Man exonerated after Manitoba court quashes murder convictions

A Manitoba man who spent more than two decades in prison has had his three murder convictions quashed and the charges stayed.

Former justice minister David Lametti referred the case of Robert Sanderson to the Manitoba Court of Appeal in 2023 for a new hearing, saying there was a likely a miscarriage of justice.

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Innocence Canada, the group that applied for the ministerial review of the convictions based on new evidence, says the court ordered a new trial Friday and the Crown stayed proceedings today.

James Lockyer, a founding director of Innocence Canada, says Sanderson is now a free man who has “nothing to do with the murders anymore.”

Sanderson and two others were charged in the 1996 deaths of three men in Winnipeg.

Sanderson was convicted the following year and sentenced to life in prison, before being released on parole in 2021.