Ex-student VP settles defamation suit with McGill

Declan McCool, who had to resign as vice-president of McGill University's Students' Society after being anonymously accused of secual assault and convicted by an internal tribunal, has successfully settled his $1 million defamation suit against McGill and 10 other defendants.

D. Benjamin Miller, Arts Building, McGill University, 2022. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.

Former McGill student politician satisfied with defamation settlement | Montreal Gazette - Michelle Lalonde:

Apr 0, 2023 - "Declan McCool, the former vice-president of the Students’ Society of McGill University who successfully appealed a sexual assault complaint by a fellow student, has reached an out-of-court settlement in his defamation suit against his accuser and 10 other defendants. In a suit launched in the fall of 2020, McCool claimed $1.5 million — later reduced to $1 million — for lost income, pain, suffering and damage to his reputation due to the actions or inactions of his accuser, McGill University, the Engineering Undergraduate Society of McGill University (EUS), the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU), three SSMU executives, the publisher of the McGill Daily newspaper and three of its editors.

"The amount of the settlement and the details of its negotiation remain confidential, but McCool’s lawyer, Christopher Spiteri, said the matter has been settled to the satisfaction of his client.... Lawyers for McCool’s accuser and for the other defendants declined to comment on the settlement when contacted by the Montreal Gazette last week. Some did, however, issue statements to McCool as part of the settlement....

"In February 2020, McCool, then 24, was acclaimed to the position of VP internal with the SSMU. The job would have paid $35,000 for the term and was to start officially in June. But on March 12, 2020, McCool learned a fellow student had filed an anonymous complaint of sexual violence against him under the SSMU’s then-new All-Faculty Involvement Restriction Policy (IRP). The policy enables the SSMU and student associations to restrict the participation in student events of a person who is found, on a balance of probabilities, to have engaged in discrimination, harassment, violence and/or improper conduct. Although both McCool and his accuser were arts students, the complaint was filed with the Engineering Undergraduate Society.... The EUS appointed four engineering students to investigate the complaint against McCool. On April 2, McCool was informed that the committee had concluded there was a greater than 51 per cent chance that the alleged sexual violence had occurred. As a sanction, he was barred from events organized by student associations where alcohol was served.

"Both McCool and his accuser were bound by confidentiality rules outlined in the IRP, but eight hours after McCool was informed of the decision, an article was published in the McGill Daily revealing the decision against him. The article included an anonymous statement from the complainant calling upon McCool to resign as SSMU VP internal-elect, and on the SSMU to 'release a statement that condemns Declan McCool’s actions and acknowledges the continued prevalence of sexual and gendered violence at McGill.' On April 15, the newspaper published another statement by the anonymous complainant, in which she addressed McCool directly, calling him 'a perpetrator of gendered and sexual violence.' Again, she revealed no details of the allegations. McCool maintains the newspaper did not contact him for comment....

"McCool launched an appeal of the EUS committee decision on April 22. While that appeal was underway, the SSMU suspended him from his position without pay and took steps to have him removed from the position. Three SSMU executive members published a joint statement denouncing McCool and made comments on social media 'portraying him as a sexual predator,' according to the defamation claim. McCool had to step down from the McGill men’s rowing crew after the McGill men’s rowing coach advised other crew members to cut ties with him, and he was ousted from his fraternity housing.

"The EUS appointed an independent investigator, lawyer Anaïs Lacroix, to conduct the appeal.... It was during this appeal process, more than three months after the EUS committee had convicted him, that McCool was informed of the details of the allegations against him. According to Lacroix’s report, McCool and his accuser had met for drinks on Feb. 25, just weeks after he was acclaimed VP, at an off-campus bar. They later went to McCool’s fraternity room, where they had sex that night and again on the morning of Feb. 26.... The complainant alleged McCool did not receive continuous consent from her, and that he choked her, pulled her hair and pinned her down. She alleged she was unable to consent to sexual activity because of her level of intoxication. Since the case did not go to court, none of those accusations have been proved or disproved.... 

