

Robert Collision is a Toronto writer and editor.

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Detailed account of pathologist Charles Smith scandal

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In June1992 a woman named Graciela Montans died tragically of injuries caused by a car crash and her autopsy supported that conclusion. But further police investigations resulted in her husband being charged with strangling her to death and then staging the crash to make it look accidental. A second autopsy supported that conclusion.

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This article outlines the settlement that William Mullins-Johnson received after his wrongful conviction. It discusses the difficulties he endured after experiencing such a life-altering conviction and its subsequent effects on him, including drug addiction, family disownment, and post-traumatic stress. The article also discusses the delay in receiving compensation and the tough position it puts individuals in, considering they are generally not fit to work or support themselves when released from jail. The topic of other settlements related to Dr. Charles Smith and his connection to numerous wrongful convictions is vaguely mentioned.

This article is relevant as it allows readers to see beyond just a wrongful conviction and understand the impact these situations can have on those whose reputations and names are forever tarnished.

https://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/2010/10/22/man_wrongfully_convicted_in_smith_case_gets_425_million.html

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The first of many victims of notoriously inept pathologist Dr. Charles Smith has finally received compensation for a miscarriage of justice.

Seventeen years after William Mullins-Johnson was arrested and accused of murdering and sodomizing his 4-year-old niece, he has been awarded a $4.25 million settlement.

Critics argue the settlement has been too long in coming and note that others whose lives are in disarray after wrongful prosecutions and convictions are still waiting.

In announcing the compensation Thursday, Attorney General Chris Bentley apologized to the 40-year-old Sault Ste. Marie man who spent 12 years in jail on a first-degree murder conviction.

"We're very sorry, on behalf of the government of Ontario, the people of Ontario, for the terrible pain and suffering that Mr. Mullins-Johnson has undergone over the years," he told reporters.

Mullins-Johnson's ordeal began on the morning of June 27, 1993, when his 4-year-old niece, Valin, was found dead in her bed by her parents.

Mullins-Johnson had been babysitting her the night before and under the Crown's theory, he had exclusive opportunity to commit the crime.

At the time, Smith was considered the ultimate authority on pediatric forensic pathology in Ontario and his findings were rarely challenged.

Asked to review the case, Smith concluded Valin died while being anally raped. The opening to her anus was dilated, proof that she was sodomized, Smith said.

But expert pathologists who subsequently reviewed the case discredited Smith's finding, pointing out that the anus can naturally dilate after death, a process well-recognized in medical literature and textbooks.

They determined Valin had died from natural causes.

Justice Stephen Goudge, who led a public inquiry into the fiasco, concluded two years ago that Smith "lacked basic knowledge" about forensic pathology and did not have formal training in the field.

Mullins-Johnson was not available to comment Thursday. But in earlier interviews he spoke of being traumatized by the ordeal. He has always maintained his innocence, but many family members did not believe him and disowned him.

He developed a drug addiction and had to spend time in solitary confinement in jail. He lamented over not being married and having a family.

Mullins-Johnson had earlier filed a $13 million lawsuit against those he held responsible, including Smith, the office of the chief coroner, and doctors who worked at the Hospital for Sick Children and in Sault Ste. Marie. He has dropped that lawsuit as part of the settlement.

Mullins-Johnson's lawyer, David Robins, said his client is grateful for the settlement. Still, he said money can never fully compensate Mullins-Johnson for the hardship he has endured.

"Money cannot turn back the hands of time. It cannot bring back 12 important years of his life. Money cannot remove the label of a convicted sex offender, notwithstanding his acquittal, that some people still see in him. It cannot repair the harm to the important familial relationships that he has. And money cannot resolve post-traumatic stress," Robins said.

He said it's unfortunate it has taken the province two years to develop a process to compensate individuals, something the Goudge Commission recommended the government explore.

"The travesty is that so much time can pass where they have to live in very difficult economic conditions until some means of compensation can be resolved," Robins said, explaining that it's hard for victims to land jobs after being branded child killers and doing jail time.

Smith erred in at least 20 child-death investigations, 12 of which resulted in convictions. Four of those convictions have since been quashed, including Mullins-Johnson's. Five others are in various states of appeal.

Bentley said provincial-territorial-federal guidelines were used to determine the compensation and added that the settlement does not necessarily serve as the benchmark for other Smith-related cases.

"Every one of the cases is decided on its own facts and its own merits," he said.

Asked if any part of the compensation bill was footed by taxpayers or the Canadian Medical Protective Association, the insurance company for doctors, Robins said: "I am not at liberty to disclose anything about that."

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Man wrongfully convicted in Smith case gets $4.25 million

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The first of many victims of notoriously inept pathologist Dr. Charles Smith has finally received compensation for a miscarriage of justice. Seventeen years after William Mullins-Johnson was arrested and accused of murdering and sodomizing his 4-year-old niece, he has been awarded a $4.25 million settlement.

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This video was captured at Robson Hall, a law school in Winnipeg, Manitoba. A professor who teaches about injustice and wrongful convictions invited William Mullins-Johnson to share his first-hand account of the events surrounding Valin's death, the arrest and the wrongful conviction that followed. Mullins-Johnson says at one point, "I spent one-third of my life in prison for something that didn't even happen". He goes on to express his emotions of being angry, frustrated and humiliated. There are numerous times that Mullins-Johnson becomes emotional and needs to compose himself. You can sense the distress in his voice.

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William Mullins-Johnson: A Terrible Miscarriage of Justice - January 15, 2010

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After his wrongful conviction, William Mullins-Johnson is finally acquitted from the charges of his niece's death. 

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This image is symbolic of the emotions that Mullins-Johnson must have felt when he was finally released from jail after serving time for his wrongful conviction.

While life for this man will never be the same, to finally be able to be free must have felt exhilarating.

Source: https://www.lawtimesnews.com/news/general/mullins-johnson-cleared-after-serving-12-years/259216

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2020 - This image reflects that they exit several causes for a person to be wrongfully convicted. 

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This image represents approximately a proportion of wrongfully convicted cases in 2020 in Canada. As we can see, questionable forensic evidence or testimony is among the most common wrongfully sentenced cases. In this graph, it is probed that 29 claims have been proven to be due to questionable forensic evidence. Other causes include false confession, prosecutorial misconduct or error, erroneous eyewitness identification, alleged police misconduct or error, and incentivized witness testimony. This image is relevant because, in the case of William Mullins-Johnson, the principal reason for Bill's wrongful conviction was the flawed testimony of the ex-pathologist Charles Smith. The injuries to Valin's body that Smith had attributed to physical abuse resulted from normal processes following death or procedures connected to the post-mortem investigation. An error in forensic science and in identifying a person's correct cause of death leads to the wrongful conviction of an innocent person.

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Dr. Charles Smith - Testifying in child deaths inquiry

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Dr. Charles Smith - Testifying in child deaths inquiry

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This video shows the mistakes made by Dr. Charles Smith. He made mistakes in almost half the cases he investigated between 1991 and 2001. His errors led to false accusations and criminal convictions. The video also documents that Dr. Smith is sorry and apologizes for the number of mistakes. On the other side, William Mullins-Johnson says, "A simple I'm sorry is not going to cut it."  This video is relevant because this pathologist's work shows his professional misconduct, which led to the imprisonment of an innocent man for a crime that did not occur.

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Miscarriage of Justice ~ Neil Miller Case ~ Mistaken Identity

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Philadelphia Court DHS Victims Claims Data R

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Smith begins testifying in child deaths inquiry

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Discredited child pathologist Charles Smith has started testifying at a public inquiry probing systemic errors in pediatric forensics in Ontario.

