Re: RARA-AVIS: Wambaugh wobbles, but he don't fall down...

William Denton (buff@vex.net)
Tue, 7 Jul 1998 15:43:02 -0400 (EDT) On Mon, 6 Jul 1998, Kevin Smith wrote:

: Perhaps the best true crime book I read was Redrum by Kirk Makin,
: about a guy accused of murdering the little girl next door. He's
: since been proved innocent by DNA, but he went through a couple of
: trials, and served time, before eventually being cleared of all
: charges... (No double jeopardy in Canada; if it had been the States,
: he's probably have fried by now...).

We do have double jeopardy rules, as far as I know. I e-mailed a
couple of lawyer friends about this, but they haven't replied yet. A
quick web search turned up the fact that the Morin had a second trial
because the Supreme Court ruled the judge in the first case had erred
when giving instructions to the jury. He'd been found not guilty, but
had to go through it all again, but was found guilty the second time.
As you say, it's a fascinating case.
<URL: http://www.razberry.com/raz/laframboise/full_texts/morin/morin1.htm>
has some facts and links.

A good, tough private dick would really have helped.

Bill

-- 
William Denton | Toronto, Canada | http://www.vex.net/~buff/ | Caveat lector.
            "Let's keep the party polite."

# # To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to majordomo@icomm.ca. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.vex.net/~buff/rara-avis/.