The sister of the man at the centre of one of Canada’s most high-profile wrongful conviction cases says she was “absolutely quite amazed” to learn last week that an independent commission being set up to examine similar cases across the country will be headquartered in her home city of Winnipeg.
Susan Milgaard, whose late brother David Milgaard was wrongfully imprisoned for 23 years for the rape and murder of Saskatoon nurse Gail Miller and later spent his life advocating for the wrongfully convicted, said she was happy to learn from the federal Justice Department last week that the Miscarriage of Justice Review Commission had selected its home base.
“I know that they had been speaking about Toronto or Ottawa, so I was surprised that it was Winnipeg, but [I’m] very, very happy that it’s going to be here,” she said. “They’re going to be here in my backyard, where I can kind of keep an eye on them.”
Milgaard said she’s hopeful the selection of its headquarters location means the commission will soon begin picking people to run it, so it can start reviewing possible wrongful convictions quickly.
“I’m just having good faith that it’s going to be the right people and it’s going to be done as soon as humanly possible,” she said. “Because every single day that you and I have here is another wrongfully convicted person sitting there, still locked up.”
The Miscarriage of Justice Review Commission Act, also known as David and Joyce Milgaard’s Law, got royal assent in December, allowing the creation of the independent commission to replace the existing ministerial review process for wrongful convictions.
The legislation was named after Milgaard’s Winnipeg-born brother, and their mother Joyce, who David Milgaard largely credited for securing his freedom. Joyce Milgaard died in 2020 at 89 years old, while David Milgaard was 69 when he died in 2022.
The update was announced as Federal Justice Minister Arif Virani said in a news release Friday a number of measures to establish the commission are now in effect, which will allow other steps to follow, including appointing commissioners and hiring staff.
‘Good atmosphere’ to address wrongful convictions in Winnipeg: lawyer
The selection of Winnipeg as the commission’s headquarters is a choice that makes sense, according to the founding director of a non-profit organization behind the exonerations of dozens of people across the country, including David Milgaard.
Innocence Canada lawyer James Lockyer said it fits given both the city’s central location, and how Manitoba has handled some of its own wrongful convictions.
That includes the recent exonerations of three men convicted in a 1973 murder they didn’t commit, where the chief justice of the Court of King’s Bench and the executive director of the Manitoba Prosecution Service agreed the men were wrongfully convicted.
“You don’t get that very often in these cases,” Lockyer said. “So I think there’s a good atmosphere in Winnipeg and in Manitoba as a whole for addressing wrongful convictions on the part of all the parties to the criminal justice system.”
Manitoba’s wrongful convictions also include a number of other high-profile cases prosecuted by the same Crown attorney, George Dangerfield, which include James Driskell, Thomas Sophonow, Kyle Unger and Frank Ostrowski, and three of the men charged in the 1973 killing of Ting Fong Chan: Brian Anderson, Allan Woodhouse and Clarence Woodhouse.
Russell Woodhouse — Clarence’s brother, convicted of manslaughter in the death — died in prison in 2011. An application to posthumously review his conviction is currently under review.
The case of Robert Sanderson, also prosecuted by Dangerfield, is still making its way through the Manitoba Court of Appeal.
The new wrongful conviction commission will be an independent body that people will be able to approach with claims of wrongful convictions instead of going through the justice minister of the day — a change Lockyer said he thinks will mean uncovering wrongful convictions faster, and finding “far more of them too.”
Once the commission is up and running, its commissioners will review, investigate and ultimately decide which criminal cases should be returned to the justice system because of a possible wrongful conviction, while the current ministerial review process will start to wind down, the Justice Department’s news release said.
It also noted the commission won’t be an alternative to the courts, saying applicants will still first need to exhaust their rights of appeal before applying. The commission will only be able to decide whether a miscarriage of justice may have occurred, while the power to overturn a conviction will remain with the courts.
