Seventeen years after he was convicted of killing a 13-month-old girl, O’Neil Blackett’s battle to clear his name ended where it began.

On Tuesday morning, Blackett stood before a judge in a wood-panelled courtroom at 361 University Ave., the same Toronto courthouse where he was convicted in 2001, based largely on evidence from disgraced Sick Kids pathologist Charles Smith. The 42-year-old clasped his hands behind his back and held his head high.

“I woke up this morning, I was refreshed. I knew what was to come,” he said in an interview after the hearing. “I waited so long.”

Earlier this year, the Court of Appeal set aside Blackett’s manslaughter conviction and ordered a new trial based on fresh expert evidence that sharply criticized Smith’s opinions. Following a review of the case by the attorney general, the ministry concluded there was “no reasonable prospect of conviction,” Crown lawyer Dimitra Tsagaris told the court on Tuesday. The charge against Blackett was withdrawn.

Justice John McMahon called Blackett’s ordeal “a tragedy.”

His victory is the latest development in the continuing effort of the justice system to undo the damage caused by the flawed opinions of Smith, who was once revered as the province’s top expert in cases where children died in unusual circumstances. A decade after a public inquiry exposed oversight gaps in Ontario’s pediatric forensic pathology system that allowed Smith to rise to prominence despite his lack of training and objectivity, some parents who say they were wrongly blamed in the deaths of their children are still fighting to clear their names.

Smith could not be reached for comment.

A complication in many wrongful conviction cases involving Smith’s testimony — including Blackett’s — is that the accused pleaded guilty.

Blackett was looking after Tamara Thomas the day she died in February 1999. When her mother returned from running errands she found the girl lying in her playpen, lifeless and cold to the touch. Blackett was performing CPR on the child when police arrived. He was “distraught and confused,” and denied causing harm, the appeal court ruling states. (At the time, Blackett believed Tamara was his daughter, but says in an affidavit he subsequently learned he was not her father.)

Tamara had a history of intestinal and breathing problems, and had recently been vomiting and losing weight. That afternoon, Blackett had left her in her playpen with a bottle of chocolate milk.

When she died, Tamara was wearing a cumbersome cast to repair a broken right femur. The injury happened a month earlier, while she was in Blackett’s care. He told the paramedics the child’s leg got caught in the wooden spindles of her crib. Police concluded that the crib was unsafe and deemed the injury accidental. Blackett was described by a first responder as an anxious parent who showed concern, and cooperated with a subsequent investigation by children’s aid, the ruling said.

Blackett told police that since being in the cast, “there was a problem with her lying on her back, because she used to throw up whatever we gave her.”

Smith dismissed the possibility that Tamara had choked on her vomit, or died in any other accidental way. In his opinion, she had succumbed to a “mechanical type of asphyxia” due to strangulation or blunt force. He also claimed to have found several additional fractures. Blackett was charged with second-degree murder.

Smith testified at the preliminary inquiry, in November 1999. The trial was set for April 2001. By then, concerns about Smith’s work had begun to emerge. The Crown sought the opinion of another expert, who was largely supportive of Smith’s opinion but warned that unless there was some other evidence to support the Crown’s theory “there will always be doubt as to whether this is the actual cause of death.” A second pathologist, retained by the defence, disputed Smith’s findings.

In August 2001, Blackett reached a deal with the Crown. He pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of manslaughter and was sentenced to three years and three months in jail, in addition to 15 months of pretrial custody.

In an agreed statement of facts, Blackett stated that he had become frustrated while feeding Tamara, and forced the bottle violently into her mouth, causing her to choke and vomit, and had “then left her either unconscious or entering unconsciousness, unable to breathe, and she died.”

In his affidavit filed last year in support of his appeal, Blackett said “those facts were not true.” He worried the jury would believe Smith over him because he had a criminal record, and he would receive a life sentence.

“Dr. Smith’s evidence ... preyed on my mind,” Blackett said. “I felt trapped by my situation. I decided to plead guilty.”

Blackett’s trial lawyer, Stephen Bernstein, said in an affidavit that his client “had always maintained that he did not know why Tamara died, and insisted that he had done nothing to cause her death.” Bernstein said that he told Blackett that “he should not plead guilty to something that he did not do,” but “that there was a ‘real chance’ he would be convicted of murder if he went to trial.”

The Court of Appeal set aside Blackett's conviction after four additional forensic pathologists rejected Smith's conclusions. They said it could be natural causes but found it was impossible to say how Tamara died.

On Tuesday, Justice McMahon said he was sympathetic to Blackett’s position, and urged vigilance in these types of cases.

“As lawyers and judges, we can’t allow people to plead guilty to things they didn’t do, but I understand why it happens” when the accused is faced with a contradictory expert opinion, he said.

Blackett, who was released on mandatory supervision in October 2003, was accompanied in court by a half-dozen supporters from Innocence Canada and the group’s founding director, James Lockyer — his lawyer.

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Outside the courtroom, he embraced Lockyer, who has helped clear the names of nine parents and caregivers wrongly blamed due to Smith’s flawed opinions. In seven of those cases, the accused pleaded guilty, Lockyer said.

Blackett said the nature of his conviction has made it difficult to find work. He said he hopes to start his own business managing musicians.

“This day is a new turning point for me ... I can basically start over.” he said. “It’s raining outside, but it’s tears of joy.”