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55 years ago* a young nurse was raped and murdered in Saskatoon, which was then a relatively young, small city of 122,000 people. One year to the day of her murder -- itself suggestive of corruption, wrong-doing and improper agendas at play -- a young man was convicted of her murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Her name was Gail Miller. She was but 20 years old when she was sexually assaulted and then stabbed to death.

His name was David Milgaard. He was but 17 years old when he was convicted. He was still a child when forced to begin what would ultimately be 23 long, hard years in prison.

Thanks to the dogged, tireless effort of his mother Joyce and a Winnipeg lawyer who became convinced a grave miscariage of justice had taken place, David Milgaard was finally released from prison. Several years later consequent to the development of DNA testing he was ultimately exonerated of the crime. David spent those 23 long hard years in prison completely, entirely, totally innocent of the crime he had been wrongfully imprisoned for committing.

If you haven't already done so, you can read details of this horrible, sure-to-get-the-tears-flowing-or-put-a-lump-in-the-throats of all but the most jaded, hard-hearted, and corrupt cops, politicians, or Justice Department officials here. If you are too time crunched, and who isn't these days, to read all 156 pages with immediacy, just read the foreward -- written by David's sister, and Joyce's daughter, Susan. David's improper conviction didn't just rob David of the life he deserved. It robbed members of David Milgaard's family of the lives they deserved.

David eventually received financial compensation for his wrongful conviction and false imprisonment that was paid for by the taxpayers of Saskatchewan. The cops/detectives and prosecutors responsible for his false imprisonment/incarceration retired to generous pensions. Only one of them apologized at the ensuing Commission of Inquiry which lawyer, activist, and founding director of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted (now Innocence Canada) James Lockyer said gave the police and prosecutors a clean state and which David Milgaard characterized as a whitewash.  1.

Given that the province of Saskatchewan and its Department of Justice achieved national and international notority for having one of the worst (dubious actions by police, prosecutors and government muckety-mucks) and longest running miscariages of Justice to take place on Canadian soil, you would think:
a)    someone in Saskatchewan's government and Justice Department would have wanted to ensure that something like it will never happen again here;
b)    people in Saskatchewan's government, Justice deparment and the Public Prosecutions branch thereof would have been anxious to create a formal process and independent tribunal by which Saskatchewan citizens:
i)    who have been wrongfully convicted, or
ii)   have been convicted of an offense as a result of police and/or prosecutorial misconduct and violation of common law and Charter rights whether maliciously or grossly negigently or negligently, or
iii)  who have been induced to enter guilty pleas to an offence or offences they would not be found guilty of had they received the full and complete crown disclosure the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and common law declares they are entitled to and been able to present that information to a trial court or put it before their jury and which disclosure they were denied as a result of police and prosecutorial misconduct or gross negligence or negligence in the performance of their duties, and
c)    that a formal process and a tribunal that Saskatchewan citizens
i)    who have been wrongly convicted or claim to have been wrongly convicted can apply to have their convictions reviewed and if warranted overturned;
ii)  have been convicted of an offense as a result of police and/or prosecutorial misconduct and violation of common law and Charter rights whether maliciously or grossly negigently or negligently, can apply to have their convictions over-turned or their criminal records cleared and/or receive some compensation financial or otherwise for the common law and Charter rights violations when the convicted person was not aware of the rights violations before his or her trial and was unable to receive a remedy for them during the trial,
iii)  who have been induced to enter guilty pleas to an offence or offences they would not be found guilty of had they received the full and complete crown disclosure the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and common law declares they are entitled to and been able to present that information to a trial court or put it before their jury and which disclosure they were denied as a result of police and prosecutorial misconduct or gross negligence or negligence in the performance of their duties,
can apply to have their convictions over-turned or their criminal records cleared and/or receive some compensation financial or otherwise for the common law and Charter rights violations when the convicted person was not aware of the rights violations before his or her trial and was unable to receive a remedy for them during the trial would now exist in Saskatchewan and be one of those great humanitarian innovations the people and province of Saskatchewan had once been known for.

