Twenty Years for Nothing: An Exploration of Wrongful Conviction Cases in Canada Articles and Addresses 69 Criminal Law Quarterly 2021

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69 Crim. L.Q. 111 (2021)
Twenty Years for Nothing: An Exploration of Wrongful Conviction Cases in Canada

handle is hein.journals/clwqrty69 and id is 117 raw text is: Twenty Years for Nothing: An Exploration of
Wrongful Conviction Cases in Canada'
Regina A. Schuller, KimberleyA. Clow and Caroline Erentzen
The manner in which a society concerns itself with persons who may
have been wrongly convicted and imprisoned must be one of the
yardsticks by which civilization is measured.
(Justice Report on Miscarriages of Justice, 2011)2
Wrongful convictions steal years - if not decades - of life and
opportunities from innocent citizens, with irreparable impact not
only on the wrongly convicted,3 but also on their families and
1. A portion of this title, Twenty Years for Nothing, contains lyrics from the
song Wheat Kings by Canadian band, The Tragically Hip. The song
details the highly publicized case of David Milgaard, who was wrongfully
imprisoned for more than 20 years for the rape and murder of Gail Miller.
Note: The significant personal costs of a wrongful conviction cannot be
overstated, including profound mental suffering, physical harm, loss of
liberty and dignity, personal sacrifices, missed opportunities in career and
education, and long-term psychological harm. This work is dedicated to
those who have been wrongfully convicted in this country, in the hope that
we may learn from our past and avoid future injustices.
The authors would like to express their sincere appreciation to Win
Wahrer at Innocence Canada for her ongoing assistance and support
throughout the drafting of this project, her help was truly instrumental to the
project. We would also like to thank Kent Roach for valuable insight and
suggestions on earlier drafts of this article, as well as Kieran Dyer for his
assistance with the identification of some of the wrongful conviction cases,
and Richard Lalonde for all of his help with this manuscript.
* Regina A. Schuller, York University. Kimberley A. Clow, Ontario Tech
University. Caroline Erentzen, York University.
2. Stephen Bindman and Mary Nethery, Federal/Provincial/Territorial Heads
of Prosecutions Subcommittee on the Prevention of Wrongful Convic-
tions,The Path to Justice: Preventing Wrongful Convictions, Department of
Justice (2011); Citing George Stanley Waller, Miscarriages of Justice, Justice
(1989).
3. Kathryn Campbell and Miriam Denov, The Burden of Innocence: Coping
with a Wrongful Imprisonment (2004), 46 Can. J. Criminol. & Crim. J. 139;
Kathryn Campbell and Miriam Denov, Miscarriages of Justice: The Impact
of Wrongful Imprisonment, Department of Justice, Government of Canada
(2005), JustResearch, Edition no. 13; Adrian T. Grounds, Understanding

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