Dear readers,
It’s been a long time since my last newsletter, so thank you for your patience.
There are a number of things on the agenda this issue including Marie Henein, true crime podcasts, and judges gone wild.
Let’s start with Jian Ghomeshi’s brilliant and polarizing lawyer, who has taken over as appeal counsel in a sexual assault case that I’ve been following since last summer when Li Peng was tried and found guilty of rape.
Marie Henein wants the verdict overturned
There were only two witnesses at Li’s trial, the defendant and the complainant, an aspiring model, who said he raped her during a photo session at his home. Although the complainant emailed Toronto police within hours of leaving Li’s condo, her email sat unnoticed and unread in their mailbox for months. Partly as a result of this delay, there was no forensic evidence gathered. The trial was the very essence of a “he said, she said” case based almost entirely on the only two witnesses’ testimony.
In the end, the judge believed her not him. Henein is arguing that the verdict was flawed and unfair. She is asking the Court of Appeal to quash the conviction and acquit or order a new trial for Li.
If you would like to follow this story as it develops, please head over to Kickstarter for the details. If I get enough potential readers, I will produce a full series of articles on the case taking you inside the courtroom for the trial, the verdict, the sentencing, and the appeal. It’s a fascinating story that raises lots of questions about the red hot topic of sexual assault and how it’s treated before the courts.
If you have any questions, just let me know at ann.brocklehurst@gmail.com or in the comments.
So many true crime podcasts, so little time
While my dog rolls in the snow and on the grass, I listen to podcasts and (in the future) the War and Peace audiobook
I listen to a lot of podcasts while I walk my very stubborn and slow moving dog twice a day. In past weeks, I’ve been binge listening to true crime including several recently released new podcasts that I can highly recommend. You can subscribe to all of them for free through iTunes.
Accused
This is the fascinating story of a 1978 murder case, where the accused was acquitted at his murder trial and then found not liable in a civil case. But despite the fact that two juries didn’t believe he did it, police and prosecutors remained so convinced he was guilty, they refused to pursue other possible suspects.
This series is not as slick as Serial, to which it pays nudge nudge, wink wink homage, but it has a better underlying story to work with. The reporting team, led by Amber Hunt, has also managed to score interviews with just about all the key players, a feat which eluded Serial’s Sarah Koenig.
And, added bonus, Accused comes out twice a week, so you don’t have to wait a full seven days to get your fix.
Up and Vanished
When I first started listening to this one, I had a sinking feeling. The producer, host and writer Payne Lindsey seemed awfully green and episode one was rather formulaic. But the case of Tara Grinsted, a small town teacher and beauty queen who disappeared in 2005, was compelling enough to keep me listening, and I’m glad I did.
By episode two, Payne was getting all sorts of Georgia good ole boys to talk, racking up the scoops, and putting his grandma in the podcast. While she baked Cowboy cookies, it was revealed that she knew someone who knew something about the missing woman. Payne was adorable. No wonder everyone was spilling their guts to him. Not to mention that he held a Cowboy cookie giveaway.
The podcast is on a short hiatus as Payne gets married this weekend. You can catch up on all three episodes while he’s on his honeymoon. Congratulations to the bride and groom.
In the Dark
Just as this podcast about the unsolved 1989 abduction and murder of Jacob Wetterling was about to launch, the killer confessed. Needless to say that caused some last-minute revamping of a project that its creators had already been working on for a year.
The first three episodes have been both timely and strong as they look at why it took 27 years to bring a killer, who should have been a suspect very early on, to justice. The big question for me is whether they will be able to keep it up for five more episodes now that the murderer has confessed
Reading list
Just a reminder that my book, Dark Ambition: The Shocking Crime of Dellen Millard and Mark Smich, is coming out in November. You can read more about it and pre-order by clicking here.
Christie Blatchford’s new book Life Sentence: Stories from four decades of court reporting – or, how I fell out of love with the Canadian justice system (especially judges) will be for sale next Tuesday and a piece on judges gone wild is excerpted in the National Post.
I can’t help wondering what she would have to say about the judge’s decision in the Li Peng case, which brings me full circle.
If you’re interested in the Li Peng story, please back the Kickstarter project. It really is a doozy of a case, and it is only going to get more interesting as Marie Henein steps into the courtroom this fall. So far, there haven’t been any other reporters in court.
Click here for coverage of Li Peng case
Have a good weekend, everyone. Next newsletter will be next week.
AnnB