Guilty Until Proven Innocent

January 17, 2005 is a very important date for one family. I'm talking about the Milgaard family.

On January 31 1969, the lifeless, partially clad body of nursing assistant Gail Miller was found in an alley in Saskatoon Saskatchewan. She had been raped, and suffered 14 stab wounds to her body, and another 15 slashes to her throat.
In May of the same year, police in British Columbia picked up David Milgaard, a seventeen-year-old petty thief. Milgaard was returned to Saskatoon and charged with the murder.
On the strength of sketchy forensics and unreliable witnesses, David Milgaard, a sixteen year old from Winnepeg was convicted of the crime and sentenced to life in prison. David, described as a hippy by Saskatchewan authorities, had been travelling through the prairies with a group of friends.
Over the next two decades, Milgaard maintained innocence while his family, sparked by mother Joyce, battled for his release. Joyce Milgaard hounded the media and politicians of all stripe until they recognized the injustice and forced a reopening of the case,which had become a cause célèbre.
The Supreme Court of Canada freed Milgaard in 1992 after learning a key prosecution witness had recanted. Joyce Milgaard then dug up cronies of Larry Fisher who said the long-time criminal boasted of raping women in Saskatoon in 1969. Fisher had also said much the same thing in the 1970s to Manitoba police who had arrested him for a vicious sex assault.
In 1997, DNA tests exonerated Milgaard and fingered Fisher as the killer. The Saskatchewan government has compensated the Milgaard family with $10 million and announced a wide-ranging inquiry into the wrongful conviction. In 1999, a jury convicted Larry Fisher of the murder of Gail Miller.
On Feb 20, 2004 an Alberta judge was appointed to head up an inquiry into the wrongful conviction of David Milgaard. The $2 million inquiry would have no fixed deadline, and would be charged with looking into all aspects of Milgaard's conviction in 1970.
This inquiry started yesterday, January 18, 2005.
The CBC has a timeline on the David Milgaard story which gives you an insight into this case.
Hersh Wolch is the lawyer representing David at this inquiry. "It's worth providing answers about how an innocent man was found guilty while the guilty man went free," he said. "And it was so difficult to reopen this case, and why was that? How can that be changed in the future?"
James Lockyer, the lawyer representing Joyce Milgaard at the hearings and a prominent crusader for the wrongfully convicted, said, "It's such a ghastly case and for that reason alone -- as a matter of conscience -- the country has to see it examined top to bottom to see what went wrong and how we can make sure it doesn't happen again."
The David Milgaard case is only one example of wrongful conviction. Others can be seen here, here, and here.