CANADA'S LONG-RUNNING MILGAARD ENQUIRY EVENTUALLY LURCHES TO A CLOSE

It cannot do anything to the disgraceful police involved so it sounds like an effort at a whitewash -- "poor misunderstood police" the most likely result

A judge who has spent nearly two years hearing testimony about why David Milgaard was wrongfully jailed for murder must now decide whether the case was a "recipe for disaster" cooked up by a flawed justice system or a star-crossed series of coincidences and "honest mistakes" by authorities. Justice Edward MacCallum heard final arguments Monday at a public inquiry into Milgaard's wrongful conviction. Milgaard spent 23 years behind bars for the 1969 rape and murder of Saskatoon nursing aide Gail Miller. It was a crime DNA evidence eventually proved he didn't commit.

Milgaard's lawyer, Hersh Wolch, argued that Milgaard was sent to prison because Saskatoon police and prosecutors had tunnel vision - they believed Milgaard was guilty and focused all their efforts on proving it. Milgaard was then prevented from clearing his name by a federal Justice Department that refused to admit it was wrong, even as Milgaard's mother Joyce and her supporters began to uncover evidence in the early 1990s that someone else may have committed the crime. "It's never been suggested that anybody was trying to frame an innocent person. It's that they went into a tunnel and they went down that tunnel and they did not deviate from going down that tunnel," Wolch told MacCallum. "Tunnel vision, indifference and blind loyalties to the system are recipes for disaster."

Wolch pointed to the rapist that was operating in Saskatoon around the time Miller was murdered. In the late 1990s DNA proved that the rapist, Larry Fisher, was the real killer. Fisher had lived in the basement of the home Milgaard was visiting on the morning of the attack. The inquiry has heard how police originally considered that the then-unidentified rapist could have killed Miller, but when one of Milgaard's friends came forward pointing the finger at Milgaard, that lead was never followed up on.

Wolch's comments were dismissed by lawyers representing police and prosecutors at the inquiry. Catherine Knox, the lawyer for Bobs Caldwell, the Crown prosecutor at the original trial, said mistakes were made, but there was never any intent to convict an innocent man. "Mr. Caldwell . . . is a man who acted with honour and with integrity throughout the course of this process," Knox said. "But he is a man and men . . . make mistakes. They were mistakes that were made in honest good faith."

That was echoed by Richard Elson, the lawyer for the Saskatoon Police Department, who recalled the inquiry testimony of an expert on the English system for reviewing wrongful convictions. "Wrongful convictions can and do occur . . . despite the honest and reasonable efforts of honest and reasonable people," Elson said.

Elson did offer an apology to Milgaard on behalf of Saskatoon police Chief Clive Weighill - something his predecessors never gave. Weighill "very much regrets the suffering" Milgaard endured and the role the police service played in that, said Elson, although he emphasized the apology was not an admission of improper conduct.

Knox scoffed at Wolch's assertion that Milgaard's supporters never suggested anybody was trying to frame an innocent person. She pointed to news articles from the 1980s, when the Milgaards were trying to build support for their cause. Knox called the allegations of wrongdoing the Milgaards made a "campaign of character assassination." Most of the allegations have not been borne out in the evidence brought forward at the inquiry.

Garrett Wilson, the lawyer acting on behalf of Serge Kujawa, the director of public prosecutions who handled Milgaard's original appeal, also took issue with Milgaard supporters and their "shotgun approach" to criticizing justice officials as they tried to get the case reopened. "That (prosecutors) could be accused of deliberate deception in the conduct of their responsibilities as members of the justice system of Saskatchewan is horrendous, monstrous," Wilson said.

MacCallum will now have to write his final report. He has heard from 114 witnesses over more than 190 hearing days since the inquiry began in January 2005. The previous testimony of 19 others was read into the record. Milgaard testified via video. The hearings are forecast to cost the Saskatchewan government about $10 million, the same amount Milgaard was paid in compensation for his ordeal.

The judge cannot find criminal or civil responsibility, but can make recommendations to try to prevent something similar from happening again. The inquiry has faced the perception from the start that everything was already known about the Milgaard case. MacCallum took a parting shot at anyone who might think the proceeding was a waste of money. "As I see it, the Milgaard affair has cast a long shadow over the administration of justice in this province," he said. "Money spent to maintain or restore public confidence in the administration of justice is an essential cost, just as is money spent to discover the causes of wrongful conviction and ways to avoid them."

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