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In the 1990’s, Dr. Charles Smith was the head of Ontario’s pediatric forensic pathology unit. Now an inquiry has described his work as bordering on the ‘bizarre’ and has called into question his testimony in dozens of cases.

Pathologists from Britain and Alberta have determined that Smith made errors ranging from subtle to extreme, some of them leading to convictions of innocent people.

One of those was William Mullins-Johnson who has been found not guilty in the death of his four-year-old niece, but who spent 12 years in prison for her rape and murder, based mostly on Dr. Smith’s testimony. During the appeal and a review of the forensic evidence, it was discovered that not only did William not rape and murder his niece, but that the girl wasn’t raped and murdered at all; her death was accidental.

Now it seems the doctor’s shortcomings were systemic of problems throughout the coroner’s office. In January 2001, as questions about his performance were beginning to surface, Smith wrote a letter to his superiors asking to be excused from performing postmortems, and suggesting the office commission an independent review of his work. His request went ignored and Smith was still conducting autopsies until 2003.

In a rare occurrence, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office asked the courts to dismiss all charges against five men previously convicted of the rape of a female jogger in Central Park. The men, all between 14 and 16 years of age when the attack occurred in 1989, had confessed – more or less – to the crime. Then why the dismissal?

Another man, Matias Reyes, also eventually confessed to the crime. And while there was little to no physical evidence against the five boys, there was DNA evidence against Reyes.

So why did the five boys confess? It could have something to do with the fact that their interrogations lasted from 14 to 30 hours each. Or that at times they were questioned without their guardians or legal counsel present. Or that at least one of the boys suffered from borderline mental retardation. Or that they were told physical evidence linked them to the victim when it really did not. Or that they were led to believe they’d get an easier time of it if they implicated their friends.

Even though their confessions were contradictory and inconsistent, both with their friend’s confessions and with the testimony of other witnesses, the boys were convicted. And while they served their time, the real attacker, Reyes, went on to rape and kill another woman.

Robert Pickton may be Canada’s worst serial killer. The fifty-five year old pig-farmer faces 27 counts of first-degree murder. That number may rise as investigators continue to sift through hundreds of tones of dirt from Pickton’s farm. Pickton is suspected in the disappearance of more than 60 women, mostly drug-addicted sex-trade workers from Vancouver.

The case is still in the pre-trial phase and has recently encountered delays since the appointed judge has stepped aside due to scheduling conflicts; the trial is expected to run well into next year.

When we hear the term “child killer” we usually think of an adult who preys on children. This is an exception. In London, UK this month, British police arrested two girls and boy, 11 and 12 years old, on suspicion of attempting to murder a five-year-old boy.

The boy, Anthony, suffered serious injuries when the other children allegedly tried to strangle him by tying him to a tree with a rope around his neck. One could be inclined to excuse this as simply children playing, with no malicious intent. But such certainly wasn’t the case in 1993 when two ten-year-olds murdered a toddler, James Bulger, under similar circumstances.

William Mullins-Johnson was convicted of killing his four-year-old niece in 1994. There were tissue samples that may have exonerated him, but those samples went missing before they could be examined. Now they’ve been found, in the office of a Toronto pathologist, raising the specter of wrongful conviction, not just for Mullins-Johnson, but in a number of other cases. Might innocent people have been convicted because of this doctor’s actions, either accidental or otherwise?

As a result of this discovery, Ontario’s Chief Coroner, Dr. Barry McLellan, will review at least 40 homicide cases in which the pathologist either performed autopsies or provided expert testimony. The Association in Defense of the Wrongfully Convicted has called for a public inquiry beyond the coroner’s review.

David Bayliss, counsel for William Mullins-Johnson, commented, “What needs to be answered here is how a system tolerated this type of medical incompetence, or medical negligence, in a systemic way. We need to make sure that nothing like this ever occurs again.”