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His lawyer, James Lockyer, helped exonerate David Milgaard, who died last month.
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June 3, 2022 • 21 hours ago • 2 minutes reading • 40 comments Odelia Quewezance speaks while holding an eagle feather during a Zoom call on May 18, 2021. Sisters Odelia and Nerissa Quewezance, who were convicted for second-degree murder in 1994, they say they are innocent.
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OTTAWA – Two Indigenous sisters who have spent nearly 30 years in prison for what they say is an unjust murder conviction now have reason to hope their names can be erased soon.
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The Justice Department has sent a letter to the lawyer representing Odelia and Nerissa Quewezance saying that there may be a reasonable basis for concluding that there has probably been a miscarriage of justice in this matter.
The letter, from the department’s criminal conviction review group, says the matter will now move to the investigative stage of the sentencing review process.
Once the group has completed its investigation, a recommendation will be made to Justice Minister David Lametti to consider it.
Odelia was 20 and Nerissa was 18 when they were arrested for stabbing 1993 farmer Anthony Joseph Dolff, 70, near Kamsack, Sask.
His lawyer, James Lockyer, says the sisters were present when Dolff was murdered, but one person who was young at the time confessed to the murder and stated that the sisters were not involved.
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Odelia Quewezance recently received a brief release from prison and traveled to Ottawa on Thursday to appeal directly to law enforcement officials and demand the release of Nerissa, who remains imprisoned in British Columbia.
Lockyer filed a petition with Lametti’s office in December to request a ministerial review of the case.
He says he received the letter from the department on Thursday and now plans to file a bail application later this month or early July.
“It’s a sign that things might be going well for them,” Lockyer says of the sisters ’reaction to the news. “It simply came to our notice then. They may begin to see a possible reversal of their conviction on the horizon.
“It’s very good news, and if I can get both of them bail, it’s even better news.”
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The Aboriginal Peoples Congress says in a statement that it is “ecstatic” to know that justice can come to the sisters.
Kim Beaudin, the congressional national vice president, says it is exciting that “after 30 years of colossal injustice, women are one step closer to freedom.”
“It must be destiny,” says Beaudin, from the time of the letter that reached Lockyer the same day Odelia Quewezance made her call to Ottawa.
Lockyer, a Toronto lawyer who helped exonerate David Milgaard in 1997 and helped found the advocacy organization Innocence Canada, said he took on the sisters’ case because of Milgaard’s belief in his innocence.
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Justice lawyer David Milgaard, jailed for wrongful conviction, dies at 69
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Joyce Milgaard, activist who worked diligently to free her unjustly convicted son, dies at the age of 89
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Odelia has said that Milgaard, who spent 23 years in prison for a rape and murder in 1969 that she did not commit, was her “greatest advocate” and was “like a brother, an angel” to her. Milgaard died last month.
Lockyer argued that “the two young indigenous women (were) essentially at the mercy of a group of RCMP agents for five days without protection” and that their statements were “completely unreliable”.
“Forget for a moment about abortion in your trial, they are still (imprisoned), 20 years after being eligible for parole,” Lockyer said in an interview last month.
“They must be able to live the rest of their lives as free people.”
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on June 3, 2022.
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