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Robert Baltovich | |
|---|---|
| Born | July 17, 1965 |
| Alma mater | University of Toronto |
| Known for | Wrongly convicted of murder |
Robert Baltovich (born July 17, 1965) is a Canadian man who was wrongly convicted in 1992 of the murder of his girlfriend, Elizabeth Bain, in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada. He spent eight years in prison and nearly another decade trying to clear his name, before being found not guilty in a retrial on April 22, 2008.
On June 8, 1990, Baltovich graduated with a degree in psychology and history from the University of Toronto at Scarborough. There he met fellow student Elizabeth Bain and a relationship developed. [1] Bain disappeared on June 19, 1990, after telling her mother she was going to "check the tennis schedule" on campus. On June 22, her car was found with a large bloodstain in the back seat, later identified to be Bain's blood. Her body was never found. Detectives Brian Raybould and Steve Reesor took over the case. [2]
On November 19, 1990, Baltovich was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. Justice John O'Driscoll presided over his case, with crown prosecutors John McMahon and Paul Amenta. His trial lawyers were William Gatward and Michael Engel. His case continued in the courts for several years, during which he consistently maintained his innocence. His lawyers suggested that the so-called "Scarborough rapist" (the term used for the then unidentified serial killer Paul Bernardo) might be responsible for the murder. [3]
On March 31, 1992, Baltovich was convicted of second-degree murder.
On December 2, 2004, the Court of Appeal for Ontario set aside the conviction, delivering what news reports called "a scathing attack" [4] on the conduct of the original trial judge. This fell short of the acquittal that Baltovich's counsel had argued for. On July 15, 2005, Ontario's Ministry of the Attorney-General announced that Baltovich would face a new trial on charges of second-degree murder, at an unspecified date, and remain free on bail in the meantime. During that time, Baltovich worked as a librarian for the Government of Ontario.
In 1999, Baltovich got in contact with the Association in Defense of the Wrongly Convicted (now Innocence Canada). James Lockyer and Joanne McLean took over his case and filed for an appeal. [3] On March 31, 2000, Baltovich was released on bail, pending the outcome of his appeal. In September 2004 his appeal was finally processed; once more his case gained national attention when his lawyers alleged that he had been wrongfully convicted and that Bernardo was guilty of Bain's murder. They pointed to circumstantial evidence suggesting links to Bernardo, evidence not available during Baltovich's original trial because Bernardo's identity as the "Scarborough rapist" was then unknown. Asked about the matter, Bernardo denied involvement in Bain's disappearance. [5] Baltovich's defense also pointed to issues with hypnotizing eyewitnesses to 'help with their memory'. The case R v. Trochym (2007) [3] deemed that any evidence obtained through hypnosis is inadmissible in court.
On March 31, 2008, jury selection began in the second-degree murder trial. The trial, slated to begin in Toronto on April 14, 2008, was delayed, with the Crown (prosecution) giving no reason. When the trial resumed, the Crown declined to call any of the more than 50 witnesses they had planned, citing "recent developments, including the cumulative effect of the pre-trial evidentiary rulings rendered to date in this case, other evidentiary issues, and changes to case law". [6] With no Crown case, the judge directed the jury to make a finding of not guilty on April 22, 2008. [7]
In January 2010, the Attorney-General concluded that the payment of financial compensation was not appropriate.
On April 21, 2010, a civil suit alleging malicious prosecution, negligent investigation and negligent representation was filed on behalf of Baltovich. The defendants named include John McMahon, now a judge with the Superior Court of Ontario, and Paul Amenta, a practicing Crown Attorney in Toronto. Det. Sgt. Brian Raybould and Det. Sgt. Steve Reesor, the two lead detectives in the case, are also named as defendants.
In May 2014, Baltovich's lawyers applied to amend his statement of claim. Media reported that during examinations for discovery related to Baltovich's civil suit, previously undisclosed forensic evidence had surfaced indicating that Det. Sgt. Brian Raybould had met with two forensic experts three days after Baltovich's arrest in November 1990 during which time he was told that the police theory of the crime - that Baltovich had killed Elizabeth Bain on June 19, 1990, hidden her body nearby in Colonel Danforth Park and that he had returned three days later to retrieve her body and drive it out of Scarborough in her car - was not supported by the forensic evidence found in Bain's car and that, according to Baltovich's lawyers, the theory presented at Baltovich's first trial was "flawed and untenable." It is also alleged that Det. Sgt. Brian Raybould doctored his notes in an effort to conceal the existence of the meeting by removing pages referencing the meeting and replacing them with another page from his notes from a later date.
In United States law, an Alford plea, also called a Kennedy plea in West Virginia, an Alford guilty plea, and the Alford doctrine, is a guilty plea in criminal court, whereby a defendant in a criminal case does not admit to the criminal act and asserts innocence, but accepts imposition of a sentence. This plea is allowed even if the evidence to be presented by the prosecution would be likely to persuade a judge or jury to find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. This can be caused by circumstantial evidence and testimony favoring the prosecution, and difficulty finding evidence and witnesses that would aid the defense.
Paul Kenneth Bernardo, also known as Paul Jason Teale, is a Canadian serial rapist and serial killer dubbed the Scarborough Rapist, the Schoolgirl Killer and, together with his former wife Karla Homolka, one of the Ken and Barbie Killers. He is known for initially committing a series of rapes in Scarborough, Ontario, a district of Toronto, between 1987 and 1990, before committing three murders with Homolka; among these victims was Karla's younger sister, Tammy Homolka.
Circumstantial evidence is evidence that relies on an inference to connect it to a conclusion of fact—such as a fingerprint at the scene of a crime. By contrast, direct evidence supports the truth of an assertion directly—i.e., without need for any additional evidence or inference.
Guy Paul Morin is a Canadian who was wrongly convicted of the October 1984 rape and murder of his nine-year-old next-door neighbour, Christine Jessop of Queensville, north of Toronto, Ontario. DNA testing led to a subsequent overturning of this verdict. On October 15, 2020, the Toronto Police Service announced a DNA match identifying Calvin Hoover as the one whose semen was recovered from Jessop’s underwear. Hoover killed himself in 2015.
Louise Woodward, born in 1978 (age 45–46), is a British former au pair, who at the age of 18 was charged with murder, but was subsequently convicted of the involuntary manslaughter of eight-month-old baby Matthew Eappen, in Newton, Massachusetts, United States of America.
Karla Leanne Homolka, also known as Karla Leanne Teale, Leanne Teale and Leanne Bordelais, is a Canadian serial killer who acted as an accomplice to her husband, Paul Bernardo, taking active part in the rapes and murders of at least three minors in Ontario – including her own sister, Tammy Homolka – between 1990 and 1992.
A miscarriage of justice occurs when an unfair outcome occurs in a criminal or civil proceeding, such as the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. Miscarriages are also known as wrongful convictions. Innocent people have sometimes ended up in prison for years before their conviction has eventually been overturned. They may be exonerated if new evidence comes to light or it is determined that the police or prosecutor committed some kind of misconduct at the original trial. In some jurisdictions this leads to the payment of compensation.
Steven Murray Truscott is a Canadian man who, at age fourteen, was convicted and sentenced to death in 1959 for the rape and murder of classmate Lynne Harper. Truscott had been the last known person to see her alive. He was scheduled to be hanged; however, the federal cabinet reprieved him and he was sentenced to life in prison and released on parole in 1969. Five decades later, in 2007, his conviction was overturned on the basis that key forensic evidence was weaker than had been portrayed at trial, and key evidence in favor of Truscott was concealed from his defense team. He was the youngest person in Canada to face execution.
