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Showing posts with the label Innocence Canada

BAIL HEARING FOR WOODHOUSE MONDAY IN MANITOBA

  Indigenous Man Returns to the Court in Winnipeg where He was Convicted 50 Years Ago ­­­­­__________________________________________   More than 49 years ago on March 5, 1974,  Clarence Woodhouse , a young Indigenous man, and a member of the Pinaymootang First Nation on the Fairford Indian Reserve in Manitoba, was convicted of the murder of Mr. Ting Fong Chan in Winnipeg, a crime he did not commit.   On July 18 of this year, two of Mr. Woodhouse’s former co-accused were vindicated in the King’s Bench Court by Chief Justice Joyal in Winnipeg. A fourth accused, Clarence’s brother Russell Woodhouse, sadly died in 2011 before he could be vindicated.   On September 13, 2023,  Innocence Canada  filed an application with Federal Justice Minister Arif Virani for a ministerial review of Clarence Woodhouse’s conviction pursuant to the provisions of the  Criminal Code.   We also filed a posthumous application on Russell Woodhouse’s behalf with the support of his surviving sister, Linda Anderson.

Wrongful convictions are a scourge on our justice system

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Innocence Canada Welcomes Federal Promise of Independent Commission From:  Innocence Canada (issued by Stephen Weir on behalf of Innocence Canada)   News release  December 13, 2019 TORONTO: A federal plan to create an independent body to seek out and correct possible wrongful convictions represents the realization of a 25 year-dream for the innocence movement.  Innocence Canada - the country's leading organization advocating for the wrongly convicted - pledged to give Justice Minister David Lametti its full support and assistance as the government establishes the independent commission. Innocence Canada, formerly the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted, has been advocating for the creation of an independent commission since the organization’s inception in 1993.  Over its 25-year history, Innocence Canada has participated in the exoneration of 23 wrongly convicted people in Canada in addition to contributing to a number of public inquiries and commissi