Boy’s Conviction For Murder In 1959 Under Review In Canada

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31195, 20 October 1966, Page 12

Boy’s Conviction For Murder In 1959 Under Review In Canada

(From MELVIN SUFRIN, N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent I TORONTO, October 18. In a dramatic action which shatters all judicial precedents, a murder trial that took place in 1959 is being reviewed by the Supreme Court of Canada. It is all because of a book written by a woman who is convinced a tragic miscarriage of justice occurred seven years ago. Steven Truscott, aged 14 when he was convicted of the rape and murder of 12-year-old Lynne Harper, is getting a second chance to clear his name. What makes this case unique is that the court is pondering new evidence presented during a week of hearings in Ottawa, attended by Truscott’s anxious parents, a Royal Canadian Air Force Officer and his wife. Ordinarily the nine-man court merely examines the transcript of evidence as presented at the original trial, and determines whether there were errors of great enough magnitude to cast doubts on the. verdict or the proceedings. But an exception is being made on this occasion because the Federal Government speciflically asked the court to consider new evidence by medical experts, to hear. Truscott’s own story. Truscott, now 21, did not testify at the 1959 trial. It is a good bet that none of this would have come about had it not been for the interest shown by an author Isabel Lebourdais who made a careful study of the case. After examining evidence often with the help of medica' experts, she wrote “The Trial of Steven Truscott,” a book that became a best seller. It caused a sensation anc prompted many lawyers politicians and newspapers tc ask that the case be reopened Their pleas were heeded bj the Government. Th court now has completec a week of open hearings anc will study old and new evi dence. Before December 1

it will receive written argu- 1 ments from lawyers for both ' sides whose fees are being ' paid by the Government. ( Then it will hear oral sub- , missions from counsel and ’ later this year, or early In - 1967, will announce its decision. It can order a new trial, direct that Truscott be acquitted or confirm his convic- , tion. If it should decide he was properly convicted, Truscott could spend up to 20 more years in prison unless released on parole. Lynne Harper, whose father was also in the Air Force, was raped and strangled in a wood near the Royal Canadian Air Force station in the south-western Ontario town of Clinton on June 9. 1959. Her body was found two days later. Truscott, the last person known to have seen her alive, was charged with murder on June 13 after being examined for seven hours. After a 15-day trial he became the youngest person convicted of murder in Canada in 84 years. Many Canadians were shocked when he was subsequently sentenced to be hanged. His sentence was later commuted to life, but the Government reacting to the the outcry, promptly amended the law to ensure that no one so young would ever again edure the agony of the death sentence. Evidence was that about 6.30 p.m. on June 9, Lynne asked Steven to give her a ride on his bicycle to a house along the highway where she wanted to play with a farmer’s ponies. Steven told police he took her part way, let her off and saw her get into a car with a yellow licence plate. One question that came up during the trial was whether Steven could have identified the colour of the licence plate at the distance he claimed to have been from the car. Another was the time of Lynne’s death as indicated by medical examination of the contents of her stomach. Defence witnesses said these showed she died three or four

hours after eating. If so. it would mean she was killed after Truscott was known to have returned home. Crown experts said they showed death occurred within two hours of supper time. This would' make it possible for Truscott to have killed her.

Among the 26 witnesses heard by the Supreme Court last week were medical specialists from Britain and the United States, some of whom supported one argument and some the other. Several experts declared that, for various reasons, stomach contents were an unreliable

guide to the time of death. Both sides also called psychiatric experts several of whom suggested Truscott's mentality made him capable of murder others of whom said he was and is completely normal.

Unchallenged was new testimony that it was, in fact, possible for Truscott to have seen the licence plate and recognised its colour. It is these and other arguments, including Truscott's claims of innocence, unshaken under stiff cross-exam-ination that the Court must weigh.