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By reading this article, you can get an overview of William Mullin Johnson´s case. This website contains information relevant to this case. It has essential information about the faulty medical evidence that imprisoned William, Bill´s trial and incarceration process, appeals denied until the mention of the vital role of Innocence Canada, and an overall perspective of Bill´s wrongful conviction.

Valin, a girl, was found dead, and where the evidence pointed, she was murdered and sexually abused by his uncle. Dr. Bhubendra Rasaiah, Dr. Patricia Zehr, and Charles Smith made findings as to how Valin had died. They concluded that she had been strangled to death. All the evidence pointed to Bill, who had been alone with the children, who had to have murdered her. On September 21, 1994, Bill was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25 years. Bill appealed his conviction to the Ontario Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada, but both times they dismissed his appeal. Bill then turned to Innocence Canada for assistance, and the organization took his case. A lawyer wanted to recheck the tissue samples taken from Valin’s body to reanalyze them. Dr. Michael Pollanen concluded there was no evidence the girl was abused or murdered from the samples and that she had died from anything but natural causes. He had spent exactly 11 years in prison for a crime that never took place. On October 15, 2007, the Court quashed Bill’s conviction and acquitted him of the terrible “crime” that never occurred. At the time, Chris Bentley, the Attorney General of Ontario, announced that Bill would be awarded $4.25 million in compensation for his wrongful conviction.

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Author: Sarah Harland-Logan

Introduction

William Mullins-Johnson was wrongly convicted of a truly horrific crime; a crime which never took place. On the evening of June 26, 1993, twenty-two-year-old Bill was babysitting his four-year-old niece, Valin.[1] Bill's sister-in-law, Kim, had asked him to look after her three children that evening; she would soon tell the police that "the children loved staying with Billy."[2]

Bill and Valin spent part of the evening watching TV, before Valin went to bed - she had been running a fever earlier that day. Valin gave her uncle a goodnight kiss and a hug, and told Bill that she loved him.[3] When Bill checked on her about half an hour later, Valin was sleeping. When Kim went into Valin's room the next morning, she was confronted with any mother's worst nightmare. She first noticed that there was vomit on Valin's bed, and when Kim turned the little girl over, she saw that Valin was purple.[4] Bill would later recall that he had been sleeping on the couch when he heard Kim barreling down the stairs, crying and screaming. He asked her what had happened, and she screamed out the heartbreaking news that Valin was dead.[5] Bill's brother - Valin's father - tried to roll her over to perform CPR, but it was too late: Valin's body was rigid with rigor mortis, and reviving her would be impossible.[6]

Bill was devastated. Over a decade later, he would describe his niece as "very smart, very mischievous, very funny and very special to me." Bill's mother, Valin's grandmother, would insist that "he adored that girl and would never hurt her."[7] Having suffered this devastating family tragedy, Valin's family - Bill included - should have been able to grieve together and treasure her memory. However, due to a series of egregious errors made by the physicians who conducted the post-mortem examination of Valin's body, Bill's personal tragedy was just beginning.

Faulty Medical Evidence

After Kim discovered her daughter's body, Valin's remains were taken to the Sault Ste. Marie General Hospital. Over the next several hours, a team of physicians - Dr. Bhubendra Rasaiah (who conducted Valin's autopsy), Dr. Patricia Zehr, and the now-infamous Charles Smith (see explanation below) - made findings as to how Valin had died.[8] Their conclusion was that she had been strangled to death between 8:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. on the night of June 26 th - meaning that Bill, who had been alone with the children, would had to have murdered her.[9] They also found that Valin had been subjected to chronic sexual abuse.[10] In fact, Dr. Zehr - who was not a pathologist, but rather "a gynaecologist/obstetrician with expertise in child sexual abuse" - concluded that "this was one of the worst cases of child sexual abuse she had seen."[11]

