Ostrowski impatient as Court of Appeal mulls case

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This article was published 08/11/2018 (2142 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Nearly six months after the prosecution admitted he may have been wrongfully convicted of murder, Frank Ostrowski is still waiting for Manitoba’s highest court to decide whether he’ll be acquitted.

The Winnipeg man spent 23 years in prison for a 1986 drug-related murder he’s always claimed he didn’t commit, and in May, Crown prosecutors conceded there had been a “miscarriage of justice.” But the Court of Appeal has yet to release its decision that is expected to formally dispose of his conviction.

“It’s just nerve-wracking, waiting and waiting and waiting, and knowing that you’ve done nothing wrong. It’s taken 31 years to resolve this problem,” Ostrowski said.

The question is whether the court will decide to enter an acquittal or a judicial stay of proceedings. Both options would effectively overturn the conviction, but Ostrowski has argued an acquittal would do more to clear his name.

“My lawyers are saying that the judges are working very hard putting this together,” Ostrowski said. “I’m the one who’s left hanging. I’m the one that’s hurting because of the decision not being finalized.”

Now 69, the former drug dealer and hairstylist has been out on bail for the past nine years. He remains on bail conditions while he awaits the court’s decision, one of which prevents him from leaving the province without special permission. He said Friday he believes his bail conditions should have been removed as soon as the Crown conceded there had been a miscarriage of justice.

“The miscarriage of justice in this case falls squarely at the feet of the state,” Crown attorney Randy Schwartz told the Court of Appeal on May 28, 2018.

The concession came after a lengthy appeal process led by Toronto lawyer James Lockyer, founding director of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted, and Winnipeg lawyer Alan Libman.

During hearings in 2017, the appeal introduced fresh evidence and called several key justice-system players to testify, including former Crown prosecutor George Dangerfield, about how Ostrowski’s case was handled before and after his 1987 trial and conviction for ordering the fatal shooting of 22-year-old Robert Nieman.

Until last May, no details of the appeal could be published. Ultimately, the Crown agreed Ostrowski’s trial wasn’t fair because police notes weren’t disclosed to his defence lawyers, and neither was a secret deal to secure a key witness to testify against him. The Crown argued, though, that there was no clear evidence presented to the Court of Appeal that would prove the prosecution deliberately hid evidence and covered up the deal.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay