'It's nice to be free,' Clarence Woodhouse says after exoneration for 1973 Winnipeg murder he didn't commit
'You were wrongfully convicted. You were innocent,' judge tells Woodhouse
Clarence Woodhouse is a quiet man. But there's one thing he's always made sure to say: He didn't do what they claimed.
He said it to the judge who presided over his trial 50 years ago, after Woodhouse was charged in the murder of a chef and father of two who was killed in downtown Winnipeg in 1973. He said it to the jury that would later find him guilty of fatally beating and stabbing Ting Fong Chan, 40, near a downtown construction site, handing him a life sentence.
And he said it again in a Winnipeg courtroom on Thursday, when he pleaded not guilty to Chan's murder after his original conviction was overturned and a new trial ordered earlier this year.
However, this time someone said it back.
"You were wrongfully convicted. You were innocent," Manitoba Court of King's Bench Chief Justice Glenn Joyal told Woodhouse, now 72, as he acquitted the man who the court heard spent 12 years behind bars for a murder he didn't commit before being granted parole.
"There's nothing I can say to you that will give you back those 12 years — nothing I can say that will correct something that shouldn't have happened," Joyal said, adding systemic racism against the First Nations man "infected" the investigation, prosecution and adjudication of Woodhouse's case and led to the "miscarriage of justice."
"All I can say from the position that I'm now in is I'm sorry."
The update comes more than a year after two of Woodhouse's co-accused, Allan Woodhouse and Brian Anderson, were also acquitted in connection with Chan's murder — following cases court heard were also heavily influenced by systemic racism against the First Nations men.
Walking out of the Winnipeg courthouse where he was convicted for what he hopes will be the last time, Woodhouse said he feels like this chapter of his life has finally come to an end.
"It's nice to be free, eh, after all these years," he said, adding he's looking forward to relaxing and spending time with his family, including his grandchildren.
While he's ready to move on, Woodhouse said he and his family are still thinking about his brother, Russell Woodhouse, the fourth man convicted in Chan's killing. He was sentenced to 10 years behind bars and died in 2011, before the advocacy group Innocence Canada filed an application to have that conviction reviewed alongside his brother's.
"He must be happy from above," their sister, Linda Anderson, said outside court as Woodhouse's family celebrated. "I'm just happy that it's over … I thank the Lord for that."
Jerome Kennedy, one of the lawyers from Innocence Canada who worked on Woodhouse's case, said the group is hoping to be back in court to deal with Russell Woodhouse's case "in the not too distant future."
Crown prosecutor Michele Jules said Chan's family didn't feel they needed to be in court for Woodhouse's acquittal, after attending Allan Woodhouse's and Brian Anderson's cases last year, but said they felt "content and settled" with the outcome.
'No credible or reliable evidence': prosecutor
The case against Clarence Woodhouse, a member of Pinaymootang First Nation, was "almost entirely" based on statements he was said to have made to Winnipeg police officers, but evidence about police practices at the time and Woodhouse's familiarity with the English language "undermines their reliability and veracity," said Jules, who called no evidence in court Thursday.
For one thing, the use of violence and intimidation to coerce confessions was a common problem in police forces in the 1970s, including in Winnipeg, Jules said. Some of the detectives involved in Woodhouse's case were also involved in other cases where suspects made similar claims about their confessions having been manufactured by police, she said.
Woodhouse's insistence that he was innocent was also supported by evidence from a forensic linguist who said the level of English used in his apparent confession was inconsistent with the way he actually spoke when compared with his testimony at trial. Court heard Woodhouse, who sat with an interpreter in court, speaks Saulteaux.
"It was clear during trial that he has difficulty speaking and understanding English … The trial transcripts reflect his very limited proficiency, so much so that the trial judge deemed it necessary — without request from counsel — for Clarence Woodhouse to be provided the assistance of an interpreter," Jules said.
Woodhouse testified he signed a false confession after he was assaulted by police officers, but the trial judge and the all-white jury who decided his case didn't believe him, Innocence Canada said in a news release.