Bill was arrested at 6:30 p.m. on June 27 th 1993, for the first degree murder and aggravated sexual assault of his niece.[12] Bill recalled that during his interrogation, the police officers "kept screaming at me that they had evidence that I did this and that.... With every accusation, I responded: 'I didn't do it.'"[13] Bill continued to maintain his innocence, from this first police interview until the present time.[14] However, only his mother, Laureena, believed him.[15] Meanwhile, Bill's extended family closed ranks on him, since they trusted those believed to be the experts' judgment. Bill, on the other hand, began to believe that his brother might have killed his own daughter, since he too trusted the experts, and he knew himself to be innocent.[16]

Bill's Trial and Incarceration

At Bill's trial, the jury heard expert testimony from the now-disgraced pathologist Charles Smith. He and other Crown expert witnesses testified that Valin had been abused and then suffocated to death, as evidenced by the bruises found on her chest, neck, and head. Smith also testified that the four-year-old had been anally raped.[17]

On September 21, 1994, Bill was convicted of first degree murder - meaning that the jury believed he killed Valin while sexually assaulting her - and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25 years.[18] The jury convicted Bill despite the fact that there was no physical evidence connecting him to Valin's death.[19]

Bill was transported to Joyceville Institution, outside Kingston, Ontario. As a convicted sex offender, he received death threats from other prisoners, and was afraid that other inmates might slash his throat.[20] He was placed in solitary confinement for a four-month period for his own protection. In 1995, he was sent to Warkworth Institution, a prison north of Toronto that houses sex offenders in protective custody. At Warkworth, Bill took correspondence courses and learned about his Aboriginal heritage, while locked behind the steel door of a sparsely appointed cell.[21]

Appeals Denied

Bill appealed his conviction to the Ontario Court of Appeal, but the court dismissed the appeal on December 19, 1996.[22] One of the three judges disagreed with the decision to dismiss the appeal. In his dissenting judgment, Justice Borens stated that he would have ordered a new trial in Bill's case.[23] He pointed out that "there was no forensic evidence" connecting Bill to Valin: "although tests were conducted, there was no evidence that any bodily substance of [Bill's] ... was on, or in ... [Valin's] body."[24] He also noted that "Of the five experts who testified, only Dr. Smith ... thought he saw evidence of recent anal penetration."[25] This dissenting opinion - pointing out the severe limitations in the evidence used to convict Bill of Valin's murder - is in retrospect haunting, as we will see below.

Bill then appealed this decision to the Supreme Court of Canada, but the court unanimously dismissed his appeal on May 26, 1998.[26]

A Miscarriage of Justice

Bill then turned to Innocence Canada (formerly AIDWYC) for help, and the organization took his case. In February 2003, lawyer James Lockyer wrote to the Crown Law Office on Innocence Canada's behalf, asking that the samples taken from Valin's body be made available so that forensic pathologist Dr. Bernard Knight could independently review them.[27]

The police then contacted Dr. Rasaiah (who had conducted Valin's autopsy); his records revealed that he had sent the microscopic slides from Valin's autopsy that Innocence Canada had requested to Charles Smith, who had never returned them. Numerous people then attempted to communicate with Smith about the location of these slides, but he denied that he still had the slides and stonewalled this process for over a year, until the slides were finally located in his office and provided to Dr. Michael Pollanen, who has since become the Chief Forensic Pathologist for Ontario.[28]

Dr. Pollanen decided to conduct his own investigation into the slides. He quickly realized that Smith's findings had been shockingly inaccurate. In fact, they were completely wrong. The injuries to Valin's body that Smith had attributed to physical abuse were simply "the result of normal processes following death or were caused by procedures connected to the post-mortem investigation."[29] In particular, the injuries that Smith had testified indicated she had been sexually assaulted was actually a normal result of changes to her body after death and during the autopsy.[30]

Dr. Pollanen concluded that there was actually no evidence whatsoever that Valin had been sexually abused or that she had been murdered. Although it was impossible to tell what had caused Valin's death, there was zero evidence that she had died from anything but natural causes.[31] Dr. Pollanen then sent the slides to Dr. Knight, who agreed that Valin's death was natural.[32]