James Lockyer is a lawyer and a prominent social justice activist in Toronto, Canada. He is a founding director of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted (AIDWYC). He has been involved in exposing more than ten wrongful convictions in Canada, including the cases of Guy Paul Morin, David Milgaard, Clayton Johnson and Gregory Parsons. Several of these cases have become the subject of public inquiries.
Innocence Canada, is a Canadian legal non-profit organization. Based in Toronto, Innocence Canada identifies, advocates for, and helps exonerate wrongly convicted individuals. The organization is also dedicated to preventing future wrongful convictions through education and criminal justice reform. Since its founding in 1993, Innocence Canada has helped to exonerate twenty-nine individuals.
On 20 June 1994, Robin and Margaret Bain and three of their four children – Arawa, Laniet, and Stephen – were shot to death in Dunedin, New Zealand. The only suspects were David Cullen Bain, the eldest son and only survivor, and Robin Bain, the father. David Bain, aged 22, was charged with five counts of murder. In May 1995, he was convicted on each of the five counts and sentenced to mandatory life in prison with a minimum non-parole period of sixteen years.
Henry Watkins Skinner was an American death row inmate in Texas. In 1995, he was convicted of bludgeoning to death his live-in girlfriend, Twila Busby, and stabbing to death her two adult sons, Randy Busby and Elwin Caler. On March 24, 2010, twenty minutes before his scheduled execution, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a stay of execution to consider the question of whether Skinner could request testing of DNA his attorney chose not to have tested at his original trial in 1994. A third execution date for November 9, 2011, was also ultimately stayed by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on November 7, 2011.
Richard Alexander is an Indiana man who was wrongfully convicted of rape and later exonerated by DNA evidence. Years later, on September 17, 2020, Alexander was charged with the murder of Catherine Minix, who was found stabbed to death. Minix had previously filed a protective order against Alexander for domestic violence.
Charles Randal Smith is a former Canadian pathologist known for performing flawed child autopsies that resulted in wrongful convictions.
Swedish tourists Sven Urban Höglin, aged 23, and his fiancée Heidi Birgitta Paakkonen, aged 21, disappeared while tramping on the Coromandel Peninsula of New Zealand in 1989. Police, residents, and military personnel conducted the largest land-based search undertaken in New Zealand, attempting to find the couple. In December 1990, David Wayne Tamihere was convicted of murdering Höglin and Paakkonen, and sentenced to life imprisonment based largely on the testimony of three prison inmates.
The Commission on Proceedings Involving Guy Paul Morin—known as the Kaufman Commission or the Morin Inquiry—was a 1996 royal commission appointed by the Government of Ontario to address the wrongful conviction in 1992 of Guy Paul Morin for the murder of Christine Jessop on 3 October 1984, for which he was exonerated by DNA evidence on 23 January 1995.
Centurion is a non-profit organization located in Princeton, New Jersey, with a mission to exonerate innocent individuals who have been wrongly convicted and sentenced to life sentences or death.
This is a list of notable overturned convictions in Canada.
The California Innocence Project is a non-profit based at California Western School of Law in San Diego, California, United States, which provides pro bono legal services to individuals who maintain their factual innocence of crime(s) for which they have been convicted. It is an independent chapter of the Innocence Project. Its mission is to exonerate wrongly convicted inmates through the use of DNA and other evidences.
Alissa Leanne Bjerkhoel is an American litigation coordinator at the California Innocence Project (CIP), a law school clinic that investigates cases of factual innocence while training law students. Bjerkhoel was born in Truckee, California, and later graduated from California Western School of Law (CWSL) after previously obtaining a B.A. degree She has been an attorney with CIP since 2008. Bjerkhoel has served as counsel for CIP on numerous criminal cases, and achieved the legal exoneration of a number of convicted prisoners. Bjerkhoel serves as CIP's in-house DNA expert and also serves as a panel attorney with the nonprofit law firms Appellate Defenders, Inc. (ADI) and Sixth District Appellate Program (SDAP). She is a member of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. Bjerkhoel has won a number of awards.
