David Milgaard
David Milgaard (born July 7, 1952) is a Canadian who was wrongfully convicted for the 1969 rape and murder of nursing assistant Gail Miller. He was released and compensated after spending 23 years in prison. He was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. As of 2015, he lives in Alberta and is employed as a community support worker. Milgaard is also a public speaker who advocates for the wrongfully convicted and for all prisoners' rights. Arrest and trial. In January 1969, 16-year-old Milgaard and his friends Ron Wilson and Nichol John embarked on a trip across Canada. The  three were in Saskatoon visiting their friend Albert Ca-drain when a 20-year-old nursing student, Gail Miller, was found dead on a snowbank in the vicinity of the Cadrain home. Under pressure to solve a crime that had generated significant publicity, police focused their attention on Milgaard, Wilson and John. In an attempt to clear his name and assist the investigation, Milgaard turned himself in to police in Prince George, British Columbia. Police sent him back to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, where he was charged with Miller's murder. David's friends John and Wilson were coerced by police into  giving false confessions. Cadrain also gave a false confession and later testified that he had seen Milgaard return the night of Miller's murder in blood-stained clothing. Wilson and John told police they had been with him the entire day and that they believed him to be innocent, but changed their stories after police threatened them with prosecution if they didn't cooperate. With Ca-drain, John and Wilson's testimony, Milgaard was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison on January 31, 1970, exactly a year after Miller's murder. He was 17 years old. Milgaard  later wrote of the hardships he faced in prison, where he was raped and later attempted suicide. He described the difficulty of having his case reviewed in his foreword to Gary Botting's book "Wrongful Conviction in Canadian Law" (Toronto: LexisNexis, 2010). Exoneration. Milgaard appealed his conviction several times, but was blocked both by bureaucracy and by an unreceptive justice system. His formal application for appeal was completed in 1988, but was not considered until 1991 after Liberal MP Lloyd Axworthy addressed Parliament: ""I wish to speak of a travesty of justice. I speak of the plight of David Milgaard  who has spent the last 21 years of his life in prison for a crime he did not commit. Yet for the last two years, the Department of Justice has been sitting on an application to reopen his case. But rather than review these conclusive reports, rather than appreciate the agony and trauma of the Milgaard family, the Minister of Justice refuses to act"". The federal government submitted a reference question to the Supreme Court of Canada, which recommended Milgaard's conviction be set aside. Then-Minister of Justice and future Prime Minister Kim Campbell ordered that pursuant to section  690 of the Criminal Code a new trial be held on the murder charge against Milgaard. However, the government of Saskatchewan announced it would not do so, instead entering a stay of proceedings in the case against Milgaard, releasing him from prison on April 16, 1992. On July 18, 1997, a DNA laboratory in the United Kingdom released a report confirming that semen samples on the victim's clothing did not originate from Milgaard – effectively exonerating Milgaard of the crime. The Saskatchewan government then apologized for the wrongful conviction. On May 17, 1999, the governments of Canada and Saskatchewan announced  that a settlement had been reached with Milgaard, and that he would be paid $10 million CAD compensation for pain and suffering, lost wages and legal fees. Life after Release. As of January 2020, Milgaard was living in Cochrane, Alberta. He had recently been appointed to the Independent Review Board Working Group, an entity whose creation was ordered by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in December 2019. A news item stated that "he has helped in the fight for the creation of a review board for cases of wrongful conviction". Inquiry. On September 30, 2003, the Saskatchewan government announced a  royal commission would investigate Milgaard's wrongful conviction, and on February 20, 2004, Justice Edward P. MacCallum was announced as the commissioner. Douglas Hodson was later appointed as commission counsel. On September 26, 2008, the Saskatchewan Minister of Justice, Don Morgan, released the findings of the Milgaard inquiry. Among its recommendations were a call for the federal government to create an independent body to review allegations of wrongful conviction. The report noted that if such a body had existed, Milgaard might have been released from jail years before he was. Linda Fisher, ex-wife of Larry Fisher, visited the Saskatoon  police department in 1980. She told the police that she believed her former husband had likely killed Miller. The Saskatoon police department did not follow up on her statement. The inquiry report released by MacCallum states that "[w]hile MacCallum noted that Milgaard's family members mounted a formidable public awareness campaign, their efforts also created tension and resentment within the police and the Crown's office." This is seen by some as an excuse for the failure of the Saskatoon police to investigate Larry Fisher. Real killer. The DNA evidence that exonerated Milgaard led police to Larry Earl Fisher (August  21, 1949 – June 10, 2015), who was renting the basement of the Cadrain family home in January, 1969. Fisher was arrested on July 25, 1997, in Calgary and convicted of Miller's murder on November 22, 1999. Fisher, who had previously served a total of 23 years for numerous rapes committed in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, was handed a life sentence. The Court of Appeal for Saskatchewan unanimously denied the appeal of his conviction in September 2003. Fisher was eligible for parole on multiple occasions, but opted not to have his case heard by the National Parole Board. He died on  June 10, 2015, at the Pacific Institution in Abbotsford, British Columbia. Archives. There is a Joyce Milgaard fonds at Library and Archives Canada, which includes archival material relating to her fight to free David Milgaard, her son, from his wrongful imprisonment. The archival reference number is R12997. It covers the period and includes 30centimeters of textual records, 1banner, and 99cassette tapes totaling 103hours of audio.