Guy Paul Morin
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Guy Paul Morin is a Canadian who was wrongfully convicted of the October, 1984 murder of nine-year-old Christine Jessop of Queensville, Ontario. Morin was 23 at the time.
Although Morin was acquitted of murdering the girl at his first trial in 1986, the Crown exercised its right to appeal on the grounds that the trial judge made a fundamental error prejudicing the Crown's right to a fair trial. In 1987 the Court of Appeal ordered a new trial. The retrial was delayed until 1992 by Morin's own appeals based on the Crown's non-disclosure of exculpatory evidence and by other issues, including the double jeopardy rule.
Morin was convicted at the second trial, but he was widely believed to be innocent. For example, while in prison Morin was held in the general population, although murderers of children are usually segregated for their own protection. Morin has said that the first thing he was told by his fellow inmates was that they thought he was innocent.
Improvements in DNA testing led to a test in 1995 which excluded Morin as the murderer. Morin's appeal of his conviction was allowed and a directed verdict of acquittal entered in the appeal.
An inquiry into Morin's case also uncovered evidence of police and prosecutorial misconduct, and of misrepresentation of forensic evidence by the Ontario government's Centre of Forensic Sciences.