Samantha Savage recently won the gold medal for best student paper from the Wrongful Conviction Law Review.
Her paper, " The Reliability of Expert Evidence in Canada: Safeguarding Against Wrongful Convictions. The Wrongful Conviction Law Review, 3(1), 82–93. (Original work published July 20, 2022) was selected by the Canadian-based law review’s editorial board of wrongful conviction scholars.
The WCLR is a non-profit, open access, peer-reviewed international journal focusing on wrongful convictions and miscarriages of justice. While it is fundamentally a law review, it also accepts submissions from other disciplines (e.g. criminology, sociology, psychology, criminal justice etc.).
Savage originally wrote the paper for the wrongful conviction course taught by Professors Mark Green and Stephen Bindman.
From her abstract: “This paper analyzes Canada’s common law as it stands on expert evidence and key Canadian inquiries and reports on expert evidence, wrongful convictions, and forensic science. The analysis aims to demonstrate that Canada’s laws, inquiries, and reports have not gone far enough to ensure that expert evidence is reliable in order to protect innocent citizens against wrongful convictions. I propose that to safeguard against the admission of improper expert evidence in trials, Canada should (1) heighten the standard expert evidence must meet to be considered reliable (2) foster a system of peer-reviewed research, training, accreditation, and accountability in forensic science disciplines, and (3) ensure that all legal actors receive training, education, and free access to information in forensic sciences and forensic science limitations. This paper argues that continued education in forensic sciences for legal actors, systemic changes in forensic science disciplines, and changes in the law of reliability of evidence are necessary to prevent improper expert evidence from contributing to wrongful convictions in Canada.”
Savage is currently a lawyer at Dwight Montgomery Law Offices, a small general practice firm in Pembroke, Ontario. She works primarily in family law and in her spare time she volunteers with Innocence Ottawa, an innocence project based at the University’s Criminology Department.
Says Savage: “I wanted to become a lawyer to help with access to justice for middle-class and lower-income families like those found in rural areas.
“I have always had an interest in criminal law but before law school, I was convinced I would become a Crown prosecutor if I went into criminal law. I didn’t think I would be capable of defending someone I thought was guilty of committing a crime.
“After law school, my opinion is that if I were to go into criminal law, I would gladly work in criminal defence but as a Crown, my biggest fear would be contributing to a wrongful conviction. After studying wrongful convictions in law school and volunteering with Innocence Ottawa, I could see just how easy it is to be part of the chain of events that lead to a wrongful conviction. Tunnel vision, for instance, would be an ever-present trap to fall into.”
She says what sparked her interest in this particular area of wrongful convictions was the Forensic Science class she took, taught by four Ottawa Crown attorneys and which focused on the rules of expert evidence. It also covered several cases where the reliance on flawed expert evidence resulted in wrongful convictions. Knowing that most inquiries into wrongful convictions in Canada were due to flawed expert evidence, she noted that there were so many ways changes could be made to how the courts handle expert evidence to prevent wrongful convictions.
“Going into writing my paper, I knew that expert evidence was one of the main contributors to wrongful convictions. Therefore, I made the focus of my paper on the changes Canada could make to prevent expert evidence from contributing to wrongful convictions, including changes to the reliability standard for expert evidence, further education on expert evidence for legal actors, and more structure regarding how one is deemed an expert in their field.
“While family law is primarily my profession at the moment, criminal justice reform is my passion, which is why I volunteer with Innocence Ottawa. For the moment I am happily providing much-needed family law services to my small community while fighting for the wrongfully convicted outside my office hours.”
Professor Green recalls that Samantha was a regular and thoughtful contributor during class discussions (conducted via Zoom due to Covid). The subject of her major paper – the reliability of expert evidence and safeguarding against wrongful convictions continues to be a serious concern with another apparent systemic failure, by a medical examiner, recently confirmed by the British Columbia Court of Appeal.
“Samantha has a longstanding commitment to the area of wrongful convictions, which continues today, and it is very gratifying to see her work recognized through this award,” said Green.
Savage previously completed her B.A. at Memorial University of Newfoundland, double majoring in English and Law and Society with a certificate in Criminology. She received her J.D. from the uOttawa Common Law Section and completed the Option in Dispute Resolution and Professionalism.
When she’s not working or volunteering, you can find her spending time with family and friends, reading, horseback riding, or watching whatever big pop culture movie is out that week.
Last year, Esti Azizi won the gold medal for her paper "Maintaining Innocence: The Prison Experiences of the Wrongfully Convicted.” The Wrongful Conviction Law Review, 2(1), 55–77.