Carleton hosted the fourth annual conference on wrongful convictions Sept. 29, focusing on the causes of these convictions and how the legal system can ensure they never happen again.
The conference, put on by the Wrongful Conviction and Injustice Association of Carleton, included four panelists: two legal professionals and two wrongfully convicted persons.
“Many of these individuals believe there is justice,” said Anne Cools, a member of the Canadian Senate and the first panelist to speak at the conference.
“They hear it all the time, that Canada has the finest justice system in the world.”
However, Jamie Nelson was wrongfully convicted three times during the 1990s.
During this time, Nelson was involved in a bitter child-custody battle with his former girlfriend, Christine Thompson. Thompson was a friend of Cathy Fordham, who accused Nelson of raping and beating her which later led to his wrongful conviction, according to Nelson.
Nelson, who had only just gained some visitation rights to his son, said he was arrested at gunpoint when he pulled into his driveway on April 30, 1996. His son was in the back seat.
He was later convicted of sexual assault, assault, forcible confinement, and uttering death threats against Fordham. He served three-and-a-half years for a crime he never committed.
“I felt crushed,” Nelson said. “I was trying to make sense of an incomprehensible situation. I was trying to figure out how I was going to start and salvage the life that I had and how I was going to live within the new one that I had been handed. It was daunting and I was terrified.”
Nelson said that coming to terms with his prison sentence was difficult but that he had to adapt in order to survive.
“Obviously, the longer you’re [in prison], the more focused you are on being the inmate, or the survivor, rather than being the husband, the father, and the provider,” he said.
“Anger management certainly helped and trying to cope with it internally, knowing that all I had to do was let the time expire and once the time had expired I’d get my life back,” Nelson said.
He said his only current interest is accountability.
“I never felt vengeful because that’s not going to solve anything, it’s just going to keep the cycle perpetuating and it’s not what I was interested in,” he said. “I can never get those 1,000-plus days replaced.”
Cools said that she finds the justice system can unfairly target people without sufficient legal knowledge and without the wealth to properly defend themselves in court.
“The people who find themselves in these situations are not in the top echelons of society,” Cools said.
“Most of them seem to be plumbers, and electricians, and carpenters; people who are not well equipped in dealing with the law.”
“At the end of the day, the measure of any human society is how we treat an accused person,” Cools said.