"But Lacroix’s report references screenshots of troubling text messages that the complainant sent to friends on the night of her encounter with McCool, and in the weeks following. At 1:30 a.m. on Feb. 26, the complainant texted friends to say she was considering having sex with either McCool or another SSMU executive. 'Declan it is,' the complainant texted about an hour later. When her friend asked her whether she had followed through, the complainant responded with a photo of a naked McCool, sleeping in bed beside her, according to evidence submitted in the defamation suit. 

"The text messages also revealed that the complainant may have had a motive to accuse McCool, Lacroix wrote.... 'Witness testimony and evidence suggest that the complainant had expressed a desire to run for SSMU VP internal — the position  that Mr. McCool was elected to'.... Lacroix granted the appeal, concluding that on the balance of probabilities and according to the evidence, McCool did not commit sexual violence against the complainant nor engage in improper conduct, the two were likely equally inebriated and the complainant communicated her consent affirmatively and continuously to McCool.

"McCool was initially given only a two-page summary of Lacroix’s report. He had to go to court to get access to the full report — granted in October 2021 — and again to have it unsealed so that it could be used in his defamation suit. In her Oct. 28, 2022 decision to unseal the report, Superior Court Judge Marie-Christine Hivon wrote: 'The sealing of the entire Lacroix decision constitutes a serious obstacle in (McCool’s) attempt to restore the truth and his reputation, in full view of everyone, and this, considering that Lacroix concludes that the sexual assault charges appear to be unfounded, according to the burden of proof that applies to his case.' 

"The McGill Daily did not report — until Monday in its publisher’s statement — that McCool won his appeal of the EUS sanction back in August 2020, nor did it report relevant evidence revealed in the Lacroix report, which has been public since October 2022."

Read more: https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/former-mcgill-student-politician-satisfied-with-defamation-settlement

Oregon man imprisoned due to DMV error

An Oregon man was wrongfully imprisoned for nearly a year for driving with a suspended license, due to false information in the state DMV database.  

An Oregon Man Was Wrongly Imprisoned for Almost a Year Because of an Error in a DMV Database | Reason - Emma Love:

Photo courtesy OregonLive  

March 17, 2023 - "Nicholas Chappelle spent almost a year in an Oregon prison after he was wrongfully convicted of driving with a suspended license. The reason for his incarceration? A shoddy DMV database. And the worst part is he's not alone. 

"While it's unclear just how many Oregonians have been wrongfully arrested or convicted due to errors in the database, at least 3,000 licenses have been mislabeled [and at] least five wrongful arrests or convictions have been identified.

"According to The Oregonian, the issue stems from an error-prone practice in the database of suspended licenses at the state's department of Driver & Motor Vehicles Services [DMV]. In Oregon, license suspensions don't take effect until a person has completed their prison or jail sentence. In the meantime, their licenses are listed as essentially permanently suspended, recorded in the database as suspended until "12/31/9999" or "00/00/0000." According to The Oregonian, around 3000 licenses are currently being affected.

"Once a suspended license holder is released from prison or jail, the state requires them to notify the DMV that they have been released in order to start counting time toward their actual suspension. However, according to The Oregonian, prison and jail officials haven't even been giving out the necessary forms to released inmates because they don't know who is facing license suspensions. When these former inmates get pulled over, they are likely to be arrested for driving with a suspended license, even if the actual tenure of their suspension is over..... 

"For individuals like Chappelle, this error can be life-altering. Chappelle was imprisoned for 11 months after he pleaded guilty to driving with a suspended license. He was innocent, but he pleaded guilty to the felony anyway. The Oregonian reports that during his imprisonment in a medium-security facility far from home, Chappelle lost his job as a union ironworker and missed the birth of his son. The wrongful conviction wasn't noticed until prosecutors in the Multnomah County District Attorney's Justice Integrity Unit found his case — and at least five other wrongful arrests and convictions.

"The Oregonian reports, 'The DMV has no idea how many people have been charged and prosecuted because of the erroneous records, but DMV administrator Amy Joyce acknowledges the problem has gone unaddressed for years.' According to one DMV administrator, the DMV did become aware of the issue at some unspecified point in the past, but it 'wasn't at a high enough level to understand the urgency' to try to fix the issue....

