CHAMPION FOR JUSTICE
Late Star reporter Tracey Tyler, who fought her battle for the wrongfully conflicted in front page stories, now has an award in her name,
SECTION GT
SATURDAY,
Romeo Phillion spent 32 years behind bars for a murder he didn’t commit.
On Friday evening, the 76-year-old sat in a shiny black suit in a wood-panelled hall and paid tribute to Tracey Tyler, the Star reporter who wrote tirelessly about his case until his release in 2010.
“Without her, I don’t think I would have made it,” he said, tears welling up in his eyes. “Her articles helped my case from day one.”
Tyler, who died in 2012 at age 50, was an ardent advocate for the wrongfully convicted, and in her memory the organization that helped free many of Canada’s most famous incarcerated innocents named an award in her honour.
The Association in Defence of the Wrongfully Convicted grew out of the movement to free Guy Paul Morin in 1992. Since then, volunteer lawyers have helped exonerate 20 people, who have spent a combined 190 years in prison.
“To be successful in advocating for the wrongfully convicted, you have to have the public with you,” said lawyer James Lockyer, one of the group’s founding members. “Tracey knew that and did a wonderful job for the wrongfully convicted, putting their cases and their causes upfront in the public eye.”
Tyler’s parents, Ted and Dolores, and her younger sister, Angela Ash, accepted the first annual award on her behalf at the Law Society of Upper Canada on Friday evening. They said they were overwhelmed by the many people who approached them to say how much she had helped their cause.
“I knew she helped people; she was passionate about her stories,” Ash said. “But I didn’t know until she passed away how many people’s lives she changed.”
Phillion was unequivocal in describing the role Tyler played in his release.
“She was the one person I really needed in my life to make things work, to put out information on my case. She had faith in me. She trusted me and I trusted her. She always told me: ‘The truth shall prevail.’ ”
Kirk Makin, who was Tyler’s competition covering the courts for the Globe and Mail, spoke graciously about his former rival, saying, “She had a nose for a story and could write like an angel.
“In the late 1980s, Tracey announced in effect that wrongful convictions were destined to become the criminal justice issue of our time. Her editors, her bosses and (editor and later publisher) John Honderich listened,” Makin said. “In no small part, the ever-lengthening list of exonerees in this country owe their dramatic turns in fortune to the resources provided and the pressure exerted by the Toronto Star.”
“She really cared about the common man and the common woman and how they were treated by the justice system,” said Honderich at the ceremony, which was held on the 2nd annual International Wrongful Conviction Day.
Earlier this year, while reading an online mommy forum, Tyler’s sister came across an article someone had posted about a custody case. Ash clicked it and realized Tyler had written it in 2009.
“Six years after the story, three years after she passed away, and she’s still impacting people’s lives,” said Ash, who later found out that the story’s presence on social media pushed it to number two on the Star’s website that day.
“She had a purpose in life and she certainly fulfilled it,” said Ash, her mother adding: “in a few short years.”