David Milgaard part of panel in Winnipeg to discuss wrongful convictions

A man who spent 23 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of murder is back in Winnipeg this week, to discuss wrongful conviction and exoneration in the Canadian legal system.

David Milgaard is one of nine panelists who are in town to speak about the impacts of being wrongly convicted, how the current system designed to exonerate and compensate the wrongly convicted is flawed, and how and why it needs to be corrected.

Milgaard told CBC Radio's Up To Speed host Ismaila Alfa that one of the things taken away from him during his imprisonment was the experience with his family.

"My dad would come out and he would play cribbage with me. But while we were home, we were going on summer holidays and going to the lake," Milgaard said.

"Our lives were really quite fulfilling. And all of that was taken away from everyone as a result of this."

The worst part for Milgaard, however, "was that I didn't get a chance to grow up with my dad.

"That is something I still can't get over to this day," he said.

In terms of people who may have been wrongfully convicted in Canada, Milgaard said the queue is full for the attorneys going to court with them at Innocence Canada — a non-profit dedicated to identifying, advocating for and exonerating individuals who have been wrongfully convicted of a crime.

He said Innocence Canada is working on as many as 10 cases right now, but there could be thousands of people in Canada who were convicted of something they did not do and chose not to fight it.

Partially to blame for the issue, says Milgaard, is the Canadian Justice Review Board, a national advisory organization that reviews the justice system and various court decisions.

Milgaard cited the case of Steven Truscott, who was wrongfully convicted of murdering a classmate when he was 14 years old and waited nearly 50 years before being exonerated.

According to Milgaard, the federal justice minister at the time, Irwin Cotler, had had the wrongful conviction case in front of him, and the evidence that proved Truscott did not commit the crime. But instead of being able to overturn it himself, the case had to go back to the courts.

He also noted that there is a lack of transparency in the whole process.

The panel conversation is being hosted at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights from 2-5 p.m. Friday. 

Along with Milgaard, the panel will include Thomas Sophonow, James Driskell and Frank Ostrowski, three other Winnipeggers who served time in prison on murder convictions that were eventually overturned.