A man who was labelled a “baby killer” for nearly three decades says he’s relieved to be exonerated in the 1996 death of his 17-month-old stepson, after a conviction that relied on the testimony of a disgraced pathologist.
“The justice system has worked for me at last,” Bernard Doyle said in a statement.
Doyle, who was found guilty of manslaughter in 1997, said he was dancing with Tyler Cunningham in his arms when he accidentally tripped and fell, dropping his partner’s son on construction tools that were scattered nearby. Tyler died in hospital soon after.
The Ontario Court of Appeal said in a decision published Tuesday it is acquitting Doyle because flawed evidence from then-pathologist Charles Smith convinced the court at the time that Tyler died from acombination of blunt force trauma and shaken baby syndrome, but fresh evidence has discredited those claims.
“I am very relieved and grateful for what happened,” Doyle said, adding that he will “never forget” Tyler.
“He was a wonderful boy who had lots of promise. I couldn’t help thinking that he was there with me today.”
Defence lawyer James Lockyer said in an interview on Tuesday even though Doyle has long since served his sentence of nearly four years in prison, “it was less the jail, more the labelling of him as a baby killer that has impacted his life.”
Lockyer said three experts took a fresh look at the case, and all said that Doyle’s account of his fall with Tyler “would fully account” for the child’s fatal injuries.
The Ontario Court of Appeal decision said Doyle’s guilty verdict was part of a “long list of wrongful convictions” brought about by Smith’s “unreliable expert evidence.”
Smith was widely recognized in Canada as an expert in pediatric forensic pathology during the 1990s. However, a 2005 coroner’s review found that errors in Smith’s work were responsible, in part, for several criminal convictions in the deaths of children.
Lockyer said Doyle, who was 23 at the time of Tyler’s death, now lives in St. John’s,N.L., and is “hoping his 11-year-old daughter will be able to live with him.”
“Children’s Aid (Society) in St. John’s will only let him have visiting rights, but won’t allow his daughter to live with him because of this conviction. So with this gone, hopefully that will change,” he said.
Lockyer, who is a lawyer with Innocence Canada, said the group became aware of Doyle’s case in 2013 and decided to take it on.
The group is currently representing nine other Canadians it believes were wrongfully convicted, and two of the cases involve allegations of shaken baby syndrome, he said.
In 2007, the court also exonerated William Mullins-Johnson, who was convicted of murdering his niece and spent 12 years in prison, after a review of his case found testimony from Smith was flawed. He also received $4.25 million in compensation.
In 2011, the Court of Appeal set aside another man’s conviction in the death of his infant son, in part due to Smith’s outdated testimony on the shaken baby syndrome
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 13, 2023.