"The conduct of the prosecution fell below expected standards, even in 1974," said Jules, adding "there is no credible or reliable evidence" to proceed with prosecution against Woodhouse.
Another Innocence Canada lawyer, James Lockyer, said later Thursday the prosecutor in Woodhouse's case, George Dangerfield, also worked on a number of high-profile Manitoba murder cases in which men were later acquitted or had their charges quashed — including those of Frank Ostrowski, Thomas Sophonow, James Driskell and Kyle Unger.
In a statement later Thursday, the Winnipeg Police Service said there have been changes in the force in the last 50 years, including videotaping police statements for major crimes, using dedicated forensic investigators in the identification process and introducing mandatory bias-free and culturally based training.
In its own statement Thursday, the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs called on the province to do a comprehensive review of all murder convictions involving First Nations people in light of Woodhouse's exoneration.
Task force needed for wrongly convicted: lawyers
The lawyers behind Woodhouse's exoneration say they plan to write to Canada's justice minister suggesting the creation of a federal task force to examine how to identify and address other wrongful convictions across the country, particularly among Indigenous people.
"The criminal justice system has failed Indigenous people. It is clear that there are other cases out there," Kennedy told court, adding the task force should work with the provinces and Indigenous leaders, who can help identify and access the potentially wrongly convicted in and out of jails and prisons.
While that won't give people like Woodhouse back the years he lost, improving the system that failed them could mean "they have not suffered for nothing," Kennedy said.
And though Innocence Canada already does some of that work — they have only a few staff lawyers already tackling the 100 cases they're reviewing across a number of provinces — they don't have the resources to seek out every potential wrongful conviction in the country on their own, he said.
Lockyer also pointed to the proposed Miscarriage of Justice Review Commission, which is currently before the Senate, as a positive step that he hopes will be in existence before the year's end.
"When someone is proclaiming innocence after having been in jail for a period of time, you have to listen to them," he said, adding it's a myth that everyone in jail says they're innocent, since refusing to admit responsibility makes it difficult to get parole.
"It doesn't mean that they are innocent, but they need to be listened to — and that's what a new commission would do."
Federal Justice Minister Arif Virani said in Ottawa Thursday the government is committed to helping other wrongly convicted people through measures such as that bill.
"What's important is that as I reflect on this verdict — what it means for Clarence — I'm also reflecting on what we need to do as parliamentarians," Virani said, adding there is an overrepresentation of Indigenous and Black people in Canada's justice system.
"And we need to do right by other people that are undoubtedly right now still wrongfully convicted in prisons across this country."
Invited to legislature for apology
Later Thursday, Woodhouse and his family were invited to the Manitoba legislature for an apology from provincial Justice Minister Matt Wiebe for the unfair trial that led to his conviction and for the hardship for both Woodhouse's family and Chan's, who Wiebe said were given "a false justice that robs them of the closure that they deserve."
Addressing Woodhouse in the gallery directly, Wiebe said while he knows his apology can't undo the past, he hopes it can bring "a measure of peace and comfort to you and your family."
"What you knew to be the truth is now recognized by law. It's recognized by our government and it's recognized by me as attorney general of Manitoba," Wiebe said, as Premier Wab Kinew looked on. "No one should ever have to endure the torments that you were subjected to. Together, I hope we can work together to ensure that no Manitoban ever does."
Kinew said at an unrelated news conference earlier Thursday he looked forward to meeting Woodhouse, who he said speaks the same language as him.
"I just want to be able to just talk to a fellow Manitoban who had not exactly [the same], but maybe a similar background to mine and just compare notes … just to apologize directly, to spend the time and hear from him — what he thinks we should be working on, and what he has to share," Kinew said.
"I can tell you that the provincial government has already taken steps to ensure that we offer some form of redress. We'll never be able to give back the past that was robbed of this person and the others in a similar situation, but given what we know now, we can take steps to do right."
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With files from Darren Bernhardt