Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (May 15/02) - The legal advocacy group whose work led to Guy Paul Morin and David Milgaard being freed is investigating Roger Warren's murder conviction.

"It's a case that has many of the hallmarks of a false confession to it. Put it that way," said James Lockyer.

The Toronto lawyer, a director of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted, is about to begin the task of sifting through the volumes of evidence presented at Warren's 1995 trial for the murder of nine Giant Mine workers.

Warren was convicted of second-degree murder on Jan. 20, 1995 after a five-month trial and sentenced to life imprisonment. His parole eligibility date was set at 20 years.

The Sept. 18, 1992 underground blast that killed the replacement workers occurred four months into a violent strike that created rifts that exist in the city to this day.

It will be based on the findings of Lockyer's research that AIDWYC will decide whether or not to lobby the federal government to re-open Warren's case.

Federal Justice Minister Martin Cauchon would have a number of options under the Criminal Code, should he wish, including referring Warren's case to an appellate court, which could order any remedy that meets the ends of justice.

"We have to examine the case from back to front and decide whether it is meritorious," said Lockyer. "But we don't embark on all that work unless we think there's something there."

Warren is currently serving his life sentence at the medium-security Stony Mountain Penitentiary, just north of Winnipeg. He has exhausted all avenues of appeal.

Lockyer said he met with Warren in March and has been in contact with Warren's family by e-mail. He intends to visit them and interview union officials and others in Yellowknife who may have information about the circumstances leading to the blast.

Two lawyers in Winnipeg and two law students started cataloguing the evidence in Winnipeg in December, said Roberta Campbell a lawyer with AIDWYC's Winnipeg office.

During a July 1997 appeal, lawyers for Warren argued his confession, which was the basis of his conviction, should not have been permitted as evidence. The confession was the result of coercion, they argued, coming as it did after 16 police interviews and two lie detector tests.

A three-member panel of Northwest Territories Court of Appeal judges unanimously disagreed, saying the confession was voluntary.

"In recent years there's been an enormous development in the law's understanding of false confession," said Lockyer. "In the UK and the U.S. they have discovered numerous wrongful convictions based on false confessions in the last two years."

Should AIDWYC decide to take on Warren's case, mobilizing public sentiment for Warren will be pivotal to its success, Lockyer said. It is "nearly impossible" to get the government to re-open such a case without public pressure.