Wrongfully Convicted: Guilty Pleas, Imagined Crimes, and What Canada Must Do to Safeguard Justice

Witness to Yesterday (The Champlain Society Podcast on Canadian History)

In this podcast episode, Nicole O’Byrne talks to Kent Roach about his book, Wrongfully Convicted: Guilty Pleas, Imagined Crimes, and What Canada Must Do to Safeguard Justice, published by McGill-Queen’s University Press in 2023. In Wrongfully Convicted, Kent Roach raises awareness about wrongful convictions in Canada at a time when DNA exonerations are less frequent, and the memories of most famous cases are fading. Roach exposes lesser-known cases where defendants feel they have no option but to plead guilty, and where people have been convicted of crimes imagined by experts or police that never, in fact, happened. Roach makes a compelling case for better legislative regulation of police and forensic experts and the creation of a permanent and independent federal commission both to investigate wrongful convictions and their multiple causes. Though the issue affects all Canadians, Roach’s work reveals that the burden of wrongful convictions falls disproportionately on the disadvantaged, including Indigenous and racialized people, those with cognitive issues, single mothers, and the poor. Kent Roach is a professor at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. He is also cofounder of the Canadian Registry of Wrongful Convictions, and an award-winning author, who has spent his career documenting flaws in the Canadian justice system. Roach served as volume lead for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Report on the Legacy of Residential Schools and, in 2015, was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada. Image Credit: Canada. Department of Manpower and Immigration. Library and Archives Canada, e010996348 / If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past.