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"I have more faith in the court system today than I did yesterday," Stephen Truscott told a news conference on Tuesday, just hours after Ontario's highest court acquitted him of the 1959 rape and murder of 12-year-old Lynne Harper.
The unanimous, 300-page Ontario Court of Appeal ruling provided the final chapter in a legal whodunit that captured public interest like no other in modern Canadian history.
"The appellant in this case served 10 years in the penitentiary and has lived his entire adult life in the shadow of a conviction that we have concluded must be quashed as a miscarriage of justice," the five-judge panel observed.
Earlier in the day, Ontario's Attorney General Michael Bryant apologized to Mr. Truscott.
Steven Truscott and his lawyers, James Lockyer (centre) and Philip Campbell (left), at the news conference in Toronto. (Mark Blinch/Reuters)
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"On behalf of the government, I am truly sorry. It is a decision that will not be appealed by the Crown — it is over."
But it was an apology Mr. Truscott rejected.
"I know he apologized on behalf of the government, but I don't really feel that his apology was sincere," Mr. Truscott said. "For the past 4½ years, they had the same evidence as the judges had, and they chose to fight us every step of the way.
"The justice system — the Crown — fought us from the very beginning to the very end. The Crown chooses not to think about justice. It would almost appear that they are more interested in convictions."
It's a tough question. What is the role of the Crown? Should a court decision, regardless of when and how it was made, be defended at all costs? And is the justice system getting any better at identifying its mistakes?
Lawyer Philip Campbell, a member of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted and a member of Mr. Truscott's legal team, was online earlier today to answer your questions about the justice system and the rights of the wrongly convicted.
Your questions and Mr. Campbell's answers appear at the bottom of this page.
Mr. Campbell is a graduate of the University of Toronto faculty of law (1982) and was a called to the bar in 1984. He is the partner of James Lockyer and Richard Posner in Lockyer Campbell Posner, a Toronto law firm practising exclusively in the area of criminal law.
Mr. Campbell's work is devoted primarily to complex and serious criminal litigation, including homicides, constitutional challenges, extradition, and fraud. He has a great deal of experience in applications to the Minister of Justice, under Part XXI.1 of the Criminal Code, seeking to correct historic wrongful convictions.
Editor's Note: globeandmail.com editors will read and allow or reject each question/comment. Comments/questions may be edited for length or clarity. HTML is not allowed. We will not publish questions/comments that include personal attacks on participants in these discussions, that make false or unsubstantiated allegations, that purport to quote people or reports where the purported quote or fact cannot be easily verified, or questions/comments that include vulgar language or libellous statements. Preference will be given to readers who submit questions/comments using their full name and home town, rather than a pseudonym.
Jim Sheppard, Executive Editor, globeandmail.com: Mr. Campbell, thanks for joining us today to take questions from our readers. I'd like to start by asking you to tackle these broad questions:
"What is the role of the Crown — the attorney general, the prosecutors etc. — when serious questions arise about a possible miscarriage of justice?
Should a court decision — regardless of when and how it was made — be defended at all costs?
Is the Canadian justice system getting any better at identifying and correcting its mistakes?
Philip Campbell: Those are fundamental questions in a justice system that depends on an adversarial process — two sides each making their best case and pointing out flaws in the opposing case.
But the Supreme Court of Canada more than half a century ago, in its judgment in R v Boucher, made it clear that counsel for the Crown are expected to rise above the adversarial contest and serve the court in a different (and more demanding) way.
In words that should be inscribed on every prosecutor's desk, Justice Rand said:
