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Manner of Speaking
Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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 Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2005 12:34 am Post subject: Looks Like You Can't Trust ANY Professional Anymore |
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This story is unbelievable:
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Group Says Murder Convict is Innocent, Calls for Release
Last Updated Tue, 13 Sep 2005 16:53:57 EDT
CBC News
The Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted said Tuesday that Canada has another wrongful conviction case - a man was convicted of raping and killing a four-year-old Ontario girl in June 1993, but it now seems that the girl died of natural causes. The group wants Bill Mullins-Johnson to be let out of prison on bail while Ottawa decides how to deal with what they said is the latest name on a long list of miscarriages of justice.
Mullins-Johnson of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., was convicted of first-degree murder in 1994 for sodomizing and strangling his four-year-old niece Valin Johnson in June 1993. The conviction was based on what his backers call a "rush to judgment" by pathologists, who testified Valin had been chronically sexually abused and strangled or smothered. Their findings were backed up by Dr. Charles Smith, a Toronto pathologist whose conclusions in dozens of child deaths are currently under review.
Smith -- who until recently was with Toronto Sick Kids hospital -- told Mullins-Johnson's 1994 trial there was clear evidence Valin was killed while being anally raped, something no one who did the actual autopsy had detected. There was no semen or other DNA evidence to support that finding.
Now, Dr. Michael Pollanen, a top pathologist with Ontario's coroner's office, and a British expert, have both concluded Valin was not abused, sodomized nor strangled. They believe she died of natural causes. |
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/09/13/Mullins-Johnson20050913.html
And this from the CTV website:
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William Mullins-Johnson
Dr. Charles Smith
Mullins-Johnson was 22 when his niece died. He had been living at the home of his half-brother, Paul Johnson. On Saturday, June 26, 1993, his sister-in-law, Kim Lariviere, asked him to babysit after dinner for her children, aged 3, 4 and 6.
Valin watched TV with Mullins-Johnson for a bit and then put herself to bed. She had been suffering from a fever earlier in the day. When Mullins-Johnson checked on her at 8 p.m., she was sleeping. When Lariviere came home, she didn't look in on her daughter that night.
When she did check on Valin the next morning at 7 a.m., she saw vomit on the bed and when she turned her daughter over, she was purple.
The coroner who worked the case, Smith, was an expert witness at Mullins-Johnson's trial. His most stunning testimony suggested Valin had suffered trauma to her rectum, which he said was caused by a large, blunt object.
Dr. Michael Pollanen, director of forensic pathology with Ontario's coroner's office, disputed that finding. He said there was no evidence of "acute penetrating anal trauma in Valin Johnson." Pollanen also said there was no semen found on Valin nor her pyjamas, and no DNA found on Mullins-Johnson. In fact, Pollanen believes Valin died of natural causes.
Mullins-Johnson's lawyer David Bayliss explained on CTV's Canada AM Wednesday that Smith misinterpreted changes in the little girl's body after death, "which are the sort of changes that all bodies go through after death." One of those changes, the pooling of the blood in the body, was "misinterpreted as bruising on her scalp, on her neck, all over her body," said Bayliss. "And really there was almost no bruising at all."
Ontario's Chief Coroner, Dr. Barry McLellan, ordered a review of all of Smith's work in June, after concerns were raised about the cases in which he was either a leading or a consulting pathologist.
Smith has since resigned from Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children. His work on three high-profile cases led to a reprimand in 2002 from the College of Physicians and Surgeons.
Meanwhile, Lockyer is calling for Canada to implement a better system to deal with wrongful convictions. "This is a familiar problem: people spending years in jail for crimes that didn't happen as a result of erroneous pathology," he told The Canadian Press.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1126633400645_28/?hub=TopStories
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I thought these guys were professionals you could trust to do a proper job.
Just what the world needs....meglamaniac pathologists. Holy s *** t.  |
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Bulsajo
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2005 5:47 am Post subject: |
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| Yeah, that's been making the news but not nearly as much as it should be IMO. |
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Manner of Speaking
Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2005 7:44 am Post subject: |
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No kidding. Can you imagine how much pain this so-called "professional" has caused?
First, he helps send a guy to life in prison for something he didn't do.
Next, the pain to the innocent guy's family and friends in thinking that he was capable of doing such a thing, and that he did it.
Next, the pain to the parents of the baby in thinking their child died so horribly.
Next, the shock and pain in discovering that this was not how their child died after all. Whatever closure the family might have had has been ripped away.
Next, the shock, disorientation and guilt in discovering that the "monster" they thought raped and murdered their child, that they hated for years, is completely innocent and never caused any harm to anyone.
It's the pathologist that should get life in prison. Someplace where he can get all the "anal trauma" he can handle. |
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sonofthedarkstranger
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2005 9:08 am Post subject: |
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| Disgraceful. |
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