"'The state inhales tax dollars to oversee an accurate database,' wrote TechDirt's Tim Cushing. 'Those being taxed should not be expected to correct the state's errors. The state is being paid to do this job'.... DMV officials say they're working to fix the issue. However, the process appears to be moving slowly, requiring the collaboration of both the DMV and the Oregon Department of Corrections [DoC]. 'We're still hashing out with DOC how this is going to work exactly,' the DMV administrator told The Oregonian."

Read more: https://reason.com/2023/03/17/an-oregon-man-was-wrongly-imprisoned-for-almost-a-year-because-of-an-error-in-a-dmv-database/

Biden picks fellow drug warrior as running mate (video)

Kamala Harris Is a Cop Who Wants To Be (Vice) President | Reason - Elizabeth Nolan Brown:

August 11, 2020 - "The Democratic 2020 veepstakes are over, and Sen. Kamala Harris (D–Calif.) is the winner. Joe Biden announced Tuesday afternoon that he had picked Harris to be his running mate as he seeks to become the next president of the United States.

"The good news is that it keeps Harris — who has a long and authoritarian history on criminal justice issues — far from the Department of Justice. There was some speculation that should Biden win, he would name Harris as attorney general. As American's top cop, Harris would have the potential to do much more damage than as vice president. The bad news is that it puts Harris next in line for the presidency should anything happen to Biden and sets her up nicely for a future presidential run.... 

"Harris — who served as a district attorney in San Francisco and attorney general of California before becoming a senator in 2016 — has a troubling history when it comes to law-and-order issues and is despised for it by many young left-of-center voters; she consistently chose to protect law enforcement prerogatives and to stonewall reform in California, beyond the minimum demands of her role as the state's top cop. That's a particular liability as Americans streets are still erupting with protests over police violence and calls for criminal justice reform."

Read more: https://reason.com/2020/08/11/kamala-harris-is-a-cop-who-wants-to-be-vice-president/

MD man jailed 82 days for possession of honey

A Man Spent 82 Days in Jail on Meth Charges. The Meth Was Actually Honey. – Reason.com - Billy Binion:

August 27, 2019 - "Leon Haughton, a legal green card holder from Jamaica who has lived in Maryland for almost 10 years, arrived at Baltimore-Washington International Airport on December 29 following his yearly pilgrimage back home. U.S. Customs and Border Protection detained him. For what, he wasn't sure.

"Maryland Transportation Authority Police then arrested him, telling him that the bottles in his bag labeled 'honey' had tested positive for methamphetamine. A police dog sniffed Haughton's bag raising suspicion that he had drugs, and a field test at the airport yielded positive results for meth. He spent the next 82 days in jail.

"Except the bottles really were full of honey. Maryland State Police lab test results confirmed that on January 17, and prosecutors dropped three felony drug counts six days later.

"Yet he stayed in jail. The state was still pursuing a misdemeanor possession charge, the lab results notwithstanding, because Maryland's lab is not fully equipped to test liquids. On January 24, Haughton and his lawyer sought his immediate release on bail. It was denied. Citing the K-9 hit and the positive field test, prosecutors maintained the lesser charge while law enforcement sent the bottles to a Homeland Security lab in Georgia for more testing.

"Normally, Haughton would've been released on his own recognizance since the charges levied against him had been whittled down to one misdemeanor. But the original felony counts triggered an active Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainer — so if the state released him, the feds could arrest and deport him. Haughton's legal saga took place in the midst of the winter's lengthy government shutdown, meaning that no one could get in touch with the agency to have the detainer lifted....

"Haughton would not go home until March 21, when the new lab results came in and the state finally dropped the remaining charge.... During the ordeal, Haughton lost both of his jobs, one as a cleaner and the other as a construction worker."

Read more: https://reason.com/2019/08/27/the-meth-was-actually-honey/
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Wrongfully convicted man freed after 23 years

After Spending 23 Years in Prison for a Murder He Didn’t Commit, Ricky Kidd Is Going Home – Reason.com - Zuri Davis & Joe Seyton:

August 15, 2019 - "Ricky Kidd was charged in 1996 for a double murder that he did not commit ... and he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. On Wednesday, Judge Daren L. Adkins of Missouri's 43rd Judicial Circuit granted Kidd habeas corpus relief. After 23 years behind bars, Kidd will finally get to go home a free man, unless state prosecutors opt to retry him within 30 days of the Adkins' ruling....

"Police in Kansas City, Missouri, received a call in 1996 after neighbors believed they heard gunshots. Upon investigation, the lifeless bodies of George Bryant and Oscar Bridges were discovered at Bryant's property. An anonymous tip, which was likely called in by those connected to the crime, named Kidd as a suspect. That tip — and a number of Brady violations committed by the prosecutor — sealed Kidd's fate.

"Multiple witnesses attested that around the time of the shooting, Kidd was driving to the Jackson County Sheriff's Office at Lake Jacomo, Missouri, to apply for a gun permit [but] Kidd's alibi was not enough to save him from a sloppy police investigation. Nor did it convince the Jackson County lead prosecutor, ... Amy McGowan, [who] acknowledged in a 2017 deposition that 'there is no physical evidence tying [Kidd] to the crime scene that I recall.'

"McGowan did not disclose the depositions of Gary Goodspeed Sr. and Gary Goodspeed Jr., both of whom are now considered 'viable alternative suspects' in the murders of Bryant and Bridges, according to Adkins' ruling. Kidd's lawyers have spent years arguing that this was a Brady violation that ultimately helped doom Kidd.

"Though Kidd was sentenced to die alone in a cell, he had the Midwest Innocence Project (MIP) in his corner. Thanks to that group's years-long effort, Kidd received a Rule 91 hearing in April, which allowed him one final shot at habeas corpus relief.... On Wednesday, Adkins ordered the state of Missouri to release Kidd from prison.

"'Based on a careful consideration of the record and these proceedings, this Court finds that the evidence is clear and convincing that Kidd is innocent of the murders of George Bryant and Oscar Bridges,' Adkins wrote in his 107-page decision.....

"'If anything, Ricky's case shows just how hard it is to correct an injustice,' Tricia Bushnell, executive director [of] the MIP and a member of Kidd's legal team, told the AP. 'It shouldn't take 20 years to bring a man home. Ricky's case is solved. We know who committed this crime,' she added.... And even if he does get to come home, which seems likely, there's no getting back the 23 years Kidd lost while incarcerated."

Read more: https://reason.com/2019/08/15/after-spending-23-years-in-prison-for-a-murder-he-didnt-commit-ricky-kidd-is-going-home/
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‘Kids for Cash’ scandal documented (video)

Corrupt ‘Kids for Cash’ judge ruined more than 2,000 lives - Larry Getlen, New York Post:

February 23, 2014 - "Hillary Transue, 14, created a fake, humorous Myspace page about her school’s vice principal. Justin Bodnar, 12, cursed at another student’s mother. Ed Kenzakoski, 17, did nothing at all. It didn’t matter.

"As we see in the documentary “Kids for Cash,” ... all three Luzerne County, Pa. teens met the same fate for their minor infractions.... They were brought before Judge Mark A. Ciavarella and, without warning or the chance to offer a defense, found themselves pronounced guilty, shackled and sentenced to months of detention in a cockroach-infested jail. They were trapped in the juvenile justice system for years, robbing most of them of their entire high-school experience.

"Judge Ciavarella, who sentenced around 3,000 children in a similar manner, was later sentenced himself to 28 years in prison for financial crimes related to his acceptance of $2.2 million as a finder’s fee for the construction of a for-profit facility in which to house these so-called delinquents. The scandal was called 'Kids for Cash,' and it rocked the state in 2009.... Ciavarella had 2,480 of his convictions reversed and expunged....

"At the end of 'Kids for Cash,' directed by Robert May, information flashes across the screen saying: 'Two million children are arrested every year in the US, 95% for non-violent crimes'; that '66% of children who have been incarcerated never return to school'; and that 'the US incarcerates nearly 5 times more children than any other nation in the world.'”

