Post by happyhaddock on Aug 28, 2007 13:13:54 GMT -5
Truscott acquitted in death of Lynne Harper << LINK
KIRK MAKIN
Globe and Mail Update
August 28, 2007 at 2:10 PM EDT
TORONTO — Steven Truscott has been acquitted of murdering a 12-year-old friend 48 years ago, ending a legal who-done-it that captured public interest like no other in modern Canadian history.
In a 300 page decision released Tuesday today by a five-judge panel of the Ontario Court of Appeal concluded that Mr. Truscott's conviction and death sentence amounts to an unsustainable “miscarriage of justice.”
“I never in my wildest dreams expected that in my lifetime this would come true,” said Mr. Truscott at a press conference held after the acquittal was announced.
“The appellant in this case served 10 years in the penitentiary and has lived his entire adult life in the shadow of a conviction that we have concluded must be quashed as a miscarriage of justice,” it said.
The court said that new scientific evidence casts grave doubt on the window of opportunity that the Crown has always alleged Mr. Truscott had in which to commit the murder, and that some witnesses have been shown to have possibly lied or greatly overstated their recollections.
Many puzzling aspects of the way the body of murder victim Lynne Harper was found in a forested area also made Mr. Truscott an improbable person to have committed such a wanton and accomplished sex playing, it said.
The court left no doubt about the cases' place in legal history: “Probably no other case in Canadian legal history has engaged the same level of judicial analysis and sustained public interest over so many decades,” it said.
Ontario Attorney-General Michael Bryant immediately announced that he has appointed former court of appeal judge Sydney Robins, to consider whether to compensate Mr. Truscott for his decades-long ordeal and if so, how much he should get.
Mr. Truscott said that the apology he received from Mr. Bryant was lacking.
“I know he apologized on behalf of the government but I don't really feel that his apology was sincere. For the past 4 1/2 years, [the Crown] had the same evidence as the judges had, and they chose to fight us every step of the way. So I don't feel his apology was sincere.”
Mr. Bryant said that Lynne's brother has already indicated in a phone call to him that the family wishes to make a submission on the question of compensating Mr. Truscott.
“For this miscarriage of justice on behalf of the public I am truly sorry,” Mr. Bryant said.
Tuesday's ruling, however, fell short of concluding that Mr. Truscott is “factually innocent” — a conclusion that he and his defence team had craved.
“The court is not satisfied that the appellant has been able to demonstrate his factual innocence,” the judges said. “The court is not satisfied that an acquittal would be the only reasonable verdict of a new trial.”
While its conclusions would normally necessitate a new trial, the court said that it opted for an acquittal because trying Mr. Truscott anew would be “a practical impossibility” given the passage of time and the deaths of many witnesses. It also alluded several times to the unfairness of Mr. Truscott having had to live under a cloud for 48 years.
“The integrity of the criminal justice system would also be served by bringing finality to this long-running case.” The court said that were a new trial to somehow take place given all these odds, “an acquittal would clearly be the most likely result.”
The ruling stopped short of condemning police and prosecutorial tactics that were pursued during the case — including acts which Mr. Truscott's legal team have characterized as gross violations of his right to see key evidence that could have helped exonerate him.
By sidestepping these issues of blame and improper state conduct the court likely damaged the extent to which Mr. Truscott can expect compensation.
The court said the much of the evidence pointing to unfair tactics is unprovable, based on second-hand accounts, and it would be “dangerous” to draw negative conclusions about how officials assembled and prosecuted the case so long ago under a very different set of rules and expectations.
The court also rejected several other potential suspects in the killing which had been raised by the defence, saying that they had no real link to the case or the evidence in it.
“It is unhelpful and unnecessary to try to decide at this distant point whether the police focused their attention unduly on the appellant,” the court said. “The police had reason to suspect the appellant early in the investigation. “It is also true, however, that police ‘tunnel vision' is a feature found in many miscarriages of justice. The outcome of this case does not require, and the material does not permit, an effective assessment of the adequacy of the police investigation.”
It said that while ‘hearsay' evidence suggested several other possible suspects with a history of sexually molesting young girls, “there is really nothing, however, that links any of these people to the homicide...The information is too speculative and inconclusive to give it any weight in deciding what remedy the appellant is entitled to in these proceedings.”
In its ruling the court said that fresh evidence involving Lynne's stomach contents and the extend of maggot development on her two-day-old corpse “significantly undermines the medical evidence relied on by the crown in the prior proceedings.”
It said that given the Crown's firm reliance at trial on Lynne having died between 7 and 8 p.m. on June 9. 1959, the fresh evidence would also cause a jury to at least have a reasonable doubt about Mr. Truscott's guilt.
“The court's determination to admit this fresh evidence means that as a matter of law, the verdict cannot stand and the conviction must be quashed as a miscarriage of justice,” the judges said.
Arguing their case last winter, a team of lawyers for the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted insisted that the fresh evidence undermined what was already a very shaky conviction. They cast doubt on the memories or honesty of a cast of child witnesses who had placed Mr. Truscott on or near a county road in Clinton, Ont. at the time Lynne went missing.
They said that Mr. Truscott told the truth when he said that after giving her a ride on the handlebars of his bicycle, he last saw her hitchhiking on a nearby highway.
The Crown contended that despite Mr. Truscott's attempts to cover his tracks numerous eye witness accounts coupled with Mr. Truscott's own statements at the time proved that he lured Lynne to her death.
Much of the evidence conflicted as to whether various children saw Mr. Truscott — alone or with Lynne — at times which would tend to incriminate him.
After going through a detailed account of each child's evidence and purported location on the evening of the murder, the court said that the Crown's version had been seriously compromised by evidence that was not known at the time of Mr. Truscott's trial.
“The totality of the record suggests significant flaws in each factual cornerstone of that theory,” it said. “It is reasonably arguable that the defence theory is at least as tenable as, if not more tenable than, the Crown's theory of the County Road evidence.”
In a 1966 reference case heard by the Supreme Court of Canada, lawyers for Mr. Truscott attempted to blunt each pillar of the Crown's evidence and for the first time Mr. Truscott testified in his own defence. However the court rejected his appeal in an 8 -1 decision.
The Attorney-General said that in his view, the Court of Appeal has attempted to close the case once and for all and that while it's not for him to comment on whether police re-open the case, it is not something he expects to see.
The judges presiding over the Truscott appeal - former Chief Justice Roy McMurtry, Mr. Justice Michael Moldaver, Mr. Justice Marc Rosenberg, Mr. Justice David Doherty and Madam Justice Karen Weiler - said that some of the most improbable elements of the case involved the way Ms. Harper's body was found.
The victim was largely naked and had evidently walked into the copse with bare feet. There were lacerations on her leg that appeared to have been caused by barbed wire. She had been expertly strangled with a sleeve of her blouse.
“While far from conclusive, that gruesome picture - no struggle, the use of her blouse as a garrotte and sex while she was dead or dying - seems out of place with the actions of a 14-year-old schoolboy whose sexual advances were rebuffed by a 12-year-old classmate,” the court said.
“Rather, this picture would appear to be the work of a sexual deviant for whom sex with a dead or dying child was somehow capable of providing stimulation.”
Logic suggests that Ms. Harper would have put up a struggle had her friend been attacking her, the judges added. “It also suggests that sex would have occurred while she was alive, and that the mode of strangulation - likely carried out in a fit of frenzy - would have been manual, not ligature, and not with a piece of Lynne's blouse that had to be torn and adapted to a specific use.”
Her bare feet and leg lacerations were decided puzzling if Mr. Truscott truly lured her into the bush voluntarily, the Court said.
“That being so, we can think of no reason why Lynne would have removed her shoes and socks before entering the woods,” it said. “The ground in Lawson's Bush was not at all conducive to walking bare foot. As is apparent from photographs of the scene, it was completely covered with broken branches, twigs, roots, foliage, stones and mud.”
While these conditions strongly suggest that Ms. Harper was dragged over barbed wire and into the scene where her body was found, the Court said. “No credible theory has been advanced to explain why the appellant and Lynne would have engaged in such bizarre behaviour.”
However, the Court added that “it is not our function to solve the crime. It is our function to decide whether the appellant should be acquitted.”
KIRK MAKIN
Globe and Mail Update
August 28, 2007 at 2:10 PM EDT
TORONTO — Steven Truscott has been acquitted of murdering a 12-year-old friend 48 years ago, ending a legal who-done-it that captured public interest like no other in modern Canadian history.
In a 300 page decision released Tuesday today by a five-judge panel of the Ontario Court of Appeal concluded that Mr. Truscott's conviction and death sentence amounts to an unsustainable “miscarriage of justice.”
“I never in my wildest dreams expected that in my lifetime this would come true,” said Mr. Truscott at a press conference held after the acquittal was announced.
“The appellant in this case served 10 years in the penitentiary and has lived his entire adult life in the shadow of a conviction that we have concluded must be quashed as a miscarriage of justice,” it said.
The court said that new scientific evidence casts grave doubt on the window of opportunity that the Crown has always alleged Mr. Truscott had in which to commit the murder, and that some witnesses have been shown to have possibly lied or greatly overstated their recollections.
Many puzzling aspects of the way the body of murder victim Lynne Harper was found in a forested area also made Mr. Truscott an improbable person to have committed such a wanton and accomplished sex playing, it said.
The court left no doubt about the cases' place in legal history: “Probably no other case in Canadian legal history has engaged the same level of judicial analysis and sustained public interest over so many decades,” it said.
Ontario Attorney-General Michael Bryant immediately announced that he has appointed former court of appeal judge Sydney Robins, to consider whether to compensate Mr. Truscott for his decades-long ordeal and if so, how much he should get.
Mr. Truscott said that the apology he received from Mr. Bryant was lacking.
“I know he apologized on behalf of the government but I don't really feel that his apology was sincere. For the past 4 1/2 years, [the Crown] had the same evidence as the judges had, and they chose to fight us every step of the way. So I don't feel his apology was sincere.”
Mr. Bryant said that Lynne's brother has already indicated in a phone call to him that the family wishes to make a submission on the question of compensating Mr. Truscott.
“For this miscarriage of justice on behalf of the public I am truly sorry,” Mr. Bryant said.
Tuesday's ruling, however, fell short of concluding that Mr. Truscott is “factually innocent” — a conclusion that he and his defence team had craved.
“The court is not satisfied that the appellant has been able to demonstrate his factual innocence,” the judges said. “The court is not satisfied that an acquittal would be the only reasonable verdict of a new trial.”
While its conclusions would normally necessitate a new trial, the court said that it opted for an acquittal because trying Mr. Truscott anew would be “a practical impossibility” given the passage of time and the deaths of many witnesses. It also alluded several times to the unfairness of Mr. Truscott having had to live under a cloud for 48 years.
“The integrity of the criminal justice system would also be served by bringing finality to this long-running case.” The court said that were a new trial to somehow take place given all these odds, “an acquittal would clearly be the most likely result.”
The ruling stopped short of condemning police and prosecutorial tactics that were pursued during the case — including acts which Mr. Truscott's legal team have characterized as gross violations of his right to see key evidence that could have helped exonerate him.
By sidestepping these issues of blame and improper state conduct the court likely damaged the extent to which Mr. Truscott can expect compensation.
The court said the much of the evidence pointing to unfair tactics is unprovable, based on second-hand accounts, and it would be “dangerous” to draw negative conclusions about how officials assembled and prosecuted the case so long ago under a very different set of rules and expectations.
The court also rejected several other potential suspects in the killing which had been raised by the defence, saying that they had no real link to the case or the evidence in it.
“It is unhelpful and unnecessary to try to decide at this distant point whether the police focused their attention unduly on the appellant,” the court said. “The police had reason to suspect the appellant early in the investigation. “It is also true, however, that police ‘tunnel vision' is a feature found in many miscarriages of justice. The outcome of this case does not require, and the material does not permit, an effective assessment of the adequacy of the police investigation.”
It said that while ‘hearsay' evidence suggested several other possible suspects with a history of sexually molesting young girls, “there is really nothing, however, that links any of these people to the homicide...The information is too speculative and inconclusive to give it any weight in deciding what remedy the appellant is entitled to in these proceedings.”
