Two wrongly convicted prisoners, Jamie Nelson and Robert Baltovich, spoke in Southam Hall Jan. 14 about their unexpected stint in prison and how it was the nightmare of their lives.
“You got to fight for what you believe in and you got to fight for your innocence because sometimes in that environment no one else is going to fight for you,” Baltovich said.
“Wrongfully Convicted: Remembering Injustice” was hosted by the Wrongful Conviction and Injustice Association of Carleton (WCIAC) to show that anyone can be wrongfully convicted.
“It is a very overlooked area of the criminal justice system and we try to spread this to the Carleton community and the Ottawa community,” said WCIAC president Kelly Lauzon.
In the mid 1990s, Nelson said he and his ex-girlfriend Christine Thompson, who were living in Ottawa at the time, were in a custody battle over their son. Nelson speculated that Thompson and her friend Cathy Fordham realized that if Nelson was in prison, he couldn’t see their son.
In 1996, Fordham told police she was raped by Nelson. He was found guilty of a rape he didn’t commit and spent more than three years in prison.
“I was hijacked from my own life,” Nelson said.
In prison, Nelson said he found he was treated differently from the other inmates because he was convicted of rape — the worst kind of crime.
Nelson had to change himself dramatically in order to survive, he said.
“I had to be the guy who pushed back, I had to be the guy who didn’t give a shit. And I was never like that before,” Nelson said.
Eventually, Nelson’s lawyer and two others realized Fordham’s accusations were false, as all three lawyers were representing defendants who were accused of crimes against Fordham.
In 2001, the Ontario Court of Appeal overturned Nelson’s conviction.
“Not only did I not do it, no one did it. It was a complete fabrication,” Nelson said.
Baltovich, on the other hand, said faulty eyewitness accounts and undisclosed evidence were key elements in his wrongful conviction.
After the disappearance of his girlfriend Elizabeth Bain in 1990, Baltovich was convicted of first-degree murder in 1992. He received a life sentence in prison with no chance of parole for 17 years.
“My mother died while I was in prison five years later and she never got to see me released,” Baltovich said.
At a March 2000 bail hearing, new evidence was presented that suggested Baltovich was innocent. He was released on bail after serving eight years in prison.
The new evidence suggested that the infamous serial killer Paul Bernardo killed Bain. Baltovich said though he believes Bernardo is a likely suspect, he doesn’t like to point fingers because he knows too well what that feels like.
Bernardo was never charged or convicted with the disappearance of Bain.
Baltovich was wrongfully convicted because the police “immediately came to the conclusion that [he] committed the crime,” he said.
“I’m still not sure why and I kind of feel like I was treated unfairly,” he said.
In 1992, when Baltovich told a prison guard he was innocent, the guard laughed in his face. Then in 1997, he apologized to Baltovich, saying he now doesn’t know what to believe with so many wrongful convictions coming to light.
“I think we really need to give prosecutors and police better tools and take a step back,” Baltovich said.
As WCIAC president Lauzon said, wrongful convictions are “kind of the dirty little secrets of the justice system.”
“What happened to me could literally happen to anyone in this room,” Nelson said. “And it happens so fast.”
