The Canadian court system, like anything made by man, has flaws. One of these flaws is the wrongful conviction of many men and women like David Milgaard and Steven Truscott. These innocent men spent years of their life behind bars because of the court system, serving the sentence for a crime they did not commit.
David Milgaard, a sixteen year old boy, was accused for murder and rape of a twenty two year old nurse, Gail Miller. Before the murder of the nurse, Milgaard and his two friends, Ron Wilson and Nichol John, had gone on a trip to Alberta. They stopped at a friend's house, Shorty Cadrain, to pick him up. After returning from their trip to Alberta, Cadrain heard about a two thousand dollar reward for anyone who had information about
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Wilson and John were honest just like Milgaard was when they were being questioned by the police at first, and they told the police that Milgaard was with them the whole time and he had not committed the crime. But as the police's investigation got more intense, Wilson and John started to twist up the story, and John told the police that she saw Milgaard stabbing Miller that night. With all that information and John being an eyewitness as she told his false statement to the police, Milgaard was charged for the murder of the nurse. Milgaard was then on trial for two weeks starting from May 1969 and his three friends were the ones who caused the most damage to his case because of their false testimony. There were two other men who gave their testimonies in the court against Milgaard. They were Craig Melnyk, 17 and George Lapchuk, 18, who stated that Milgaard confessed to them about murdering Miller and he was also going to show them how he had killed her. On May 30, 1969 Milgaard got a life sentence, accused of a crime he did not commit but the serial killer, Larry Fisher had committed, but police were not aware of this yet. A year after Millers murder, on January 1970, the jury was …show more content…
This flaw affects an individual’s life drastically because it causes them to loose so many years of their life behind prison bars for a crime they did not commit. There are many reasons for why the Canadian Court system has the flaw of wrongful convictions such as: eyewitness misidentification, where the witness may claim to have seen something but their minds understand the situations wrongs, or like in Milgaard’s case, witnesses may give false eyewitness identification, just like John did, stating he had seen Milgaard stab the nurse. Error in forensic science is another reason for wrongful convictions. Just like in Truscott’s case, during the time, there was not enough science knowledge to investigate Lynne Harper’s body, and the found information was false evidence. False testimony is a major factor in wrongful convictions because when someone gives false testimonies, they make the case even more difficult for the wrongly accused person. In Milgaard's case, his friends who gave false testimony, switching up the story of what had actually happened the night of the murder, was a major reason why Milgaard had to serve sentence for a crime he did not commit. Tunnel vision was a major factor in Truscott’s case that caused him to be sentenced. The police only focused on him as a suspect and did not regard anything else or try to investigate upon anything
The Canadian criminal justice system is often represented by the balanced scales of justice. These scales symbolize the need for the law to be viewed objectively in order to ensure a fair determination of innocence. Ideally, the criminal justice system should incorporate the values of the scales of justice to control crime and impose penalties on those who violate the law (Jordan, 2014). When dealing with crime, this system mainly uses methods of retributive justice in order to achieve its goals. However, despite justice being supposedly impartial, there is an overwhelming amount of injustice in all stages of the criminal justice process, from the charging of the individuals in court to their sentence in prison (Jordan, 2014). To combat this
The justice system is best known as a pursuit for the truth. It is managed by humans so, it is inevitable not to make errors such as ones that will lead an innocent to be wrongfully convicted. Such a scenario is the David Milgaard case where he supposedly raped and murdered a woman named Gail Miller but really, the foundations of justice were tampered with. The Canadian justice system failed terribly, dismissed millions of dollars and banished the citizens certainty in the system. Most importantly, this even diminished 20 years of a man’s life.
Walter Chaplinsky, was utilizing an open spot to disperse leaflets against a specific religion. After a vast group obstructed the street and made a scene. Chaplinsky was captured by the police. The town marshal who had cautioned him already additionally met him and Chaplinsky called him “a damned Fascist” and a " god-damned racketeer " (Dorf & Michael, n,d).
I believe the justice system is functioning in the sense of keeping those who are guilty of a crime punished and locked away, but then there are also some faults in the system. At times the justice system will choose a verdict based more on discretion rather than facts or choose to ignore the facts because it believes that there will be a better outcome. When the facts are ignored and the right punishable measurements aren’t practiced, crimes continue to rise and the justice system is believed to be untrustworthy. Juveniles usually rebel when they don’t receive a certain amount of attention in their homes or they suffer a traumatic experience within their immediate family members. Take for example Michael Propst who is only 12 years old and
The courts play a huge role in the criminal justice system. The dual court system of the United States (U.S.) was established through the U.S. constitution. The court systems have a multiple purposes and elements of court. Federal and state court system is what makes up the dual court system of the U.S. Today the U.S. court system is what it is today because of previous legal codes, common law, and the precedent it played in the past. Making the U.S. court system a vital role in the criminal justice system..
In 1789, each of the thirteen states had already establish a judicial system such as criminal and civil cases. The United States Constitution is the original document in which it established fundamental laws for the national government as well as protecting the right of the citizens. The U.S Constitution was designed to avoid too much power in the system of checks and balances. As years went by, the Constitution began to adapt to the modern changes. Subsequently, the judicial system began to full fill the U.S Constitution’s purpose. Both Federal and State have their own jurisdiction and functions as stated in the Constitution. However, in recent years the judicial system has been broken due to lack of structure in law on the book and law in action.
