A man who spent more than 12 years in prison after being convicted of killing his four-year-old niece has been acquitted by the Ontario Court of Appeal.

William Mullins-Johnson arrives for the appeal of his murder conviction in Toronto on Monday. The new appeal was granted in July. Expert analysis of the forensic findings of a discredited pathologist was presented.
(Frank Gunn/Canadian Press)

The decision came Monday after Crown prosecutors called for the acquittal of William Mullins-Johnson, a Sault Ste. Marie man convicted in 1994 of first-degree murder, partly on the now-questionable testimony of pathologist Dr. Charles Smith.

What happened to Mullins-Johnson was "regrettable," Justice Dennis O'Connor said during the ruling.

The Crown apologized in the Toronto courtroom for all the hardship caused to Mullins-Johnson and his family.

"I wish to extend our sincere, profound and deepest apology to Mr. Mullins-Johnson and to his family for the miscarriage of justice that occurred," lawyer Michal Fairburn said.

In an opening statement, Crown prosecutor Ken Campbell told the court that six "world-renowned experts" found there was "no evidence of homicide and no evidence of sexual injury" to indicate Valin Johnson was sodomized and strangled in 1993.

"An acquittal is really required in this case," Campbell told the three-judge Ontario Appeal Court panel before defence lawyers called their first witness.

Dr. Michael Pollanen, Ontario's chief forensic pathologist, testified that anal and neck injuries, which were used to substantiate a finding of sexual assault and homicide, were misread by Smith.

Always maintained his innocence

The court also heard an emotional Mullins-Johnson recount the events that led up to his niece's death and ripped apart his large family.

"It destroyed me," he said. "It ruined my name. It ruined my reputation. It ruined any opportunity I had."

"It's been a long time coming," Michael Lomer, Mullins-Johnson's former lawyer, said of the court decision.

He told CBC News he was "very pleased with the court's decision," and that Mullins-Johnson was likely now thinking about how to "somehow reconstruct his family."

Mullins-Johnson was convicted in 1994 of killing his niece in June 1993 despite an absence of forensic evidence linking him to the crime. He has always maintained his innocence.

He was released in 2005 after evidence surfaced that Smith had lost the tissue samples that could have shown the child died of natural causes. Smith had testified that Valin had been sexually assaulted and strangled.

Smith, once considered a leading forensic child pathologist, came under further fire in April, when a coroner's review concluded that 20 of the child autopsies he performed were questionable.

Mullins-Johnson's case was among 13 of the 20 that resulted in criminal convictions.

After Smith's work came under scrutiny in this and other cases, the Ontario government ordered a full public inquiry into the pathologist's work that's expected to begin next month.

In July, federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson referred Mullins-Johnson's case to the Ontario Court of Appeal.

The Department of Justice issued a statement at the time saying Nicholson was satisfied "there is a reasonable basis to conclude that a miscarriage of justice likely occurred" in the conviction.

Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant had also said the conviction "cannot stand," and the Court of Appeal should acquit Mullins-Johnson.

With files from the Canadian Press