At last armed with new evidence that he was innocent, Bill and Innocence Canada filed a s. 696.1 application for ministerial review of his conviction on September 7, 2005. He was granted bail on September 21, 2005, while the Minister considered his application. He had spent exactly 11 years in prison for a crime that never took place.[33]

On July 6, 2007, the federal Minister of Justice granted Bill's application and sent the case back to the Ontario Court of Appeal.[34] This time, the Court took a very different view of Bill's conviction, finding that "it is now clear that there is no evidence that Valin Johnson was assaulted or murdered, and no evidence that ... [Bill] was guilty of any crime." Further, the Court acknowledged that Bill had suffered "a terrible miscarriage of justice."[35]

On October 15, 2007 the Court quashed Bill's conviction and acquitted him of the terrible "crime" that never occurred but had torn his life and family apart.[36] On October 20, 2010, Chris Bentley, the Attorney General of Ontario at the time, announced that Bill would be awarded $4.25 million in compensation for his wrongful conviction. Mr. Bentley apologized to Bill and his family on behalf of the Ontario government "for the miscarriage of justice that occurred and the pain they had to endure."[37]

Causes of Bill's Wrongful Conviction

The principal reason for Bill's wrongful conviction was the flawed testimony of disgraced ex-pathologist Charles Smith. In fact, Innocence Canada played a crucial role in bringing about the investigation that exposed him. Innocence Canada had grown suspicious of Smith's conclusions in other cases as well; so in April 2005, Innocence Canada wrote to Dr. Barry McLellan (then the Chief Coroner for Ontario) and Michael Bryant (then the Attorney General), urging a full public inquiry into Smith's work.[38] On June 7, 2005, Dr. McLellan announced in a press release that a formal review would be conducted into Smith's work on 45 cases involving suspicious deaths of children.[39] This inquiry, led by Justice Stephen Goudge, resulted in the publication of the Inquiry into Pediatric Forensic Pathology in Ontario.[40]

This comprehensive report found that Smith had no training in forensic pathology (his own field was pediatric pathology), which led to many misdiagnoses such as his completely incorrect assessment of Valin's injuries.[41] Moreover, Smith was a terrible expert witness who often "provided unbalanced or emotive testimony, which tended to invite inappropriate and adverse conclusions."[42] Smith was eventually stripped of his medical license.[43]

At the Ontario Court of Appeal hearing that led to Bill's acquittal, Innocence Canada lawyer James Lockyer explained that Smith's woefully inaccurate testimony incited an "extraordinary rush to judgment" by authorities, after which "there was no stopping the train."[44]

Wounds that Innocence Canada Cannot Heal

A few days before his release on bail, Bill told reporters that the day he was charged "ripped my soul out - and right from the first allegation it destroyed my life."[45] On the day of his release, he explained that "the last 12 years has been nothing but hell for me - and my family."[46] In a 2010 interview, Bill said that he might as well still be in a prison cell, because, in his words: "I largely live the way I lived when I was inside: isolated [and] ... untrusting."[47]

Although Bill has regained his freedom, he has lost a decade of his life and suffered unimaginable anguish and undeserved stigma, as his family, fellow inmates, and the public at large believed that he had committed a horrific crime. In a sense, Bill is still behind bars.

[1] CTV.ca New Staff: "New Report Says Ontario Man Wrongfully Convicted." September 14, 2005, via http://injusticebusters.org/05/Mullins-Johnson_William.shtml.

[2] Harold Levy Staff Reporter: "Murderer Didn't Do It, Experts Say." September 13, 2005, via http://injusticebusters.org/05/Mullins-Johnson_William.shtml ["Murderer Didn't Do It"].

[5] CityNew.ca Staff: "Mullins-Johnson Found Not Guilty After Day Of Gut-Wrenching Appeals Testimony." October 15, 2007, http://www.citynews.ca/2007/10/15/mullins-johnson-found-not-guilty-after-day-of-gut-wrenching-appeals-testimony/.