Among the many differing cases of wrongfully convicted Canadians, the case of Guy Paul Morin is very interesting. There were many issues that caused an innocent man from Queensville, Ontario to be convicted of the murder of Christine Jessop. We’re going to look at how the police failed to conduct a thorough investigation, how the court system failed, and how cases like this can be preventing in the future.
In today’s Canadian society, it is certain that criminal law is to serve and protect and its fundamental purpose is to prevent crime and punish offenders. However, there have been cases where criminal law has punished the offender who turned out to be innocent. A conviction is needed to show that the system is not in disrepute and to keep order and people safe in society. If a criminal cannot be caught then people will look down upon the system in disgrace. In many cases, officers will arrest an individual who fits a certain description that they know will lead to an arrest and conviction. In the case of Guy Paul Morin it shows how the system failed in aiding the innocent who abide to the law. The law is established to protect those who
How to appropriately and fairly carry out criminal justice matters is something that every country struggles with. A major reason for this struggle is the fallibility of the justice system. It is acceptable to concede that the possibility of human error in every case and investigation may lead to a wrongful conviction. In the case of David Milgaard, however, Canada's Criminal Justice System not only erred, but failed grievously, resulting in millions of dollars wasted, in a loss of public confidence in the system, and most tragically, in the robbery of two decades of one man's life. Factors including, but not limited to, the social context at the time of the crime, the social perception of deviance, the influence of the media, and the
The Canadian Justice System is built on the principal of the presumption of innocence where emphasis is placed on on ensuring that the innocent go free rather than the guilty being convicted (Huff, 2013). However, miscarriages of justice occur when an individual is wrongfully conviction, and such an occurrence tarnishes the system’s reputation greatly (Campbell & Denov, 2005). According to the edited case files presented by Moldaver (2009), Romeo Phillion was wrongly convicted of the murder of an Ottawa firefighter, Leopold Roy in 1972. Roy had been stabbed on August 9th of 1967, four and a half years prior to when Phillion had been charged with the crime in 1972 after confessing to the murder while in police custody. Despite recanting the confession immediately, the relatively short trial led to a guilty verdict but after investigations decades later, it determined that the prosecutor 's misconduct had led to the miscarriage of justice (Anderson, 2008). After a series of appeals and references, the case was reopened in 2009 which led to the conviction being overturned, and a new trial ordered whereby the Crown had withdrawn the murder charge because of the lack of reasonable prospect of conviction (Harland-Logan, 2014). Nevertheless, Phillion’s proven innocence after his 31 years of incarceration made him the longest-serving wrongfully convicted prisoner in Canadian history (Anderson, 2008). With this considered, the wrongful conviction of Romeo Phillion had been due to
Many years ago, before courts existed matters was handled in a privately or informally. This often led to violence and unjust treatment of innocent people. During the rise of the Greek City States and the Roman Empire law enforcement became a public affair instead of private. (Siegel, Schmalleger, & Worral, 2011). Along with this movement became formalized courts and other criminal justice institutions. This allowed for law enforcement matters to be handled in a more civilized manner for resolving human conflict.
In the case of a crime assault and suspicion of rape of a 14 year-old girl; Jones, Walsh and Bert were arrested. During the investigation, the police obtain statement from a man name Bland providing additional information that suspect Jones was involved in three separate assaults and rapes of juveniles over three days. The prosecution filed charges against Jones, Walsh and Bert for their involvement in the crime. The suspect, Bert then hired an attorney to defend him and explains to his lawyer that he did not participate in any acts of raping these girls and that he was only present one time with Jones and all he did was hit one of the girls. Bert also goes on to say that he can prove this because at the times the other rapes are alleged to have occurred, he was with Mook, who is currently out of the country on a mountain climbing trip and will not return for 2 months. Bland also contacts the prosecutor’s office and provides a written statement to the prosecutor that Walsh was not present during any of the rapes. (Case Study, n.d.)
presence of a jury, if the defendant wishes so. Even if a case is too
The United States court system is the institution were all the legal disputes in the american society are carryed out and resolved. However, one single court is not enough to resolve every single dispute in society and that is why the court system is made up of two different courts, the federal courts and the state courts. Moreover, the federal and state courts are made up of several divisions made to handle legal disputes differently depending on its seriousness. For example, the state court is made up of trial courts of limited jurisdiction and probate courts were cases and disputes originate and then move up to trial courts of general jurisdiction, intermediate apellate courts, and courts of last resort respectively depending on the case.In contrast, the federal court consists of district courts, territorial coutrs, tax court, court of international trade, claims court, court of veterans appeals, an courts of military review which then move on to courts of appeals respectively and may ultimately end up in the United States supreme court. In addition, cases from state court may also appeal into the federal court system but not the other way around.
There are three women on the Supreme Court, one of whom is Latina, and there is one black justice serving on the Supreme Court (Brown, 2016). This is a major issue. The United States, the “melting pot”, has an extreme lack of diversity in their court system. This is an issue that affects several aspects of society. Decisions made by judges will affect the lives of men, women, and their families. The decisions made by judges can also create law. Unlike political officials, the people do not always have the power to vote judges into their positions. Instead, the people hope that their peers with the power to affect the system choose a candidate that will fight for them. Often times, this does not happen.