Read more; https://nypost.com/2014/02/23/film-details-teens-struggles-in-state-detention-in-payoff-scandal/
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Wrongfully convicted men freed after 43 years

2 men wrongfully convicted of 1976 murder freed after 43 years behind bars - ABC News - Meghan Keneally:

March 29, 2019 - "There were bullet holes in the window screen and the curtains, but the main witness said the two shooters were inside and at the foot of her bed. The witness said she saw the muzzle flashes from two guns, but ballistics testing said that the bullets at the scene were fired from only one gun. People at a nearby party said they heard the gunshots, and if the shots were fired inside the bedroom, auditory testing said that wouldn't have been possible. And there were dozens of people at that birthday party down the street from the shooting that would have testified that the suspects were at the party -– therefore providing an alibi....

"But these pieces of evidence and the shifting story of the witness were not considered during a two day trial in 1976, and two men landed in jail as a result. One was sentenced to death, and the other was sentenced to life in prison.

"On Thursday, they walked free after a review of their case prompted the newly-formed Conviction Integrity Review (CIR) division of the State’s Attorney’s Office in Florida determined that they 'no longer [had] confidence in the integrity of the convictions or guilt of the accused'....

"Clifford Williams, who is now 76, and his nephew Nathan Myer, who is 61, had their convictions vacated. The last time they were free men, they were 33 and 18-years-old, respectively. They each spent 43 years behind bars for a murder that not only did they not commit, but that someone else [Nathaniel Lawson] had confessed to years after the killing....

"The murder in question was the May, 1976 shooting death of Jeanette Williams, who was not related to Clifford Williams but was renting an apartment from him when she was murdered. Nina Marshall ... was in bed with her and was also shot by the assailant but survived.... Marshall was the one that said that there were two shooters inside the bedroom, and subsequently identified Williams and Myers as the shooters. Both men have maintained their innocence throughout the process....

"Florida is one of 33 states that compensate individuals who were wrongly imprisoned and subsequently exonerated. The state stipulates that individuals can receive $50,000 per year that they were wrongfully convicted but with a cap of $2,000,000. The compensation law excludes anyone with either one prior violent felony or more than one non-violent felony. Myers will be eligible for such compensation, but Williams will not."

Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/US/men-wrongfully-convicted-1976-murder-freed-43-years/story?id=62012500&cid=social_fb_abcn&fbclid=IwAR2x3rLrSqLge-4TK7ExR3Qt5uhVdGAlUD6SXSnU3Ke9Zo_7JodEpUeB5IU
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Legal US resident arrested for wrongful conviction

Man freed after wrongful conviction, only to be taken into custody by immigration authorities - Chicago Tribune - Gregory Pratt & Megan Crepeau:

March 30, 2018 - "In the two decades since Ricardo Rodriguez was convicted of murder, he has maintained his innocence. This week, the Cook County state’s attorney agreed to drop the case against him amid allegations that a discredited police detective manipulated witnesses. But instead of walking out of prison a free man Wednesday, Rodriguez was taken into custody by federal immigration authorities....

"Before he was sent to prison for a 1995 murder, Rodriguez was a lawful permanent resident. His status was revoked when he was convicted, his attorneys said. Now he faces the possibility of being deported despite being freed....

"'A case with a conviction and then vacating a murder conviction, I haven’t heard of that,' said Erin Cobb, a vice chair on the American Immigration Lawyers Association Chicago chapter’s board....

"According to data compiled by the National Registry of Exonerations, a wrongful conviction database maintained by the University of Michigan, at least 159 people have been freed from prison after being convicted in Cook County — a staggering sum that ranks Cook County higher than almost every state for exonerations. That figure doesn’t include Rodriguez’s case....

"Rodriguez’s conviction stems from a drive-by in Humboldt Park, his attorneys said. A homeless man, Rodney Kemppainen, who did neighborhood jobs for people in exchange for sleeping in garages, was killed in the shooting.... Rodriguez did not confess to the killing, and there is no physical evidence linking him to the crime, the attorneys said.

"One of the witnesses who testified against Rodriguez claimed he was manipulated by Guevara, according to the attorneys.... [T]he Exoneration Project found another witness who said Rodriguez was not the shooter."

