Two New Brunswick men whose 1984 murder convictions were recently overturned by the federal justice minister have been formally declared not guilty.
Tracey DeWare, chief justice of the Court of King’s Bench, said on Jan. 4 that Robert Mailman and Walter Gillespie are “innocent in the eyes of the law” of the Nov. 30, 1983 killing of George Gilman Leeman in Saint John, N.B.
After the Crown informed the court that it would not present any evidence, Justice DeWare said a finding of not guilty was the only verdict available.
“It is most regrettable that it has taken 40 years for this day to come,” she said.
Mr. Mailman and Mr. Gillespie had been convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment with no eligibility of parole for 18 years. An appeal of their convictions was dismissed in 1988.
Saying new evidence had surfaced and there was a reasonable basis to conclude a miscarriage of justice had occurred, Justice Minister Arif Virani quashed the convictions last month and ordered a new trial. Mr. Virani cited new information that was not submitted to the courts at the time of the initial trials and appeals and that calls into question “the overall fairness of the process.”
Mr. Mailman, 76, and Mr. Gillespie, 80, submitted their application for criminal conviction review in December 2019, and both were on parole and out of custody awaiting the Jan. 4 decision.
Innocence Canada, a group that advocates for the wrongfully accused and took up the men’s case, has said Mr. Mailman has been diagnosed with terminal cancer.
The organization says Mr. Leeman’s badly beaten and partially burned body was found by a jogger in a wooded area in the Saint John neighbourhood of Rockwood Park. It says Mr. Gillespie and Mr. Mailman “both had strong alibis with multiple witnesses placing them far from the crime scene on the day of the murder.'’
Two eyewitnesses had testified for the Crown in the original trials, and Mr. Mailman and Mr. Gillespie’s 1988 appeal was based on an affidavit from one of them, 18-year-old Josh Arnold Loeman. In the affidavit, he recanted what he had originally told police about the killing. Mr. Loeman said that his evidence at the trials was false and that police made him testify to what he said after threatening to charge him with Mr. Leeman’s murder and send him to prison.
However, in a subsequent letter attached to a police affidavit submitted to the Appeal Court, Mr. Loeman said it was his recantation that was false, the result of threats from people associated with Mr. Mailman. The Appeal Court concluded the fresh evidence from the defence was not credible and denied the appeal.
Innocence Canada says Mr. Mailman served 18 years in prison and Mr. Gillespie served 21 years of his life sentence in prison.
