Milgaard adds voice in new process to free wrongfully convicted

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This article was published 24/02/2020 (2229 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — David Milgaard is pushing the federal Liberals to immediately release people whom, as he was five decades ago, have been wrongfully convicted.

The Winnipeg native, who served 23 years in prison for a murder in Saskatoon he didn’t commit, met Monday with federal Justice Minister David Lametti, seeking to help form a new process to review convictions for prisoners who argue they’re innocent.

“It’s a really, really bright day. It offers hope to those people who are right now waiting inside cages,” Milgaard, 67, told the Free Press.

Currently, Department of Justice officials review cases where a criminal argues they’ve been wrongfully convicted. In other countries, independent commissions review those cases, and submit recommendations sooner than in Canada.

“We have to take this out of the hands of the criminal justice system. That way we don’t have police investigating police, and we have accountability,” Milgaard said.

Successive federal governments have pledged to reform this process, but Milgaard is hopeful the government led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will actually follow through.

Last December, Trudeau assigned Lametti to “establish an independent criminal case review commission, to make it easier and faster for potentially wrongfully convicted people to have their applications reviewed.” It’s the very first of 21 priorities in Lametti’s mandate letter.

Lametti has since created a working group, which includes Milgaard and his advocates, to help craft the commission.

Milgaard said it’s the first time he’s met with a federal justice minister, and he said Lametti was passionate about the issue.

He also asked Monday for the creation of an interim law, while the commission is being formed, to allow the minister to release an inmate once they know they’ve been wrongfully convicted.

He cited the example of Steven Truscott, who was cleared of a 1959 homicide in 2007. Ottawa had evidence he’d be wrongfully convicted years prior, yet had to order a new trial in order for Truscott to be released.

“We must get these people out of prison now,” Milgaard said.

He also said those who are rightfully convicted face dire living conditions in Canada’s putative prison system. He is seeking more restorative-justice initiatives, which he said heal offenders, instead of having them repeat a cycle of criminality.

Any justice reform will require the minority Liberals to rely on other parties for support.

The NDP has been supportive of expediting reviews for those who felt they’ve been wrongfully convicted, while Milgaard said he’s hoping to meet with the Opposition Conservatives, and his fellow advocates are speaking with the Bloc Québécois.

Milgaard also spoke Monday to roughly 100 University of Ottawa criminology students, and urged them to become advocates for criminal-justice reform. He recounted the particulars of his case, as well as trying times in prison and post-release dependence on alcohol.

“Prisoners and their family are people; they are not garbage,” he said, urging the students to never lose their compassion.

“We cannot let innocent people be disqualified from life, from beauty,” said Milgaard, who now lives in Calgary.

Milgaard’s mother, Joyce, worked tirelessly to get his case reviewed, picketing alone on Parliament Hill with a sandwich board. Now in her 80s, she’s still pushing for a broader reform, despite declining health.

“It’s a good thing that this is going to happen while she’s still alive,” said Milgaard, who was put in jail at 17.

His voice trembles when he talks about young people who have come into adulthood behind bars, especially those convicted on dubious grounds. He paused to smoke a cigarette, to calm his nerves.

“It does affect me emotionally, and I’m going to be happy someday when I can walk away from it.”

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca