Facing a substantial financial shortfall, the non-profit organization instrumental in exonerating 21 wrongly convicted Canadians — including David Milgaard, Guy Paul Morin, Steven Truscott and seven victims of disgraced pathologist Dr. Charles Smith — will soon become a “shadow of its former self.”

Innocence Canada, formerly known as the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted, has issued lay-off notices to members of its small staff, been priced out of its downtown Toronto office and, most troubling to many in the justice community, will soon stop taking on new cases.

“At this point forward, if you’re wrongly convicted in Canada, there is nowhere to go,” said Debbie Oakley, Innocence Canada’s executive director.

In a lengthy interview with the Star this week, Oakley and Innocence Canada’s co-president Ron Dalton — who was exonerated after being wrongly convicted of murdering his wife — said the decision to stop considering new cases was not made lightly, but the association has no choice.

“The demand is much larger than anything we can even think about doing,” said Dalton.

With a shrinking staff and decreased capacity, it will already take years to work through their 85-case backlog — cases the organization has determined, following a screening process, are possible wrongful convictions.

In 16 of those cases, Innocence Canada is convinced the person is innocent, including three convictions involving Ontario pathologist Smith.

“This should be a concern to all Canadians,” said Daniel Brown, a Toronto director of the Criminal Lawyers’ Association, who has worked on cases brought forward by Innocence Canada.

“It’s a dangerous idea to think that there is nobody ensuring that the justice system got these convictions right.”

Established in 1993, Innocence Canada has helped secure 21 of the 26 exonerations in Canada’s history, freeing wrongly convicted individuals who together spent more than 190 years in prison for crimes they did not commit.

The organization has for many years been “hand to mouth,” Dalton said, funded in part by annual donations from the Law Foundation of Ontario and Legal Aid Ontario. Eight years ago, they received a $1-million donation from Ian Cartwright, a retired Ontario Superior Court judge, which Innocence Canada parsed out into annual increments.

Within the last few years, with no new potential source of funds in sight, Innocence Canada acquired charitable status and began appealing to foundations and provincial agencies, but still wasn’t able to pull in sufficient funds.

Facing a shortfall of about $250,000, Oakley and Dalton said the organization took heart in the changeover in Ottawa; the end of former prime minister Stephen Harper’s “tough on crime” reign could mean a greater commitment from the federal government.

Earlier this year, Innocence Canada board members travelled to Ottawa to meet with Minister of Justice and Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould. But last month, they were told they would receive no funding.

Board members knew they had to make changes that would make Innocence Canada “a shadow of its former self,” Oakley said.

“We’ve gone everywhere, and this was kind of our last hope for what we would say was an organization with deep enough pockets that they could help us.”

In an email to the Star Friday, spokesperson Valérie Gervais said the Department of Justice understands the work of Innocence Canada is important to the justice system.

“After careful consideration, however, it was determined that their proposal did not meet the criteria of the department’s funding programs. Specifically, the terms and conditions do not currently allow for the provision of new ongoing operational funding which supports the core operations of organizations,” Gervais said.

She added that a detailed explanation of the department’s decision was provided to Innocence Canada, and that the organization was informed that, should it need funding for a more short-term project, the department would consider it.

Asked what recourse wrongly convicted Canadians now have, Gervais referred the Star to the federal government’s Criminal Convictions Review Group.

But Oakley and Dalton say the federal organization is, like their own, under-resourced, and does not have the years of acquired expertise that Innocence Canada offers. They worry about an insurmountable backlog.

Innocence Canada currently has three full-time and two part-time staff. The funding woes mean the organization will likely end up with two full-time staff and possibly an articling student.

Among the lost jobs is the position devoted to education and prevention, which included speaking to police colleges, judges, lawyers, aboriginal groups and prison inmates.

The majority of Innocence Canada’s legal work is done by lawyers for free; the organization estimates that, annually, lawyers across the country donate $3.5 million in pro-bono work.

But the association does the work of accepting potential cases and sifting through applications to determine possible wrongful convictions. Their staff then manages each case throughout years of work, and provides support to wrongly convicted individuals and their families, before and after exoneration.

Brown said Innocence Canada’s staff brings to the table vital skills. Most lawyers, even those with significant trial and appeal court experience, do not possess comparable expertise necessary to investigate possible cases of wrongful conviction.

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“Innocence Canada is the bridge between those in custody and the lawyers who are volunteering their time,” he said. “We need an organization that can help guide those lawyers in the right direction.”

Alan Young, an associate professor of law at Osgoode Hall Law School, praised the work of those involved with Innocence Canada. “They have done good work and they achieve results.”

However, he expressed hope that Innocence Projects, programs run through law schools across North America and beyond, can correct miscarriages of justice. Young has overseen Osgoode Hall’s Innocence Project program since 1997.

A decline in cases pursued by Innocence Canada “would be a setback,” but one that could be addressed by greater involvement of Innocence Projects, he said.

Oakley said Canada’s Innocence Projects are excellent programs but that it can be difficult for a student-run organization to have the continuity to see through cases that can and do take years.

What Canada really needs, Oakley and Dalton say, is an independent, publicly funded wrongful conviction review commission, similar to bodies that already exist in the United Kingdom and Australia.

Such a commission would eliminate the need for Innocence Canada, something the organization would support.

Until then, “we are still going to carry on and do the best we can,” Dalton said.

Key cases where wrongful convictions overturned

Innocence Canada was instrumental in securing the exonerations of 21 Canadians. Here are just some of the cases of wrongful convictions they helped overturn.

Guy Paul Morin: Morin was tried twice for the 1984 murder of 9-year-old Christine Jessop of Queensville, Ont. He was initially acquitted in 1986, convicted at a retrial in 1992, then exonerated through DNA evidence in 1995. Throughout Morin’s ordeal, a grass-roots organization that was convinced of his innocence formed around him, a legal community that ultimately became Innocence Canada.

David Milgaard: In 1969, at the age of 16, Milgaard was convicted of murdering Saskatoon nursing aide Gail Miller. After 23 years in prison, with the help of Innocence Canada, Milgaard was exonerated after DNA testing results cleared him in the murder and identified the real killer, Larry Fisher.

Steven Truscott: At 14, Steven Truscott was convicted of the 1959 rape and murder of 12-year-old Lynne Harper, and was originally sentenced to hang. Nearly 50 years later, in 2007, the province’s highest court ruled the conviction was “a miscarriage of justice” and acquitted him on the basis of fresh evidence. He had maintained his innocence for 48 years.

Kyle Unger: Unger was convicted of first-degree murder in the June 1990 death of Brigitte Grenier, thanks in part to a false confession obtained through a highly problematic police technique known as a Mr. Big operation. Unger was ultimately cleared through DNA evidence.

Dr. Charles Smith exonerations: Innocence Canada has helped secure the exonerations of seven people in cases that involved now-disgraced pathologist Dr. Charles Smith. Smith made mistakes in 20 death investigations in which people were criminally charged, convicted or otherwise implicated in the deaths of children. Innocence Canada is currently reviewing six more cases of potential wrongful convictions involving Smith.