Bid to reopen murder case fails
Canada’s top court has shut down what was likely the last avenue of appeal for a Saskatchewan man fighting for nearly two decades to reverse a murder conviction in the death of his estranged wife.
Claiming a miscarriage of justice, Leon Dale Walchuk with the help of the Innocence Project, had applied unsuccessfully to the federal justice minister to reopen his case. When that failed, he launched successive appeals — ending this month with the Supreme Court refusing to hear the matter.
“It really is the end of the road,” said Toronto lawyer Andrea Gonsalves. Legally, Walchuk could try again, but realistically a new application would go nowhere without brand new evidence, she explained.
Members of the victim’s family couldn’t be reached for comment Tuesday, but have in the past expressed frustration with Walchuk’s continued legal fight.
“IT REALLY IS THE END OF THE ROAD.”
ANDREA GONSALVES
The mother of Corinne Walchuk previously spoke to the Leader-Post of the “anguish and the grief my family has had to endure, over and over.”
At the time of her death on March 30, 1998, 29-yearold Corinne and Leon Walchuk were separated and in the midst of bitter divorce proceedings. Corinne went to Walchuk’s farm house near Melville to pick up their two children. Fire crews arrived to find her car rammed into the porch and the house aflame. Her body lay at the bottom of the basement stairs.
The Crown’s theory was that Walchuk had beat her with a hockey stick, poured gasoline down the stairs, set the house on fire to cover his tracks, smashed her car into the house and left her to die.
The defence maintained Corinne drove the car at the house setting off the fire, and attacked Walchuk with the hockey stick after becoming enraged because the children weren’t there.
A judge found Walchuk, then 36, guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced him in 2000 to life in prison without parole eligibility for 16 years. He remains in custody. Gonsalves isn’t involved in his parole applications, but noted his refusal to admit guilt has likely worked against him.
In 2001, the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal, which noted the victim was “beaten to a pulp,” upheld the conviction.
Walchuk enlisted the help of the Innocence Project — a legal advocacy group working for those it believes have been wrongfully convicted — and made a rare ministerial review application in 2009. It was based on three new arson experts’ opinions that countered trial evidence of an intentionally set fire using an accelerant.
The application was reviewed by the Justice Department’s Criminal Conviction Review Group, which retained an independent arson expert who also agreed no accelerant was used.
Rob Nicholson, then the federal justice minister, accepted the new findings but still turned Walchuk down. He noted there was still “compelling evidence” that Walchuk planned to kill Corinne.
“I am not satisfied that there is a reasonable basis to conclude that a miscarriage of justice likely occurred,” said Nicholson’s decision.
“It was quite troubling that the minister had rejected the application in the face of new reports really conclusively showing that the expert evidence at trial was faulty,” said Gonsalves.
It’s that evidence which was used to show the killing was planned, supporting a murder conviction.
Applications for judicial review of Nicholson’s decision were launched without success.
Even if the case were reopened, Gonsalves concedes Walchuk may still be convicted of a lesser crime. “The test in the law is not whether you might have been guilty of some offence; it’s whether you were convicted of the correct offence,” she added.
The Innocence Project wants the Supreme Court to provide guidance on the new ministerial review process, which began in 2002.
“While it’s the end of the road for Mr. Walchuk’s case, we remain involved in the bigger fight,” said Gonsalves. “It is our hope we’ll get into the Supreme Court some day.”
“IT WAS QUITE TROUBLING THAT THE MINISTER HAD REJECTED THE APPLICATION IN THE FACE OF NEW REPORTS REALLY CONCLUSIVELY SHOWING THAT THE EXPERT EVIDENCE AT TRIAL WAS FAULTY.”
ANDREA GONSALVES