The cost of wrongful convictions

Canada has its share of trials that go wrong. Occasionally the wrong people are found guilty of grievous criminal acts.

WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS
Some of the Canadians who have been exonerated after being wrongfully convicted

STEVEN TRUSCOTT

Truscott, 14 at the time, was charged with the rape and killing of 12-year-old Lynne Harper in 1959. He was sentenced to hang, but instead spent 10 years in prison. In 2007, the Ontario Court of Appeal called his incarceration and the subsequent 40 years of being labelled as Ms. Harper's killer "a miscarriage of justice." He was to receive $6.5-million in compensation.

DAVID MILGAARD

Found guilty of the 1969 murder of Gail Miller. Spent 23 years in prison. Received $10-million in compensation, including $750,000 payment to his mother.

THOMAS SOPHONOW

Found guilty of the murder of a 16-year-old Winnipeg waitress. Spent four years in jail before being freed in 1985. Received $2.5-million in compensation.

DONALD MARSHALL JR.

Found guilty of the 1971 murder of acquaintance Sandy Seale, who was actually killed in a robbery attempt. Spent 11 years in prison before being acquitted. Received a lifetime pension of $1.5-million.

CLAYTON JOHNSON

Found guilty in 1993 of murdering his wife when she had actually fallen down the stairs. Spent five years in prison before the conviction was overturned. Received $2.5-million.

RANDY DRUKEN

Found guilty of murdering his girlfriend in 1993. Spent nearly six years in prison before a jailhouse informant recanted his testimony. DNA evidence later implicated his brother. Received $2.1-million.

GUY PAUL MORIN

Tried for the 1984 murder of nine-year-old neighbour. Released in 1986, retried in 1992. Finally cleared in 1995 based on DNA evidence. Received $1.2-million in compensation.

JASON DIX

Convicted of murder in 1994 deaths of two Edmonton-area factory workers. Spent 22 months in jail before charges dismissed, based on case mismanagement by RCMP. Awarded nearly $765,000 damages.

RONALD DALTON

Charged with strangling his wife in 1988 and spent almost nine years in a Newfoundland jail. A retrial in 2000 found him not guilty. Paid $750,000 in compensation.

MOST RECENTLY, THE CASE OF IVAN HENRY

Ivan Henry already had a criminal history in 1983, a previous conviction for attempted rape. He also had a history of drug and alcohol abuse. According to a court-appointed psychiatrist, he was psychotic and suffered paranoid delusions.

Clearly, there was no advantage for him to defend himself on multiple sex charges in B. C. Supreme Court. But he did and despite a lack of reliable evidence -- and a host of other troublesome factors, unacknowledged at his trial but surfacing now -- Henry was convicted by a jury on three counts of rape, two counts of attempted rape and five of indecent assault.

A judge declared him a dangerous offender, which meant he might never experience freedom again.

He has spent the past 26 years in prison for crimes he has always maintained he did not commit.

Now released on bail, pending a decision on whether or not he will be re-tried, Ivan Henry has to learn how to live in a much changed world. Based on previous settlements for overturned convictions, he could easily be a recipient of several millions of dollars to smooth the way.

Would it not be more cost effective to monitor convictions with issues able to be reviewed by a totally separate group such as the Criminal Case Review Commission in England, one which is independent of police and prosecution, and on that will not cost the wrongfully convicted person hundreds of thousnds of dollars in lawyer fees?