Guy Paul Morin: The Canadian Justice System

Whenever someone states the country of Canada most people from other countries think of cold weathers, Mounties and people living in igloos. The reality is far from being that with there being warm summers and police with much better vehicles other than a horse. The country has a good government and a good justice system. Like most systems, the justice system in Canada is far from being perfect. There are multiple occasions where people are convicted of committing a crime that they truthfully did not do. One of that being Guy Paul Morin a Canadian citizen who was convicted for the murder and rape of his 9 year old neighbor Christine Jessop just for being weird. People can learn from Guy Paul Morin by him showing that the justice system has
problems due to faulty police investigation methods, is biased and decisions that were made should be fought. There was many problems made by the police that definitely messed up the investigation on the missing Christine Jessop. It all started on the investigation at Christine's house on the day she was missing which was October 3rd, 1984 (Faryon). Due to the town being very small, many people visited her house on the day she went missing. It is mainly because of this fact that DNA found in the house and more importantly in her room could be ruined due to people touching potentially important evidence;
An identification officer arrived around midnight to fingerprint the bicycle and take pictures. Since no one had been fingerprinted, the prints taken from the bike were useless. There was no record of who was in or out of the house, or who touched the bike. They haven't even taken fingerprints from Christine’s room. There was no way of knowing whose fingerprints were supposed to be there and whose weren’t (Faryon).
The next misstep of the police was on December 31st 1984 where Christine’s body was found in a path outside of the town (Guy). Firstly the police were not wearing gloves in the examination of the body. Secondly the police were in a rush due to upcoming snow that they missed important evidence such as a few extra bones that the Jessops has found a few months later. With this much mistakes made by the police in this investigation, it shows that the justice system is not completely perfect when it comes to investigating crimes.
In this case, the police that were carrying out the investigation were completely biased. With this comes tunnel vision which could completely change the whole course of the trial. This all started a few days after Christine went missing. Two police officers, Fitzpatrick and Shepard visited the Morin house and investigated by asking questions to Guy Paul and his parents. Soon after they finished, they marked Guy Paul as a “weird guy”. Guy Paul was marked weird for many reasons some being his closeness to his family, his love for beekeeping, his hobby of fixing cars in his backyard and his love of classical music (Guy). On Valentine's Day 1985, they visited Guy Paul again and interviewed and recorded him in their car (Faryon). Eight days following the interview they arrested him on his way to band practice for the rape and murder of Christine Jessop. What was odd about this arrest is that they had no clear evidence that he was the killer and that they only arrested him just for the fact that he was weird (Guy). The bias on Guy Paul only gets worse from here. The police does everything in their power to make Guy Paul guilty such as changing evidence to match Guy Paul’s profile. Some ways they did that was changing the potential killer to exactly match his profile. They changed the crime scene to match Guy Paul by changing a cigarette package that was found on the scene to a carton of milk since he does not smoke. They also bribed inmates to say that Guy Paul confessed to killing Christine in jail but in reality he did not. A big change they did to the story was change the time the Morins say they got home and found Christine missing which was originally 4:10 but was changed to 4:30 to make Guy Paul a possible contender to be her killer (Faryon). To sum this all up the police lied to the world and to the court to get Guy Paul Morin guilty by changing evidence and by convincing people he is a crazy person.
This case was won on the fact that the Morin family did not give up on the case.
The case had a total of three trials which lasted for about ten years. For the first trial Guy Paul was defended by a famous Toronto lawyer named Clayton Ruby (Guy). He was well known for facing tough criminal cases and his main defense in this trial was that the police did not build up a proper case before arresting his client, Guy Paul was then found not guilty but that trial was appealed and a second trial took place six years later. In the second case he was found guilty where he was against Neil McGuigan and was defended by Jack Kofshy (Guy). Unlike the first trial, Guy Paul was found guilty and was send to a lifetime in prison. Then 18 months into his prison sentence he was bailed out for $40,000 and had a third and final trial (Faryon). In this trial came new DNA evidence which proved that the seamen found on the underwear of Christine Jessop did not match Guy Paul’s DNA. With that in mind he was released of all charges and was let go. It took him 10 years and 3 visits to the court to be proven to not be guilty. It was known by him and his family that he was not guilty and that by the end of it all, the actual killer may not be found. This is a story which showcases a life of a man and his struggles against the Canadian justice system. Then finally after ten years he can live life knowing that he will no longer be judged of being a murderer. That is why his life can inspire people to
never give up knowing that they are right even against the government.
Many lessons can be learned by the life of Guy Paul Morin like how the justice system is not perfect due to faulty investigation, and has bias and decisions should be fought.
Guy Paul has a lot of people against him during the 10 years of him being labeled as a murderer. It did not help that there was police misconduct during the investigation and them not having reliable information during the trial. The police also had bias against him in the investigation like calling him weird, judging him for doing the things he loves to do and lying under oath to get him guilty. With all of that, Guy Paul knew he was innocent so he went to 3 trials and 10 years of torture to free his name. That is why many people can learn from the weird, Guy Paul
Morin.