Speaker Announcements: Justice Peter Cory and James Lockyer
Posted by Michael Edwards | Filed under Announcements, Speaker News
We are very excited to announce two new speakers for WC’09: Justice Peter Cory and James Lockyer. Both Justice Cory and Mr. Lockyer have contributed invaluably toward the correction of wrongful convictions, and we look forward to hosting them on March 7th at WC’09. Biographies below:
Peter Cory
Peter Cory was a judge of the Supreme Court of Canada from 1989 to 1999. He is past chairman of the Ontario Civil Liberties Section of the Canadian Bar Association, past president of the County of York Law Association, past National Director of the Canadian Bar Association, and past president of the Advocates’ Society. Justice Cory invaluably contributed to the acquittal of Thomas Sophonow - who had been found guilty of a murder he did not commit.
James Lockyer
James Lockyer is the founding director of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted (AIDWYC) a national organization that advocates for justice. He has been involved in a number of high profile wrongful conviction cases and is most recently known for defending Guelph’s Steven Truscott who was acquitted by the Ontario Court of Appeal in August of the 1959 killing of Lynne Harper.
James Lockyer has been involved in exposing more than ten wrongful convictions in Canada, including the cases of Guy Paul Morin, David Milgaard, Clayton Johnson and Gregory Parsons. Several of these cases have become the subject of public inquiries. Mr. Lockyer has received an honorary doctorate of laws from University of Guelph in February 2007. Before moving into private practice as a criminal lawyer, he taught law at McGill University and the University of Windsor.
Speaker Announcement: Philip Campbell
Posted by Michael Edwards | Filed under Announcements, Speaker News
We’re happy to announce that we’ve just confirmed another speaker for WC’09. Philip Campbell is a criminal defense lawyer who has contributed significantly toward reversing wrongful convictions. Biography below:
Philip Campbell is a partner in Lockyer Campbell Posner. A graduate of the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, he was a partner in Copeland Campbell following his 1984 call to the bar and then in the Criminal Division of Sack Goldblatt Mitchell from 2000 to 2003. He and James Lockyer formed Lockyer Campbell in 2003 in order to pursue their ground-breaking work in the reversal of wrongful convictions. Besides his extensive work in that area, Mr Campbell maintains a trial and appellate practice with a focus on serious and complex litigation. He has broad experience in the defence of homicide prosecutions, sexual assault and narcotics cases, and matters with sophisticated constitutional issues. He is presently involved in work on two major white collar fraud prosecutions. He has acted on a number of extradition cases and maintains a special interest in that challenging area of the law. Among the matters in which he has been counsel are R v Clayton Johnson (a Nova Scotia wrongful conviction case which led to exoneration, and compensation, after a first degree murder conviction); Philippines v Pacificador (an extradition request for an alleged political assassination, quashed on constitutional grounds); R v Sauve and Trudel (the successful appeal of murder convictions in Canada’s longest jury trial); R v Lindsay and Bonner (a pending appeal testing the constitutionality of Canada’s new “criminal organization” statute); R v Truscott (a special reference by the Minister of Justice to the Ontario Court of Appeal of a 1959 murder conviction which was quashed by the Court after a lengthy evidentiary hearing and two weeks of legal argument); R v Walsh (a successful Ministerial review of a 33 year old conviction on behalf of a dying man); R v Phillion (an appeal referred to the Ontario Court of Appeal by the Minister of Justice, now on reserve); and R v Mahalingan (a recent Supreme Court of Canada case upholding the application of issue estoppel in Canadian criminal law).. He is experienced in legal work at every judicial level from bail hearings to the Supreme Court of Canada.
Mr Campbell has written and spoken at a wide range of legal conferences and symposia, including the Canadian Bar Association, the National Criminal Law Program, the Law Society of Upper Canada, the annual conference of Superior Court judges and the Criminal Lawyers Association. He has been an instructor at the University of Toronto Centre of Criminology and has lectured at both the University of Toronto and Osgoode Hall Law Schools.