Kaufman Report

Christine Marion Jessop (29 November 1974 – c. 3 October 1984) was a 9-year-old Canadian girl from Queensville, Ontario, who was abducted, raped, and murdered in October 1984. Her body was found about 50 kilometres (31 mi) from her home on New Year's Eve of the same year.[2][7][8]

Jessop's mother and elder brother, Kenney, had travelled to a detention centre where her father Bob was in custody. Her mother thought that, at 9-years-old, Christine was too young to visit the detention centre, and had been left behind, on her own in Queensville, 60 km (37 mi) north of Toronto.[2][7]

Jessop was declared missing on 3 October 1984. Two months later, on 31 December, her remains were found in a farmer's field in Sunderland Brock Township, 55 km (34 mi) east from her home; she had been stabbed to death and investigators discovered semen stains on her underwear.[2][7]

Police turned their attention to Jessop's next-door neighbour, Guy Paul Morin, on 14 February 1985, after he was mentioned by Jessop's mother.

Police set up surveillance of the Morin home on 19 February, with two officers eventually interviewing him three days later, on 22 February.[7] The following year, on 22 April 1985, Morin was arrested. He was twice put on trial for first-degree murder; the first trial began on 7 January 1986, for which he was acquitted. However, on 4 March, the Attorney General of Ontario launched an appeal of Morin's acquittal. The Crown claimed that the trial judge had made a mistake in directing the jury about the meaning of "reasonable doubt" and that the acquittal should thus be thrown out and Morin retried. The Court of Appeal agreed, and on 5 June 1987, it ordered a new trial. Morin appealed this decision to the Supreme Court of Canada, who dismissed the appeal on 17 November 1988.[7]

This second trial began on 28 May 1990, and Morin was convicted of first-degree murder on 30 July 1992.[3][7]

Immediately after Morin's conviction, a grassroots organization called Justice for Guy Paul Morin Committee was established to aid him in his search for exoneration. The Committee's first objective was to help Morin to appeal his conviction and in the meantime, to apply for his release on bail while he waited for the appeal to be decided. Morin was granted bail on 9 February 1993. Following this decision, the Committee reorganized itself as the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted (AIDWYC), now Innocence Canada, having decided to broaden its mandate from defending Morin to working on behalf of all wrongly convicted Canadians.[7]

It was not until 23 January 1995, almost 10 years after he was first arrested, that Morin was exonerated as a result of DNA testing that had not previously been available.[2][3][7] In February 1995, the Ontario Attorney General's office transferred the case from the Durham Regional Police to the Toronto Police. However, after interviewing over 300 suspects, a special, 9-man task force disbanded in March.[3]

The real killer remained unidentified until 2020, when his DNA was linked to the crime scene using genetic genealogy.

Kaufman said that he believed no Crown Counsel or police officer "ever intended to convict an innocent person." Rather, he said, they developed a "staggering" tunnel vision regarding their belief in Morin's guilt that led to a lack of objectivity and serious errors in judgment.[3] The report defines tunnel vision as a "single-minded and overly narrow focus on a particular investigative or prosecutorial theory, so as to unreasonably colour the evaluation of information received."[1] In the conclusion to his Report, Kaufman commented that, "An innocent person was convicted of a heinous crime he did not commit. Science helped convict him. Science exonerated him."[7]

As such, many of Kaufman's 119 recommendations were systemic in nature, dealing with ways in which police and prosecutors can avoid a narrow mind set—ranging from better interviewing techniques and improved methods of gathering and storing evidence from a crime scene, to continuing education of officers.[3]