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Lawyer questions why prosecutors refuse to fully exonerate wrongfully convicted man

“The forensic evidence upon which Klassen was convicted was faulty and he needlessly served 27 years in prison," said Tamara Levy, dictor at UBC Innocence Project.
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“It’s a bittersweet result," says one lawyer.

The head of the UBC Innocence Project is questioning why prosecutors refuse to fully exonerate a Kamloops man who served 26 years in prison for a wrongful murder conviction.

The Crown stayed Gerald Klassen’s murder charge on Friday, bringing to an end his decades-long legal odyssey and making him a free man.

That’s good, according to UBC Innocence Project director Tamara Levy, who was one of a team of lawyers who worked to have Klassen’s 1995 conviction overturned — but it could be better.

“It’s a bittersweet result because, of course, we are happy that the proceedings have come to an end for Gerald, but a stay of proceedings is not the right result in law,” she told Castanet Kamloops.

“In my view — and in the view of lawyers, academics and judges who have studied the issue — the right result would have been for the Crown to call no evidence and invite the court to acquit Mr. Klassen.”

Levy said that’s what happened to Tomas Yebes, another one of the UBC Innocence Project’s clients who was exonerated in 2020.

Klassen was convicted by a B.C. Supreme Court jury in 1995 of one count of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.

Klassen was convicted of killing 22-year-old Julie Delores McLeod, who was found dead at a Highway 5A rest stop in December of 1993. During trial, a forensic pathologist testified that McLeod likely died as the result of a severe beating, but that evidence has since been found to have been “insufficient,” according to the Crown.

“The forensic evidence upon which Klassen was convicted was faulty and he needlessly served 27 years in prison,” Levy said.

“There is no substantial likelihood of conviction and he’s entitled to an acquittal in open court after what he’s endured.”

Castanet Kamloops asked BC Prosecution Service spokesman Dan McLaughlin to shed some light on the decision to enter a stay rather than invite an acquittal.

“After reviewing the circumstances and all available evidence in this case, the BCPS concluded that a stay of proceedings was the appropriate process for bringing this prosecution to a conclusion,” he said.