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[the process]. You can only think truth when you're not being hired by one side or another." Still, Young acknowledges that while similar inquiries elsewhere have sug- gested such a system, he knows of no jurisdiction that has actually adopted it. "That is a bitter pill for law- yers to swallow who like to have control over their cas- es," he says. Nevertheless, Young ar- Goudge himself, feel it's time to at least consider setting up a criminal cases review commission (CCRC), which would handle claims by people who say they were wrongfully accused. gues that while Goudge's work focused on Smith in particular, the inquiry of- fers a strong hint of other possible wrongful con- victions in Canada. For Smith alone, a review of 45 of his cases found he made questionable conclusions in 20 suspicious child deaths since 1991. In 12 of those instances, the courts found the accused, who oſten were family members, guilty. As a result, Young, along with many defence lawyers and "The expert must be aware of the limits of his or her expertise, stay within them, and not exaggerate them to the court." "You now have six inquiries suggesting and recommending it," says Calgary lawyer Hersh Wolch, who defended David Milgaard during his long battle to prove his innocence. "There is no rational argument for not doing it." The list of inquiries that have raised concerns over expert evidence reads — ONTARIO COURT OF APPEAL JUSTICE STEPHEN GOUDGE like a who's who of Canada's victims of wrongful convictions: Donald Marshall, Guy Paul Morin, Thomas Sophonow, James Driskell and, more recently, Mil- gaard. Essentially, a CCRC would be a more proactive investiga- tive body than the current final stop for challenging a conviction — the fed- eral minister of Justice. As it stands now, advo- cates for the wrongfully convicted say that launch- ing an application for re- view under s. 696.1 of the Criminal Code is a daunt- ing process. "It gave new meaning to the word pro bono," Wolch says, describing the years of work that went into unearthing and presenting new evidence to exonerate Milgaard. In his report, Goudge described what he called the catch-22 of the s. 696.1 process. To get the minister to hear the case, applicants must disclose some sort (800) 253-1666 (877) 695-6575 www. (800) 670-0407 mag.com NO VEMBER / DECEMBER 2008 51