CROOKED CANADIAN LAW ENFORCEMENT

The innocent guy gets 23 years. The guy who finally confessed to the crime gets 4 years

Gail Miller's killer is perplexed about why Saskatchewan justice officials didn't hand him a stiffer sentence for four sexual attacks he confessed to committing in Saskatoon around the time the woman was raped and murdered in 1969. "I could have expected a life bit [sentence] for every one of them," Larry Fisher testified yesterday at the public inquiry examining the wrongful conviction of David Milgaard for the murder of Ms. Miller in Saskatoon 36 years ago.

In 1971, a Regina judge, based on the strength of a deal made by the Crown, handed Mr. Fisher four years to run concurrently with a 13-year sentence he had received one year earlier for two sexual assaults he committed in Manitoba. When asked by Mr. Milgaard's lawyer, Hersh Wolch, why he didn't receive a tougher sentence, Mr. Fisher replied: "That's thanks to them sending me to Regina. "They could have asked for more time. They could have got any time they wanted," the 56-year-old said. "No matter where I go, any form of violence against women is serious."

Mr. Milgaard, who was 17 when he was convicted in 1970, spent 23 years in prison for Ms. Miller's murder. He was finally set free after the Supreme Court of Canada reviewed his conviction in 1992 as evidence connecting Mr. Fisher to the Miller murder began to mount. Mr. Fisher, a stocky, 5-foot-6 former construction worker, was found guilty of the crime seven years later and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Mr. Milgaard's original appeal to the Supreme Court was turned down a month before Mr. Fisher received his conviction in Regina for the four sexual assaults in December, 1971. Mr. Milgaard's lawyers and his supporters have long argued that knowledge of Mr. Fisher and his criminal past was suppressed or ignored by Saskatchewan justice officials in order to keep Mr. Milgaard behind bars. For example, they have claimed the decision to quietly move Mr. Fisher's case to Regina resulted in the guilty pleas not being publicized. Mr. Fisher's attacks bore a striking similarity to the one in which Ms. Miller, a 20-year-old nursing aide, was raped and stabbed to death on Jan. 31, 1969.

During his testimony yesterday, Mr. Fisher, who has always claimed he didn't kill Ms. Miller, often sparred with Mr. Wolch. When Mr. Wolch asked him if he felt any remorse for Ms. Miller, he snapped back: "Why should I have remorse for something I didn't do?" At that point, Mr. Fisher's lawyer, Edmonton-based Brian Beresh, interjected that Mr. Wolch's questioning was out of line. "I object. This is not the Truth and Reconciliation Commission," Mr. Beresh said, referring to the court-like body that probed South Africa's apartheid.

The public inquiry, which started in January and was supposed to finish in the spring, has seen its projected budget balloon from $2-million to $7.7-million. Mr. Justice Edward MacCallum, who is heading the inquiry, cannot assign civil or criminal blame, but will be able to table recommendations. Every moment of the 36-year-old case is being torn apart and carefully studied, as the inquiry is expected to be the final word on why justice eluded Mr. Milgaard for so long. Mr. Milgaard hasn't attended the proceedings and has no current plans to do so, according to his mother, Joyce Milgaard, and Mr. Wolch. He could be called to testify as early as January, but Ms. Milgaard said he shouldn't have to come, even though "he cares what happens" at the inquiry. "The doctors have [said] it wouldn't be good for him -- he still has nightmares about what happened," she said yesterday.

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