Thomas Sophonow Essay

Throughout the court of Canada there has been many records of wrongfully convictions that have occured. Today we still investigate those cases and why this lead for an wrongful act. Thomas Sophonow, David Milgaard, and James Driskell are three of the many that were wrongfully convicted. They were all imprisoned for murder and served jail time for 5 or more years.

Thomas Sophonow

Thomas Sophonow was wrongfully convicted for the murder of an 16 year old Barbara Stoppel that took place in St. Boniface, Manitoba. Barbara Stoppel was strangled to death in the bathroom on December 23 1981. At that time couple witnesses saw Sophonow in the area which authorities believed that he was the murderer. Evidence was a twine that was used to straggle Stoppel.

This was then affirmed nine months later from the Supreme Court of canada. Sophonow Third trial began on February 4th 1985 in Manitoba Court of Appeal where Sophnow was once again convicted for second-degree murder. At this time the court not only reversed the conviction but ruled that Sophnow cannot be tried for the fourth time. Sophonow was acquitted on December 12th 1985. During the third trail the Supreme Court of canada refused to what the Crown Appeal decision was as stated, “The Supreme Court of Canada ultimately refused to hear a Crown appeal of the decision”(Historica Canada, 2016) The Court wanted to end the prosecution so no further trails would occur for Sophonow. During year 2000 Police Chief Jack Ewatski concede that the investigation was “botched” (InjusticeBusters, 2003) Peter Cory a former judge of the Supreme Court of Canada described the Sophonow case as “tunnel vision.” (InjusticeBusters, 2003) Cory mentioned how it was tunnel vision because of how the authorities conducted a case on a man who they have became conved was the murder. The evidence was found that the twine used to strangle Stoppel was manufactured by the Manitoba company rather than

David Milgaard at that time was coming to Saskatoon from Regina. Upon arrival a mutual friend Albert Cadrain met up with Milgaard. After the hangout Cadrain contacted the authorities and stated, “that Milgaard had acted suspiciously during the drive to Calgary. He also said that Milgaard appeared to have blood stains on his clothing that day.”( Historica Canada, 2015) The authorities questioned Milgaard but denied that he was the murder. The investigators did not quite there as they have interviewed one of Milgaard's friends Nichol John who stated that she witnessed Milgaard stab the victim. On may 30th 1969 Milgaard was charged with first- degree murder. There was no evidence present to prove that Milgaard was incoccent which he then was convicted on January 31st, 1970 and was sentenced to life in prison. On december 1988 Milgaard applied for a federal review of his case under section 691 of the Criminal Code which states, “(1) A person who is convicted of an indictable offence and whose conviction is affirmed by the court of appeal may appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada(a) on any question of law on which a judge of the court of appeal dissents; or(b) on any question of law, if leave to appeal is granted by the Supreme Court of Canada.” (Criminal Code, Section 691) The application was accepted by Justice Minister Kim Campbell on February 1991. The Supreme Court were