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It was a bittersweet day for forensic science in 1998, when retired Quebec Court Justice Fred Kaufman released his report on the stunning series of blunders that led to the wrongful conviction of Guy Paul Morin, found guilty in 1984 of murdering his 9-year-old neighbour, Christine Jessop.
“An innocent person was convicted of a heinous crime he did not commit,” Kaufman wrote. “Science helped convict him. Science exonerated him.”
DNA testing cleared Morin, but Kaufman’s inquiry into what went wrong poked giant holes in the reliability of the hair and fibre comparison evidence that was the basis of the jury’s guilty finding.
Kaufman set his sights squarely on flawed forensic science, and the system that propped it up. His goal: to prevent a similar mistake from happening again.
Yet nearly 20 years later, recent scandals have once again shaken the public confidence — and renewed questions about whether the justice system has what it takes to keep junk science out of the courtroom.
In April, the Hospital for Sick Children permanently closed its Motherisk laboratory after a Torstar investigation...