This website contains material that may not be suitable for children.
Our condolences to the friends and families of Michel Giroux and Manon Bourdeau.
For Every Person Wrongly Convicted,
A Criminal Escapes Justice.
James Sauve and Richard Trudel
vow to help their co-accused
clear their names
CTV News February 27, 2007
This site is best viewed using Internet Explorer
6.0 and Above / 800 x 600
High Speed Connection Required for all Video Files
We spent 16 years of our lives incarcerated for a crime we did not commit
3.5 Meg "wmv" file 1 minute
Two of the lead OPP detectives in charge of this case were told by an informant that a biker, who was circulating a stolen video of the crime scene, had confesed to the murders and was bragging how he set these men up and got away with it.
.
The detectives told the informant to keep quite.
Prosecutor Julie Scott told court, the Crown's office is concerned about certain aspects of the disclosure being "made available to the public at large."
DEFENCE COUNSEL ASSOCIATION OF OTTAWA
500-200 Elgin Street
Ottawa, ON K2P-1L5
TEL:(613)236-0535 FAX:613-236-6598
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
May 10, 2007
Ministry of the Attorney General
McMurty-Scot Building
720 Bay Street, 11th Floor
Toronto, ON M5G-2K1
This prosecution became known as the "Cumberland Case" in Ottawa. As you are no doubt aware, all of the accused spent 15-16 years in custody and their case was never adjudicated on the merits.
The accused were severed into two prosecutions. One of them was stayed because of delay and the other was stayed by the Crown as a result of the decision in the first case. Your ministry has not appealed.
It must seem, to the public, quite a shocking proposition that four men could be in custody for so long without ever receiving a proper trial. You will know that the reasons given by the Court of Appeal for ordering new trials outlined numerous errors by the trial judge. Some of those errors were made on what would seem to be very basic principles of criminal law. For example, the trial judge ruled admissible the inculpatory parts of a statement while excluding the exculpatory aspects of the same statement. This ruling had no foundation at all, as every student of evidence knows.
More troubling then all of the errors and all of the delay in the bringing the matters to trial is the evidence that the Crown relied on to prosecute these cases. The problems with jailhouse informants have been noted many times, most notably in the Guy Paul Morin inquiry. The recommendations of that inquiry were designed to prevent future miscarriages of justice. It seems that those recommendations did not work.
As an organization, we are calling for a full public inquiry into the prosecution of these charges. The public deserves to know why so much money was spent and so little was accomplished. Citizens of this province are entitled to know how trials could proceed in this province with so many prosecutorial and judicial errors. Everyone interested in a fair and impartial vetting process for jail house informants should know why this prosecution continued even as the evidence from the first trials disappeared and the Crown found itself relying heavily on the uncorroborated evidence of a very unsavoury witness.
As an organization, we will be pleased to hear that you have announced a full public inquiry into these cases.
Yours truly,
Mark Ertel
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Mark Ertel
Bruce Engel
Douglas Baum
Susan Richer
Kimberley Pegg
James Foord
Dominic Lamb
Lawrence Greenspon
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
