Media fight for details of Nova Scotia man’s wrongful murder conviction

Michael Tutton  The Canadian Press

The struggle to release key evidence goes back to 2014, when the Justice Department determined there may have been a of miscarriage of justice and Glen Assoun was released on bail

A court battle is set to unfold Tuesday over the release of key evidence explaining what led to the wrongful murder conviction of a Nova Scotia man who spent almost 17 years in jail.

The Canadian Press, CBC and the Halifax Examiner will ask a judge for access to federal documents with details of how 63-year-old Glen Assoun was improperly convicted of second-degree murder on Sept. 17, 1999.

It’s a case where Canada’s minister of justice has already declared there was “reliable and relevant evidence” that wasn’t disclosed during criminal proceedings that Assoun has said ruined his life.

On March 1, after a two-decade struggle by Assoun to overturn his conviction, Nova Scotia Supreme Court Justice James Chipman found him innocent in the 1995 knifing death of 28-year-old Brenda Way.

Outside of court, lawyers with Innocence Canada, a group that works to free the wrongfully convicted, told reporters that police didn’t disclose key evidence before Assoun’s unsuccessful appeal in 2006 — keeping him in jail for eight more years.

The struggle to release the information goes back to 2014, when the Justice Department determined in a preliminary report there may have been a of miscarriage of justice and Assoun was released on bail.

At the time, Chipman refused the CBC’s request to see the report, and sealed the hundreds of pages of information.

Now, media lawyer David Coles argues the original sealing of the federal assessment should end.

“There are no witnesses whose evidence may be impacted by the release of the contents of the preliminary assessment,” he wrote in a recent application for its full release.

full story at https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/media-fight-for-details-of-nova-scotia-mans-wrongful-murder-conviction

Categorised in: Canadian News