There are devastating consequences to wrongful convictions – just ask David Milgaard.
“I have scars”, says Milgaard.
“I have trouble sitting with a group of wrongly convicted men talking about it for more than half an hour. I start to get angry. I wish I could say anger isn’t there, but it is there.”
Milgaard spend 17 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit – the murder of Saskatoon nursing student Gail Miller.
He was released after DNA evidence proved his innocence.
And now, although he admits to being uncomfortable in the spotlight, Milgaard is driven to help others, be it Wrongful Conviction Day or any other day for that matter.
He says being a voice for those who have none makes him stronger.
“It’s ironic you know. I like the person I am today as a result of all of this. I’ve become a person that is socially aware.”
Milgaard and other advocates for the wrongly convicted believe Canada should have an independent committee that can review cases where wrongful convictions are suspected.
“You watched David Milgaard’s story unfold and you think, it’s one in a million.. (but) people end up in prison wrongly convicted” says Lori Kuffner of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted.
Kuffner adds, “he’s (Milgaard) is a living example that sometimes you have to fight for justice.”
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