Read more: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-wrongful-conviction-legal-resident-20180328-story.html
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Record # of wrongly-jailed freed in US in 2017

Discovery of Police Corruption Freed Dozens of Imprisoned Americans in 2017 - Hit & Run : Reason.com - Scott Shackford:

Mar. 14, 2018 - "In 2017, 84 Americans were freed from prison after revelations of government misconduct helped prove them innocent. That sets a record, according to an annual report on exonerations in America... An additional 96 defendants in Chicago and Baltimore were released last year in 'group exonerations' as a result of two very high-profile police corruption cases.

"The details are part of the National Registry of Exonerations' annual report, a project by the University of California Irvine Newkirk Center for Science and Society, the University of Michigan Law School, and the Michigan State University College of Law. All in all, 139 exonerations were added to their registry for 2017, a drop from 171 in 2016. Though the total number of exonerations came down, a record number of people were exonerated due to official misconduct, mistaken eyewitness identification, false confessions, and perjury or false accusations.

"There has been a significant decline in exoneration for drug crimes ... because a backlog of cases from Harris County, Texas, has finally been cleared. In Harris County, the district attorney's office discovered hundreds of cases where defendants pleaded guilty to drug possession but subsequent crime lab tests discovered no actual illegal substances in the drugs. The county has been working since 2014 to go through all these cases and free people imprisoned for substances that turned out to not be illegal....

"Ledura Watkins, 61, was convicted of murder in 1976 in Detroit. After serving 41 years in prison, he was exonerated and released in June after details came out about faulty forensic evidence and police and prosecutor misconduct. His case represents the longest sentence served by anybody on the registry....

"Among the behaviors that led to this record-setting year, the most common form was concealing evidence. Of the 51 cases where a person convicted of homicide was subsequently exonerated in 2017, 43 involved official misconduct.... There were 29 exonerations involving false confessions in 2017, another record..... Eleven exonerations were a result of false confessions connected to ... one detective.

"In 66 exonerations — almost half the total — the underlying crime didn't even happen."

Read more: https://reason.com/blog/2018/03/14/discovery-of-police-corruption-freed-doz
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State must reimburse wrongfully convicted, SCOTUS rules

Wrongfully Convicted Entitled to Refunds, Rules Supreme Court - David G. Savage, Governing.com:

April 20, 2017 - "People who are freed from prison when their convictions are reversed deserve a refund of what they paid in fees, court costs and restitution, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday....

"The 7-1 decision orders the state of Colorado to refund several thousand dollars to two defendants, a woman and a man, who were convicted of sex crimes but had their convictions reversed. Shannon Nelson, who was charged with abusing her children, was acquitted in a retrial, and the prostitution-related charges against Louis Madden were dropped.

"In both instances, the state insisted on keeping the restitution they had paid.

"UCLA law professor Stuart Banner and the UCLA Supreme Court Clinic appealed the case of Nelson v. Colorado to the high court last year, noting that Colorado was the only state that regularly refused to refund money taken from criminal defendants who were later exonerated.

"Arguing the case in January, Banner said that as a matter of common sense and long legal tradition, people who were exonerated had a right to get back the money that was taken from them.

"The state's lawyer had raised eyebrows among the justices by arguing that the money in question was 'the state's money' because it was 'obtained pursuant to a conviction.'

"Colorado had adopted an Exoneration Act that allowed 'an innocent person who was wrongly convicted' to file a civil suit to seek refunds, but only if they could prove they were innocent of the crime. Most states allowed exonerated people to file a motion with a trial judge seeking a refund.

"Ginsburg said Colorado's scheme violates the 14th Amendment's protection for due process of law because it presumes the exonerated defendants are still guilty.

"'After a conviction has been reversed, unless and until the defendant should be retried, he must be presumed innocent of that charge,' she said, quoting earlier rulings. 'Colorado may not presume a person, adjudged guilty of no crime, nonetheless guilty enough for monetary extractions.'"

http://www.governing.com/topics/public-justice-safety/tns-scotus-wrongful-conviction.html
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Texas man jailed for possession of cat litter

Man jailed for 3 days after Texas cops confuse cat litter for meth • The Register - Alexander J. Martin:

January 9, 2017 - "Spare a thought for Ross LeBeau, who spent three days in jail when Texas cops confused cat litter for methamphetamine during a routine traffic stop....

"The Houston man had been stashing almost half a pound (220g) of cat litter in a sock in his car in the hope of stopping his windows fogging up, but in December two separate roadside field tests both gave false positives on the litter for meth.

"LeBeau got nicked and the cops of Harris County Sheriff's Office sent out a press release, including a mugshot, bragging of what they thought was the bust of the year, and claiming the arrest 'may have kept our children and loved ones free from being introduced to drugs.'

"The suspect was in jail for three days before a more thorough testing procedure in a laboratory identified that the suspected methamphetamine was in fact kitty litter.

"According to LeBeau's attorney, George Reul, LeBeau does not blame the arresting deputies, but the roadside tests which provided false positives....

"Houston has been at the centre of a scandal regarding the $2 roadside drug tests, which have been alleged to be sending tens of thousands of folk to jail on an annual basis, despite their proclivity for producing false positives.

"An article by ProPublica in conjunction with The New York Times Magazine, which looked at the issue at length, stated: 'Widespread evidence shows that these tests routinely produce false positives. Why are police departments and prosecutors still using them?'"

Read more: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/09/texas_man_loses_job_and_jailed_after_cops_confuse_cat_litter_for_meth/
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Conviction in wife's death overturned 45 years later

John Salmon's manslaughter conviction overturned - Toronto - CBC News: "John Salmon's manslaughter conviction overturned"

June 22, 2015 "A man who fought for 45 years to clear his name of a manslaughter conviction was exonerated by an Ontario court today after experts said his common-law wife's death was linked to her having suffered a stroke.

"On Monday morning, the Ontario Court of Appeal overturned John Frederick Salmon's conviction in the 1970 death of Maxine Ditchfield....

"Salmon, 75, served three years in prison. At the time, a pathologist testified Ditchfield died from brain swelling caused by a severe beating. The 30-year-old woman's body had dozens of bruises, many on her head, when she was taken from the Woodstock, Ont., home she shared with Salmon on Sept. 21, 1970. She died the next day in hospital.

"A jury found Salmon had beaten her in a drunken rage.

"But now, four forensic pathologists say her brain swelling was caused by a fall and a stroke after a night of drinking. The bruises are now believed to have been caused by repeated falls following the stroke.

"'So many of these cases of wrongful conviction result from bad pathology at the outset — where a natural cause of death is turned into a homicide,' said lawyer James Lockyer, who, together with Marie Henein, represented Salmon in court.

"Lockyer blamed the conviction on poor work by the original pathologist, who has since died, and what he described as a 'think dirty' presumption of guilt among officials of that era.

"'The science was there for him to draw the correct conclusions and he didn't. He got it wrong,' Lockyer said.

"The Crown also called for an acquittal....

"Salmon has always maintained his innocence.... [He} told reporters he did not keep track of the money he spent on his case over the years, but estimates it was about $100,000.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/john-salmon-s-manslaughter-conviction-overturned-1.3122365
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Canadian wrongfully convicted of murder released after 12 years in prison

'Nightmare' over for man wrongfully convicted of 1st-degree murder decade ago - Winnipeg Free Press - Colin Perkel, Canadian Press:

"A man wrongfully convicted of first-degree murder more than a decade ago took his first anxious steps as a free man on Friday after the Crown withdrew the charge against him.

"The decision came a year after the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously decided Leighton Hay should get a new trial based on new hair evidence.

"As Hay and family members looked on, Superior Court Justice John McMahon apologized that it took so long for the system to get it right....

"In an interview, lawyer James Lockyer said he wasn't sure his client was able to process the implications of what had just occurred.

"'Leighton has been through a nightmare for all these years,' Lockyer said. 'This was a miscarriage of justice of the highest order.'

"As a teen with mental-health problems and a member of a visible minority, the lawyer said, Hay was 'vulnerable" and police rushed to judgment.

"'He was another black guy,' Lockyer said."

Read more: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/crown-drops-charges-against-man-convicted-of-first-degree-murder-10-years-ago-284150871.html
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