50 years after two Indigenous men were convicted of killing a restaurant worker, a Winnipeg judge has acquitted them both.
According to CBC News, Justice Glenn Joyal acquitted Brian Anderson and Allan Woodhouse of the murder of Ting Fong Chan in 1973, who was fatally stabbed.
"I feel free," Woodhouse told reporters. "It's about time somebody believed me. Fifty years is a long time."
"Right now, I'm so excited I'm not even sure how good it is," Anderson said shortly after.
Michelle Jules, a Crown prosecutor, explained that Manitoba prosecutors understood that the convictions in 1973 were a miscarriage of justice and the Crown couldn't argue otherwise.
Jules added that the convictions were made off of "manufactured" admissions that were proven to be false.
Anderson had signed a confession but did not understand what he was being coerced into signing.
"Our justice system failed," Jules said. "We owe them and their families an apology."
Woodhouse was 17 when he was convicted and was then released in 1990 on parole. He's now in a wheelchair and laments the fact that he refused to speak to his family when he was in prison.
"I lost my life," he said.
Anderson, who's now 68, felt uneasy watching the footage of the news from when he was arrested. He had been released on parole in 1987.
"It should never have happened. I should never have had to spend time behind bars […] for something I didn't do," Anderson said.
The two had applied for criminal conviction reviews in 2019 and 2020, which led Federal Justice Minister David Lametti to order a new trial thanks to new evidence.
"To hear the judge say you're innocent and to apologize [...] that's not something that a judge has to do," Jerome Kennedy, one of their two lawyers said. "So I think it all hit me at once."
