First Roundtable wrap-up — Thanks for coming out!

Just a quick thanks to everyone who came out today to listen and share thoughts on “Feminism and Law in Today’s World”, with a special thanks to our wonderful Dean Turnbull for doing such a great job of facilitating. As per Dean Turnbull’s tale of working for UNPAC’s Gender Budget Project, we thought we’d include a link to Femme Fiscale’s homepage. Check it out here!

If you missed the roundtable today and are keen to know what went down, check back in the coming week for written summary, graciously provided by Brad Findlater.

And don’t forget: our next roundtable will be November 2nd, and will feature our very own Associate Dean Dr. Jennifer Schulz, leading a conversation on “A Feminist Approach to Tort Law”. To get your motors running, start asking yourself, “Who is the reasonable person, anyway?”

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Murder Charges Dropped Against Tammy Marquardt

FLF members who were lucky enough to attend this year’s round table with Dr. Emma Cunliffe entitled “What Feminism can Teach us About Expert Evidence” (read Dayna’s excellent summary here: https://feministlegalforum.wordpress.com/2011/03/30/what-feminism-can-teach-us-about-expert-evidence-roundtable-summary/) may recall that the discussion touched on mothers wrongfully accused of murdering their children by ‘rogue’ experts. One such rogue is Ontario’s Charles Smith. Once well respected in the field of forensic child pathology, he has since been the subject of a public inquiry into his autopsies. As a result of the inquiry, a serious doubt was raised on at least 13 convictions which had been premised on his expert testimony.

Though never convicted, Tammy Marquardt spent fourteen years in prison following the death of her two year old son. It was Charles Smith who performed the autopsy. During her incarceration, her two other children were given up for adoption.

This week, the Crown decided to drop the charges against Marquardt, partly due to the flawed evidence of Smith. CBC Radio’s As It Happens featured an excerpt of Marquardt’s comments following her release. Though brief, they provide chilling insight into the experience of a mother wrongfully accused of murdering her child. The clip can be heard here, at approximately minute 10:40.

http://www.cbc.ca/video/news/audioplayer.html?clipid=1979330311

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