James Driskell was convicted for the first-degree murder of Perry Harder, whose remains were found in a shallow grave outside Winnipeg, three months after his disappearance. Driskell was linked to the crime with three hairs found in his van that supposedly belonged to Harder, but DNA tests years later found that the hairs did not belong to the victim.
In 2005, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada Irwin Cotler used a special Criminal Code of Canada provision to quash the conviction, stay the charges, and order a new trial for Driskell, but the Manitoba Department of Justice decided not to order a new trial. It instead entered a stay of proceedings and called for a public inquiry, ending Driskell's conviction without exonerating him.
Read more about this topic: Overturned Convictions In Canada
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“True to her inveterate habit, rationalism reverts to ‘principles,’ and thinks that when an abstraction once is named, we own an oracular solution.”
—William James (1842–1910)