In its ruling the court said that fresh evidence involving Lynne's stomach contents and the extend of maggot development on her two-day-old corpse “significantly undermines the medical evidence relied on by the crown in the prior proceedings.”
It said that given the Crown's firm reliance at trial on Lynne having died between 7 and 8 p.m. on June 9. 1959, the fresh evidence would also cause a jury to at least have a reasonable doubt about Mr. Truscott's guilt.
“The court's determination to admit this fresh evidence means that as a matter of law, the verdict cannot stand and the conviction must be quashed as a miscarriage of justice,” the judges said.
Arguing their case last winter, a team of lawyers for the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted insisted that the fresh evidence undermined what was already a very shaky conviction. They cast doubt on the memories or honesty of a cast of child witnesses who had placed Mr. Truscott on or near a county road in Clinton, Ont. at the time Lynne went missing.
They said that Mr. Truscott told the truth when he said that after giving her a ride on the handlebars of his bicycle, he last saw her hitchhiking on a nearby highway.
The Crown contended that despite Mr. Truscott's attempts to cover his tracks numerous eye witness accounts coupled with Mr. Truscott's own statements at the time proved that he lured Lynne to her death.
Much of the evidence conflicted as to whether various children saw Mr. Truscott — alone or with Lynne — at times which would tend to incriminate him.
After going through a detailed account of each child's evidence and purported location on the evening of the murder, the court said that the Crown's version had been seriously compromised by evidence that was not known at the time of Mr. Truscott's trial.
“The totality of the record suggests significant flaws in each factual cornerstone of that theory,” it said. “It is reasonably arguable that the defence theory is at least as tenable as, if not more tenable than, the Crown's theory of the County Road evidence.”
In a 1966 reference case heard by the Supreme Court of Canada, lawyers for Mr. Truscott attempted to blunt each pillar of the Crown's evidence and for the first time Mr. Truscott testified in his own defence. However the court rejected his appeal in an 8 -1 decision.
The Attorney-General said that in his view, the Court of Appeal has attempted to close the case once and for all and that while it's not for him to comment on whether police re-open the case, it is not something he expects to see.
The judges presiding over the Truscott appeal - former Chief Justice Roy McMurtry, Mr. Justice Michael Moldaver, Mr. Justice Marc Rosenberg, Mr. Justice David Doherty and Madam Justice Karen Weiler - said that some of the most improbable elements of the case involved the way Ms. Harper's body was found.
The victim was largely naked and had evidently walked into the copse with bare feet. There were lacerations on her leg that appeared to have been caused by barbed wire. She had been expertly strangled with a sleeve of her blouse.
“While far from conclusive, that gruesome picture - no struggle, the use of her blouse as a garrotte and sex while she was dead or dying - seems out of place with the actions of a 14-year-old schoolboy whose sexual advances were rebuffed by a 12-year-old classmate,” the court said.
“Rather, this picture would appear to be the work of a sexual deviant for whom sex with a dead or dying child was somehow capable of providing stimulation.”
Logic suggests that Ms. Harper would have put up a struggle had her friend been attacking her, the judges added. “It also suggests that sex would have occurred while she was alive, and that the mode of strangulation - likely carried out in a fit of frenzy - would have been manual, not ligature, and not with a piece of Lynne's blouse that had to be torn and adapted to a specific use.”
Her bare feet and leg lacerations were decided puzzling if Mr. Truscott truly lured her into the bush voluntarily, the Court said.
“That being so, we can think of no reason why Lynne would have removed her shoes and socks before entering the woods,” it said. “The ground in Lawson's Bush was not at all conducive to walking bare foot. As is apparent from photographs of the scene, it was completely covered with broken branches, twigs, roots, foliage, stones and mud.”
While these conditions strongly suggest that Ms. Harper was dragged over barbed wire and into the scene where her body was found, the Court said. “No credible theory has been advanced to explain why the appellant and Lynne would have engaged in such bizarre behaviour.”
However, the Court added that “it is not our function to solve the crime. It is our function to decide whether the appellant should be acquitted.”
