"Experiencing and preventing wrongful convictions: the experience of David Milgaard"

Wed. Jan. 15 06:00 PM - Wed. Jan. 15 07:30 PM
Contact: k.gorkoff@uwinnipeg.ca or 204.786.9104
Location: Eckhardt Gramatte Hall

The Department of Criminal Justice presents Mr. David Milgaard:

"Experiencing and preventing wrongful convictions: the experience of David Milgaard"

(photo supplied)

Mr. Milgaard will discuss the impacts of wrongful conviction. He will highlight the visible and less visible and/or hidden impacts of being wrongfully convicted (on his family, his friends, himself). Invisible impacts are those that are not apparent to the general public but are significant during trial, while incarcerated, in the five years between his release from prison and his official exoneration, and while trying to rebuild his life. He will also discuss what people working in the criminal justice system (lawyers, police officers, correctional workers, probation officers, etc.) should know about wrongful convictions as they embark on their careers.

Bio

David Milgaard was born July 7, 1952 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. He was arrested for non-capital murder at 16 years of age.

He was convicted for this crime that took place in the prairie city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and sentenced to life imprisonment. David was not guilty in any way of this crime.

His case was sent to the supreme court of Canada who sent it back to Saskatchewan who refused a retrial stating too many years had lapsed. David reached out to Innocence Canada, then Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted (AIDWYC), and they arranged for his DNA to be sent to a lab in England. 

Mr. Milgaard appealed his conviction several times but was blocked by bureaucracy. His formal application was completed in 1988 but was not considered until 1991 after Liberal MP Lloyd Axworthy addressed Parliament. In July 1997 David was exonerated after the DNA results not only cleared his name but the real killer was identified.

David became involved with social justice issues while inside prison and brought grass roots people into prison to speak to prisoners. He fought prison administrators to do so. His mother, Joyce Milgaard, never gave up in her fight to prove the truth about her son's innocence and she secured his freedom after he had served more than 22 years of imprisonment