[6] Kirk Makin, The Globe and Mail. "Formal Acquittal Not Enough for Tearful Mullins-Johnson." October 16, 2007: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/formal-acquittal-not-enough-for-tearful-mullins-johnson/article695800/ ["Acquittal Not Enough"].

[7] "Murderer Didn't Do It," supra note 2.

[8] R v Mullins-Johnson, 2007 ONCA 720 at paras 2-4, 228 CCC (3d) 505 [Mullins-Johnson].

[9] Ibid at para 3.

[10] Ibid at paras 2, 11.

[11] Ibid at para 3.

[12] Ibid at para 7.

[13] "Acquittal Not Enough," supra note 6.

[14] Mullins-Johnson, supra note 8 at para 14.

[15] Frank Dobrovnik, The Sault Star: "William Mullins-Johnson A Prisoner of the Past." May 10, 2010, http://www.saultstar.com/2010/05/10/william-mullins-johnson-a-prisoner-of-the-past ["Prisoner of the Past"].

[16] "Acquittal Not Enough," supra note 6.

[17] Mullins-Johnson, supra note 8 at para 15-16.

[18] Harold Levy, "A Convicted Killer's Quest for Justice," at http://injusticebusters.org/05/Mullins-Johnson_William.shtml; The Honourable Stephen T. Goudge, Commissioner. "Volume 2: Systematic Review," Inquiry into Pediatric Forensic Pathology in Ontario. September 30, 2008, available at http://www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca/inquiries/goudge/index.html (p 32) ["Goudge Inquiry"].

[19] Helena Katz, Justice Miscarried: Inside Wrongful Convictions in Canada, "Natural Causes: The William Mullins-Johnson Case." Toronto: Dundurn, 2011 (p 155).

[22] R v Mullins-Johnson, 31 OR (3d) 660, 112 CCC (3d) 117.

[23] Ibid at para 20.

[24] Ibid at para 25.

[26] R v Mullins-Johnson, [1998] 1 SCR 977, 124 CCC (3d) 381.

[27] Goudge Inquiry, supra note 18 at pp 28-29.

[28] Ibid at p 29.

[29] Mullins-Johnson, supra note 8 at paras 15-16.

[30] Ibid at para 15.

[31] Goudge Inquiry, supra note 18 at p 30.

[32] Ibid at p 31.

[34] Mullins-Johnson, supra note 8 at para 7.

[35] Ibid at paras 1, 6.

[36] Ibid at para 28.

[37] CBC News: "Wrongfully Convicted Ont. Man Gets $4.25M." October 21, 2010, http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/wrongfully-convicted-ont-man-gets-4-25m-1.967978.

[38] Inquiry into Pediatric Forensic Pathology in Ontario Report (the Honorable Stephen T. Goudge, Commissioner), Volume 2 Systemic Review (2008), online: http://www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca/inquiries/goudge/report/index.html.

[39] Goudge Inquiry, supra note 18 at p 32.

[40]Available at http://www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca/inquiries/goudge/index.html

[41] Ibid at p 41.

[43] CTV.ca News Staff, "Disgraced pathologist stripped of medical licence." February 1, 2011, http://www.ctvnews.ca/disgraced-pathologist-stripped-of-medical-licence-1.602739.

[44] "Acquittal Not Enough," supra note 6.

[45] "Murderer Didn't Do It," supra note 2.

[46] Colin Perkel, Canadian Press, "Mullins-Johnson Free After 12 Years." September 21, 2005, via http://truthinjustice.org/mullins-johnson.htm.

[47] "Prisoner of the Past," supra note 15.

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William Mullins-Johnson - Innocence Canada

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Author: Sarah Harland-Logan William Mullins-Johnson was wrongly convicted of a truly horrific crime; a crime which never took place.