OTTAWA – The Supreme Court of Canada has cleared the way for a wrongfully convicted man to sue police and the Crown over his three decades of imprisonment.
The court has refused to hear an appeal that was seeking to block Romeo Phillion’s multimillion-dollar lawsuit for negligence and prosecutorial wrongdoing.
Phillion’s suit was originally barred by a lower court, but was reinstated by the Ontario Court of Appeal.
Now in his mid-70s, Phillion was convicted of second-degree murder in 1972 in the death of Ottawa firefighter Leopold Roy based on a confession he recanted almost immediately.
The federal government ultimately referred the case to the Ontario Court of Appeal, which quashed his conviction and ordered a new trial in 2009.
The Crown then withdrew the charge, arguing too much time had passed.
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