Odelia and Neressa Quewezance may have suffered a miscarriage of justice, justice minister said
Canada justice minister and attorney general Sean Fraser has ordered a new appeal in the case of Odelia and Neressa Quewezance, who were convicted of second-degree murder in Saskatchewan in 1994.
Fraser’s order followed the conclusion of a criminal conviction review under the Criminal Code’s conviction review provisions. The minister said he had identified reasonable grounds to suggest that the Quewezance sisters may have suffered a miscarriage of justice.
Fraser indicated that new information had come to light since the sisters’ trial in Yorkton Court of King's Bench. Thus, the case will revert back to the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal in consideration of this information.
“My decision does not decide guilt or innocence, as that will rest with the courts. Our responsibility is to make sure Canadians can trust their justice system, and that means, in rare cases, returning cases to the courts for new information to be considered,” Fraser said in a statement.
The Quewezance sisters, who are of the Keeseekoose First Nation in Saskatchewan, were charged with the murder of Kamsack farmer Anthony Joseph Dolff, who worked at the St. Phillips Residential School on Keeseekoose First Nation. According to CBC News, Dolff had invited the sisters and their cousin to his home on February 25, 1993, a visit that resulted in the farmer’s death.
The cousin admitted to stabbing Dolff, and the sisters were convicted of second-degree murder. The sisters’ case was brought to non-profit organization Innocence Canada by David Milgaard, and an application to re-evaluate the case was filed with the justice minister on December 21, 2021.
Innocence Canada founding director James Lockyer is the sisters’ lead counsel, and he said that one piece of new information they would be presenting on appeal is the sisters’ five-day detention at the Kamsack Royal Canadian Mounted Police detachment after their arrest – even though a judge had ordered that they go to a detention centre.
RCMP officers had said the sisters confessed while being questioned over that period.
“We've got new information about that period…that we think compels an entire rethinking about the case and a complete rethinking about the reliability of their confessions. In essence, we're alleging that the confessions that were put before the court were false confessions,” Lockyer said in a statement published by CBC News.
He added that he would be filing a bail application to the Court of Appeal. He claimed that the sisters’ case was “an indictment of our parole system,” as they had remained incarcerated even though the judge at their trial ordered that they be eligible for parole after 10 years.
The sisters were conditionally released in March 2023; however, Neressa Quewezance is currently being held in a federal institution in British Columbia after supposedly failing to comply with her curfew condition. Meanwhile, Odelia sits in a provincial prison after being charged with impaired driving earlier this year.
Nonetheless, Odelia expressed gratitude for the justice minister’s order in an emailed statement made on behalf of both sisters.
“Neressa was 18 when she was arrested and is now 52. I was 21 and am now 55. But we have never stopped fighting. Today’s announcement by the minister is encouraging and now we will continue the fight in the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal,” she wrote in a snippet of the statement published by CBC News.
Under the Miscarriage of Justice Review Commission Act (David and Joyce Milgaard’s Law), a new independent commission will replace the existing ministerial review process. The commission is expected to deliver improved support for those who may have been wrongfully convicted and to understand marginalized communities’ specific challenges – particularly those experienced by Indigenous and Black communities.
The federal government confirmed that efforts to launch the Miscarriage of Justice Review Commission are ongoing.