Boy do you not know how Saskatchewan's political and judicial elite, and Saskatchewan Justice and its Public Prosecutions branch, and how Saskatchewan's well-funded police departments have operated and operate!

No such processes or provincial tribunal exists.

No such processes or provincial tribunal has ever been set up to ensure that what happens in Saskatchewan's Criminal Courts is fair to the people that its police services and prosecutors, rightfully or wrongfully, bring before those courts.

The attitude of the present Saskatchewan government and its mouthpieces and functionaries on this is that the court system with its appeal courts is sufficient to protect and insulate citizens from injustice and wrong-doing, and that when it isn't the wronged party can always apply to the Federal body that was recently created to deal with wrongful convictions or launch a civil malicious prosecution suit against the claimed wrong-doers. 2.

What this actually means is shocking. The government is saying it doesn't give a rat's behind about those who are found guilty or induced to plead guilty consequent to prosecutorial or police wrong-doing, no matter how egregious.

The Appeal Courts only deal with errors of law made at the lower court level, so even if a wrongfully convicted person were to acquire information or evidence of prosecutorial and police wrongdoing resulting in proper disclosure not having been provided and their charter and common law rights not being respected (or some other henious rights violation) after their trial, and before the narrow window in which appeals must be filed and the somewhat larger but still narrow window in which appeals are heard, and they may not find this information or evidence until years or decades later, the appeal courts could not give them any remedy or relief so they must remain wronged and wrongly criminalized forever.

Those induced to plead guilty thanks to nondisclosure and/or other rights violations and misconduct are similarly as of now SOL, even more so. They can't file appeals of their guilty pleas and can't possibly satisfy the established criterion for having their wrongful criminalization overturned under a new Federal government process to deal with allegations of wrongful conviction since they were never convicted. Similarly, the ability to sue for malicious prosecution requires a judicial decision in which they were acquitted consequent to wrongdoing that was discovered by them or their counsel prior to the conclusion of their trial. They were never acquited.

As far as Saskatchewan and its Justice Department and judicial process in Saskatchewan is concerned, but for the new Federal government process, things are exactly as they were in 1971. It is as easy for Saskatchewan citizens to be Milgaarded today as it was when David Milgaard was so horribly wronged.

It seems that Saskatchewan Justice likes to eat Saskatchewan people and its appetite is apparently so unsatiable it won't do the right thing and ensure that only truly guilty people get convicted and criminalized here and that only the truly guilty are forced to endure the consequences of their guilt and criminalization. No wonder people leave.

Judicially induced reform is desperately required since reform doesn't seem like it will ever come from Saskatchewan legislative processes or Saskatchewan Justice and the government Ministers in charge of same.

What are the odds of such judicially induced reform happening any time soon? Not great at all. You need someone on the bench that is actually sympathetic to the under-resourced, poorer people who are usually the victims of the misconduct and believes so strongly in the rights Canadians are supposedly granted by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the commmon law that they are willing to make prosecutors and police and Attorney Generals accountable for prosecutorial and/or police misconduct, gross negligence and negligence. These are not the type of lawyers whom the government usually appoints to the Bench. In fact, they are the unconventional, unconforming, individualistic, radical lawyers the mega law firm run provincial Law Societies usually try to disbar.

In any event, if Saskatchewan's provincial government, or other provincial governments, are unwilling to ensure that the rights of their citizens are respected and accorded during criminal prosecution processes, and are having people improperly convicted or pleading guilty to crimes consequent to those rights violations when they are not, those responsible for the wrong-doing must have more tort grounds of action created for potential deployment against them so victims of the wrongdoing can hold the prosecutor and police wrongdoers responsible and accountable for their wrong doing.

The 9th Commandment in Exodus 20:16 states: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor”. Causing the innocent and not that innocent but not guilty to be criminalized when in law they ought not be is the violation of the 9th Commandment on steroids.

1.   Lisa Joy, SaskToday, July 25, 2022.

2.   Lisa Joy, SaskToday, July 25, 2022.

*  It will be 55 years to the day on January 31, 2025.