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Wrongly Convicted Database Record
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Charge: |
Criminal Negligence |
Sentence: |
90 days |
Years Imprisoned: |
0.13 |
Year Crime: |
1992 |
Year Convicted: |
1992 |
Year Cleared: |
2011 |
U.S. State or Country of Crime: |
Canada |
County or Region of Crime: |
Ontario |
City of Crime: |
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Result: |
Judicially Exonerated |
Summary of Case: |
"Dinesh Kumar was wrongly convicted of criminal negligence causing death related to the death of his six-week old son Gaurov on March 20, 1992. Dr. Charles Smith concluded that Gaurov's injuries were consistent with Shaken Baby Syndrome, and on June 26, 1992, Kumar was arrested and charged with the second degree murder of his son. Kumar insisted he did nothing to harm his son, but he had no evidence to conteract the expert opinion of Dr. Smith at a trial, which if believed by a jury would result in a lengthy prison term. Kumar pled guilty on December 3, 1992 to criminal negligence causing his son’s death. He was sentenced to 90 days imprisonment and two years probation. More than a decade later Smith's evidence in cases was coming under close scrutiny as being unreliable. On June 7, 2005 Dr. Barry McLellan – then the Chief Coroner for Ontario – announced in a press release that a formal review would be conducted into Smith’s work on 45 cases involving suspicious deaths of children. Kumar's was one of those cases. In May 2007, Kumar was informed by the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted that experts who reviewed Gaurov’s records agreed that there was no evidence suggesting that Brant had harmed his son. The experts agreed that it was possible Gaurov suffered a fatal hemorrhage caused by a head injury that he sustained during his birth. With AIDWYC's assistance the Ontario Court of Appeal granted Richard leave to reopen his case. On January 20, 2011, the Ontario Court of Appeal set aside Dinesh’s guilty plea and entered an acquittal." |
Conviction Caused By: |
Unreliable expert evidence by Dr. Charles Smith. |
Innocence Proved By: |
"On January 20, 2011, the Ontario Court of Appeal set aside Dinesh’s guilty plea and entered an acquittal." |
Defendant Aided By: |
AIDWYC |
Compensation Awarded: |
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Was Perpetrator Identified? |
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Age When Imprisoned: |
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Age When Released: |
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Sex: |
Male |
Skin/Ethnicity: |
Other |
Information Source 1: |
"A father’s 20-year battle for exoneration, The Star (Toronto, CAN), January 20, 2011" |
Information Location 1: |
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/925085--man-s-murder-conviction-dropped-in-baby-s-death?bn=1 |
Information Source 2: |
"Dinesh Kumar case profile, By Sarah Harland-Logan, AIDWYC website (Toronto, Canada)" |
Information Location 2: |
http://aidwyc.createtoconvert.com/cases/historical/dinesh-kumar/#_ftn8 |
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Innocents Database Created and Maintained by Hans Sherrer innocents@forejustice.org