Bill Mullins-Johnson

William Mullins-Johnson (Born 1970), of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada, was charged, and in 1994 wrongly convicted, of sexually assaulting and murdering his 4-year-old niece, Valin Johnson, on June 27, 1993. Mullins-Johnson had been babysitting his niece. When she was found dead in her bed, and the pathologists' report indicated that she had been sodomized and strangled or smothered after years of chronic sexual abuse, Mullins-Johnson immediately became the chief suspect. There was no forensic evidence linking Mullins-Johnson to an assault.

In September 2005, pathologists (including Ontario's chief pathologist) reviewed the original evidence, including tissue samples, and determined that a crime likely did not take place -- the evidence was consistent with death from natural causes, and what the original pathologists took as evidence of sodomy, an enlarged anus, may actually have been caused by muscles relaxing after death. The work of one of the original pathologists, Dr. Charles Smith, is now under review for 40 child deaths from 1991 onward.

On September 21 2005, after 12 years in prison, Mullins-Johnson was released on CAD 125,000 (USD 105,000) bail while Canadian justice minister Irwin Cotler decided whether to order a new trial or to send the case to the Ontario Court of Appeals. Mullins had been serving time in the medium security Warkworth Institution, about two hours northeast of Toronto, at the time of his bail hearing.

A businessman uncle, Gord Boissoneau, put up bail surety of CAD 75,000, while the other CAD 50,000 came from Mullins-Johnson's mother, Laureena Hill.

On October 15 2007, the Ontario Court of Appeal acquitted Mullins-Johnson at the request of the Crown prosecutors, who apologized to Mullins-Johnson in court for the wrongful conviction.

Legal history

The Ontario Court of Appeal upheld the conviction in 1996. The Supreme Court dismissed a further appeal in 1998 [http://www.lexum.umontreal.ca/csc-scc/en/com/1998/texte/98-05-22.1a.txt] . On 15 October 2007, the Ontario Court of Appeals acquitted Mullins-Johnson of all charges.

External links

* [http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/10/15/appeal-mullinsjohnson.html? CBC story on the acquital]
* [http://www.recorder.ca/cp/National/050920/n092085A.html Idea of freedom daunting to man who says he didn't commit 1993 murder: lawyer]
* [http://injusticebusters.com/05/Smith_Charles.shtml Injusticebusters compilation of news articles related to Smith]
* [http://www.ltvnews.com/viewarticle.php?id=3021 Mullins-Johnson: Was He Wrongly Convicted?]
* [http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20050922/MULLINS22/TPNational/Canada Man jailed for 12 years tastes freedom]
* [http://www.recorder.ca/cp/National/050921/n0921103A.html Twelve years in jail for murder that may not have happened 'hell,' man says]