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June 9, 1959:Steven Truscott, 14, takes Lynne Harper, 12, on a short bicycle ride near an Air Force base outside Clinton, Ontario, about 180 km west of Toronto.
June 11, 1959:Searchers find Lynne Harper's body in a nearby wood. She has been raped and strangled.
June 12, 1959:Police arrest Truscott.
June 13, 1959: Police charge Truscott in Harper's murder.
Dec. 8, 1959: After a 15-day trial, Truscott is found guilty and he is sentenced to death by hanging.
Jan. 22, 1960:Truscott's death sentence is commuted to life imprisonment.
Spring of 1966:Isabel LeBourdais' The Trial of Steven Truscott is published. The author questions the quick police investigation and trial procedures. The book sparks a public uproar. The Liberal government of Lester Pearson requests a Supreme Court review.
1966:The Supreme Court of Canada hears Truscott's case, but rules 8-1 against a new trial. Read more about the decision.
1969:Truscott is released on parole and moves to Guelph, Ont., where he adopts a new identity, marries, and raises three children.
March 29, 2000:Truscott breaks decades of silence and anonymity, proclaiming his innocence, in a documentary broadcast on the fifth estate. The program reveals new evidence to suggest that police may have been hasty in arresting Truscott.
November, 2000: A team of legal advocates from the Association in Defence of the Wrongfully Convicted, a group that includes lawyers who helped establish the innocence of Guy Paul Morin, David Milgaard and Donald Marshall, agree to take his case. AIDWYC lawyers--James Lockyer, Marlys Edwardh, Hersh Wolch (Alberta), and Philip Campbell make up Steven Truscott's legal team in the Court of Appeal.
November 2001: Truscott and his AIDWYC lawyers file an application for retrial under section 690 (which became section 696.1 in 2002) of the Criminal Code of Canada. Under the section, applications for retrial are submitted to the federal Minister of Justice (at that time Anne McLellan), who decides whether a new trial should be ordered. The Minister only considers whether the question as to whether or not a miscarriage of justice has occurred – a miscarriage that could necessitate a judicial review of the conviction.
The grounds advanced in support of the application are new documents (including police and Crown briefs and notes from the police investigation) that were not disclosed to the defence during the original trial in 1959, nor to the Supreme Court of Canada during its review of the case in 1966.
The application for retrial is not, however, based on any new forensic evidence pertaining to DNA; AIDWYC was unable to locate any exhibits that could be tested. They argued that the police used tunnel vision to zero in on Truscott, ignoring important witnesses and other suspects.
January 2002: Having conducted a preliminary assessment of Steven Truscott's application, the department of Justice recommends that an outside agent be retained to assist in the review of the case. Minister of Justice, Martin Cauchon, selects the Honourable Fred Kaufman to assess the claim under Section 690 of the Criminal Code.
Kaufman, who headed an inquiry into the wrongful murder conviction of Guy Paul Morin, is limited to making recommendations to the Justice department. He could recommend that the case be retried or reviewed by an appellate court or he could recommend a pardon.
April 20, 2004: Justice Kaufman delivers a 700-page report and thousands of pages of appendices to the Minister, now Irwin Cotler, regarding the Truscott application.
The report confirms that, in his opinion, sufficient new evidence had been found. He also recommends that the Minister of Justice order the Ontario Court of Appeal to hear the case as if it were an appeal of the original conviction.
Kaufman said in his report that there is now substantial consensus in the medical community that stomach contents - as well as body decomposition and the state of rigor mortis, which the coroner at Truscott's 1959 trial, Dr. John Penistan also looked to - are "highly unreliable" methods for determining time of death with such precision. "Simply put, modern science has removed the time of death as a piece of circumstantial evidence favouring Truscott's guilt." Kaufman said that taken together, with other undisclosed evidence in the case, this new forensic evidence may provide a basis for concluding that a miscarriage of justice occurred. Kaufman, however, lacked the legal power to cross-examine witnesses. It is largely for that reason that he recommends the case be referred to the Court of Appeal.
In the final stage of the conviction review process, the Minister of Justice reviews the investigation report, along with the legal advice from the investigating lawyer or agent and the materials submitted by the applicant. The Minister also carefully considers the opinion of his Special Advisor, Mr. Bernard Grenier. The Special Advisor oversees the review of an application made under s.696.1 and advises the Minister of Justice directly on matters related to the criminal conviction review process.
When making a decision on a wrongful conviction application, the Minister has three options. He can:
The Minister cannot issue a pardon or overturn a conviction. Nor can he decide guilt or innocence – that is within the Court's authority.
October 28, 2004:Federal Minister of Justice, Irwin Cotler, refers the Truscott case to the Ontario Court of Appeal for review. "I have determined that there is a reasonable basis to conclude that a miscarriage of justice occurred in this case," Cotler said. He went on to say: "We have a legal – and I believe moral – obligation to see if the new evidence would have affected the verdict."
The Minister based his decision on the recommendations of Justice Kaufman, Justice Bernard Grenier (the Minister's Special Advisor on the criminal conviction review process), and the submissions of both Steven Truscott and the Attorney General of Ontario.
The Minister could have ordered a new trial altogether instead of referring the conviction to the Court of Appeal. However, Cotler stated that a reference to the Court of Appeal was the appropriate decision to take because it presented the opportunity for Steven Truscott to be officially found not responsible for Lynne Harper's death . The Minister stated: "We have a legal, and I believe, moral obligation to determine whether the existence of new evidence would have affected the verdict. The appropriate way to make this determination – and to serve the ends of justice – is to refer the matter to the Ontario Court of Appeal."
January 18, 2005: Steven Truscott's 60th birthday.
April 4, 2006: Lynne Harper's body is exhumed from the Union Cemetery last spring in the hope of finding DNA evidence in preparation for the case. No DNA tests can be conducted however, because of the age and condition of Lynne Harper's remains.
June 19, 2006: Steven Truscott's notorious murder conviction finds its way to the Ontario Court of Appeal. The panel is headed by Ontario Chief Justice Roy McMurtry and includes Justice Michael Moldaver. The five-judge panel hears three weeks of testimony and fresh evidence.
November 2006: Portions of the Kaufman Report are released to the public. See the executive summary.
January 31, 2007: Hearings in the Truscott case continue at the Ontario Court of Appeal. There are three possible outcomes:
Judgment is expected by August 2007. Read the Ontario Court of Appeal's Factum.
Tuesday August 28, 2007: The long-awaited decision from the Ontario Court of Appeal was delivered. He was acquitted of murder in the death of Lynne Harper 48 years ago. A unamimous five-judge panel said the conviction was a miscarriage of justice. Read more at cbcnews.ca