William Mullins-Johnson,member of the Batchewana First Nation
Wed, 2007-10-24 16:27
#1
William Mullins-Johnson,member of the Batchewana First Nation
Wed, 2007-10-24 16:27
#2
quote:
Canadian courts should not be in the business of issuing declarations of innocence to people wrongly convicted of crimes, even in cases where evidence of guilt is entirely lacking, lawyers for Ontario's attorney general says.
I put this here because I watched him in an interview and he said that he thought that because he is aboriginal, no one believed that he did not commit the crime. There is much more to this of course....
[url=http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/266835]Should rulings include 'innocent'?[/url]
[ 24 October 2007: Message edited by: 1234567 ]
Wed, 2007-10-24 19:15
#3
M. Spector
[url=http://www.rabble.ca/babble/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=006865]We have a thread on this already[/url]
Thu, 2007-10-25 02:17
#4
I think the other thread tackles another aspect to this particular case. I think it's appropriate to address the issue onetwothreefourfivesixseven brings up here.
Until the Mullins-Johnson case, it never entered my mind that the findings of Dr. Charles Smith could have had anything to do with race. A quick and superficial search indicates that perhaps it has nothing to do with race. But going by last names is not terribly indicative. I guess we will have to wait for the inquiry.
Thu, 2007-10-25 06:09
#5
Watching him in the interview, he said that he was not tried by a group of his peers. There was not one single person on the jury who was aboriginal, yet, it was common knowledge to all jurors that he was aboriginal.
Many Canadians have no idea of how aboriginal people live in this country. It could have been assumed by the jury that because he was aboriginal he might have been sexually assaulted at some point in his life. Especially because of all the spotlight on residential schools. The reasons for the big cash payout for residential school survivors is not because those aboriginal people who attended were all abused but because they were taken away from their families and lost their ties to their families and culture.
I ask myself if what happened to this man is the reason why there are so many aboriginal people in the prison system?
Thu, 2007-10-25 08:53
#6
M. Spector
You have to ask, given the false evidence of Dr. Charles Smith, would an aboriginal jury have rendered a different verdict?
Thu, 2007-10-25 10:14
#7
The brief is quite clear on the legal rationale for not declaring him innocent.
quote:
Going beyond the traditional verdicts of "guilty" or "not guilty" and making an official finding of "factual innocence" would move the country's courts toward a "three-tier" verdict system, lawyers for the Crown say in a court brief filed for the case of William Mullins-Johnson.The result would be "a grave disservice" to people simply found "not guilty" by the courts, leaving them with a tarnished, second-class status, the attorney general argues.
"A verdict of innocence or declaration of innocence has never been and should not become part of Canadian law," a Crown brief says.
I tend to agree that anyone found not guilty in a system that also included an innocent verdict would forever remain under a cloud of suspicion.
In the case of Canada's court system it would likely lead to far greater reprecussins for people marginalized by our racist society. The sentimment "he was only declared not guilty but not innocent of the crime" would be more often than not be readily applied to FN's, POC and dissidents and not people from our elites..
This is different issue than whether or not his original trial was fair.
Thu, 2007-10-25 10:31
#8
quote:
You have to ask, given the false evidence of Dr. Charles Smith, would an aboriginal jury have rendered a different verdict?
Or, if the defendant had not been aboriginal would the evidence given by Dr. Smith been false? I know that he was being watched because of other cases that he was the coroner of and I admit I don't know the race of each of those individuals.
Look at how the media portrays aboriginal people as either noble Indians or corrupt savages. So, if the jury was all non aboriginal and their only experience with aboriginal people was what they see in the papers every day, how do you think they would decide on the verdict?
Thu, 2007-10-25 10:35
#9
Polly B
Aren't we innocent until proven guilty? Or is that just on tv?
It would seem to follow that if we start out innocent, then tried for a crime and NOT found guilty, we should revert to innocent, not not-guilty.
Thu, 2007-10-25 11:49
#10
Innocent implies there is evidence that makes it impossible for the accused person to have committed the crime.
That's why a finding of "innocent" in Truscot's case was impossible, and why "not guilty" was appropriate.
I guess, very technically, even Guy Paul Morin could not be found "innocent" either. Someone else's DNA on clothing doesn't mean Morin could not have killed Jessop. However, it doesn't mean I couldn't have killed her, either, or millions of Ontarians alive at the time.
I find it mind boggling, however, to not be able to declare Mullins-Johnson "innocent" of a crime that didn't even take place.
It's sadistic word games. Games that are not played with rich white men.
[ 25 October 2007: Message edited by: Tommy_Paine ]
Thu, 2007-10-25 14:10
#11
From what I’ve read the only judicial tools available are for determining either guilt or no guilt. So, there’s no facility for declaring innocence? Would it then be a cause for appeal if the judges tried to declare innocence?
Getting back to 1234567's point, emotions play an important part in resolving conflict. The rules of law very much strip away the details of emotion in favour of seeking just the facts. The law manufactures a specific kind of truth for it’s specific purposes.
If truths were examined more fully you might find that prejudices and attitudes play a role in determining the law’s truth. Emotions are what sustains things like prejudice, opinion, attitude well beyond the determination of a court. The “truth” about this case didn’t come out because of that.