Manner of Speaking
Joined: 09 Jan 2003
|
 Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 4:53 pm Post subject: Smith Inquiry Underway in Toronto |
 |
|
I've been waiting for this to start for more than a year. The damage that this man has done to people's lives is simply unbelievable.
Dr. Charles Smith
Dr. Charles Randal Smith was the head pediatric forensic pathologist at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada, from 1982 to 2003. For most of the 1990s he was the top pediatric forensic pathologist in Canada.
He was almost solely responsible for investigating suspicious child deaths in Ontario. In this period he conducted hundreds of autopsies and testified in court multiple times. He conducted training sessions for lawyers on how to examine and cross-examine expert witnesses, and training for law-enforcement and medical staff on detecting child abuse. He pioneered the use of CAT-scan technology on the remains of children to detect the signs of abuse.
Beginning in 2000, the quality of his autopsies, and the resulting criminal charges and convictions of several people began to be called into question. In one particularly egriegous case, William Mullins-Johnson was found guilty after a two and half week trial in September 1994, of the first-degree murder of Valin Johnson of Sault Ste. Marie. He was convicted after a jury trial in which Dr. Smith’s evidence played a major role in determining the time of death, the cause of death and whether the girl had been sexually assaulted.
William Mullins-Johnson was convicted of first-degree murder of his niece on the basis of forensic testimony by Dr. Charles Smith. He spent 12 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit.
Mullins-Johnson had babysat Valin, 4, and her 3-year-old brother on the evening of June 26, 1993. When the girl's mother returned home, she did not check on her daughter. At 7 a.m. the next day she found Valin dead in bed.
A local pathologist performed an autopsy on Valin. Then "consultation reports" were sought from Smith and four other specialists, based on tissue samples and other evidence from the autopsy. Smith was the only consultant to conclude Valin was sexually assaulted at the time of death. That contradicted the defence's point that Valin, who had a history of vomiting in bed, might have died of natural causes. The jury convicted, which the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld 1996, and the Supreme Court dismissed a further appeal in 1998.
Attempts were made to clear his name based on available DNA technology, but the tissue could not be located by Smith, who was given the evidence by the pathologist who did the autopsy, until 2005, 11 years after the trial, when the missing tissue samples turned up in Dr. Smith’s office.
William Mullins-Johnson was released on bail in 2006, pending review of his case. On July 16th, 2007, a report by three expert pathologists determined there was no evidence that the girl was sexually assaulted, and the Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant, said that Mr. Mullins-Johnson's conviction “cannot stand” and that he should be acquitted by the appeals court. On October 15, 2007 he was acquitted by the Ontario Court of Appeals.
In 2002 Smith received a reprimand with a caution from the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons for his work on three suspicious death cases, and in 2003 he was removed from performing autopsies. In July 2005 he resigned to take up a position at Saskatoon City Hospital, from which he was dismissed in December 2005. He was reinstated for a period in 2006, after arbitration. He pled guilty to a charge of unprofessional conduct handed down by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan, for not disclosing he was under investigation in Ontario. He currently resides in Victoria.
This week, a public inquiry into Smith's work began in Toronto:
http://www.thestar.com/article/275711
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/ |
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
