MOURNED Noted lawyer Hersh Wolch dies

Hersh Wolch, the Winnipeg-born criminal defence lawyer who became one of the most well known counsel in Canada, carved out a large and high-profile array of cases during his lengthy career. Serving as counsel to politicians, celebrities, police and judges, Wolch is remembered as a dogged defender and a precedent-setting litigator.

These are five cases that helped define his storied career:

David Milgaard Perhaps the case for w hi chWolc his best known, Milgaard was convicted in 1970 of the rape and murder of nursing assistant Gail Miller in Saskatoon. Milgaard spent 23 years in prison before he was cleared of the crime by DNA evidence and Wolch took his wrongful conviction case before the Supreme Court of Canada, achieving the only successful review of its kind before the nation’s highest court.

Steven Truscott Truscott was sentenced to death in the 1959 rape and murder of classmate Lynne Harper in Ontario, only to have his case overturned five decades later, in 2007. Wolch was part of the defence team, which successfully argued before the Ontario Court of Appeal that the Crown’s original case was based on weak forensic evidence and key evidence had been withheld from the defence. A year after his conviction was overturned, Truscott received the largest compensation for a wrongful conviction case in Ontario’s history, at $6.5 million.

KennethSzczerba Wolchserved as the lawyer for Szczerba, the former president of Calgary’s Hells Angels chapter, who was accused of trying to blow up the home of now-retired Calgary alderman Dale Hodges and those of two others after they blocked the motorcycle gang’s plan to build a clubhouse in Bowness. Szczerba was convicted in 2001 and sentenced to one year in prison and two years probation.

Kyle Unger Found guilty of firstdegree murder in the 1990 murder of 16-year-old Brigitte Grenier at a Winnipeg rock concert, Unger spent 14 years in jail before DNA testing found the only piece of physical evidence used to convict him, a piece of hair, didn’t belong to him. Wolch was Unger’s lawyer when he was acquitted in 2009. Unger is suing the Manitoba government for $14.5 million.

Theoren Fleury The former Calgary Flames star tapped Wolch to serve as his counsel in 2010 when he brought sexual abuse complaints to police about former junior hockey coach Graham James. James was sentenced to two years in prison for assaults on Fleury and his cousin, Todd Holt, when they were teenagers. In 2013, the Manitoba Court of Appeal revised James’ sentence to five years, suggesting the trial judge had put too much weight on his previous sentence of 31/2 years for assaults on another former Flame, Sheldon Kennedy.