An Ontario mother who spent nearly 14 years in prison for killing her son had her conviction quashed on Thursday because of flawed evidence that helped convict her.
Tammy Marquardt, of Oshawa, Ont., had been convicted in 1995 for the death of her two-year-old son Kenneth.
The conviction was based on evidence presented by disgraced pathologist Charles Smith, who has since been stripped of his medical licence.
On Thursday, both Crown and prosecutors agreed with Ontario's top court to overturn the conviction and order a new trial.
The court heard that Smith made serious mistakes when he concluded the boy had been strangled or smothered to death. Smith had dismissed the possibility that the child could have died suddenly due to epilepsy. New evidence suggests the child had a history of epilepsy.
Marquardt, 38, has always maintained her innocence.
3 comments:
What are the prosecutor's obligations as an officer of the Crown? Isn't there a duty to check/vet its medicolegal experts to ensure they are qualified? Prosecutors foisted Smith off on the courts as a specialist in pediatric forensic pathology again and again - despite the fact that no such formal training (and no such specialty certification) was offered until 2008. What's up with that? The ONCA Kumar case was posted today. In that decision we see the "powerful inducement" to confess put beore Kumar - do the ten years - or confess and we'll give you niney days - and we'll take away the extradition threat and best of all - we'll let you have your older son back. What? Little wonder Shanoff in the Sun called this the "deal of the century". Calling this off "inducement" is a charitable characterization if ever there was one. So what about the duties of prosecutors? How do they square with these shenanigans? Ir the public really being asked to believe that fault for all these bogus convictions/confessions are to be layed solely at the feet of Dr. Charles Smith?
You ask a terribly important question. Why was the offer "so good". If you think about it, if a Crown really thought there was a case for murder and there was a reasonable prospect of conviction, why would they suggest a negligence plea with a 90 d sentence? Was it because there was some realisation of the weakness of Smith? A prosecutor is there to see justice done. The trouble is that in assembly line litigation it becomes easy to see justice as being the same as some type of resolution. Hence plea deals offered with great incentives and great risks -- look at the following post with the woman who served 14 years -- did she turn down a deal???
Re: "Was it because there was some realisation of the weakness of Smith?"
...................
Seems obvious there had to be a realization that theCrown's case was extremely weak - whether or not the weakness resided in Smith's "woefull ineptitude" is less concerning that the (face-saving) inducement. Put bluntly - the Crown decided to trade a chhild for a (bogus) confession. In so doing the Crown demonstrated its willingness to put a child in harm's way (if we assume Kumar was guilty)to extract a confession. On the flip side (assuming the Crown realized Kumar wasn't guilty - it demonstrated a willingness to use a child to extort a false confession. If there is another more benign explanation - I'm missing it completely.
Post a Comment