The Current - The push to exonerate Russell Woodhouse

Episode Date: March 12, 2025

Four Indigenous men were convicted of a 1973 Winnipeg murder following forced confessions and a trial later described by a judge as “infected” by racism. Three of those men have since been exonerated — after years behind bars — but Russell Woodhouse died in 2011 before he saw his name cleared. Now, his family are pushing for his posthumous exoneration.

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Because News. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is the current podcast. Clarence Woodhouse is innocent. When he was exonerated for murder a judge said so. Brian Anderson and Alan Woodhouse who were also convicted along with him they have also been declared innocent. But the one other person who went to prison for the 1973 killing of a Winnipeg chef has

not heard those words. Russell Woodhouse is Clarence's brother. He died of cancer before the courts cleared the others' names. And his family wants him exonerated as well. It would be a small bit of justice decades after the four indigenous men were convicted and incarcerated for a crime they did not commit, a case that one judge said was infected by racism. Joining me here in Toronto is a lawyer on this case, James Lockyer, and Russell's brother, Clarence Woodhouse, and his fellow exoneree, Brian Anderson, are in our Winnipeg studio. Good morning, everyone. Good morning. Good morning.

Good morning. Brian, let me start with you. You were, as I said, exonrated in 2023, 50 years after you were first accused of murder. What did it mean for you on that day to hear your name cleared? What did it mean for you on that day to hear your name cleared? I thought, well, finally something's happened here, which is, I was very happy that this was recognized. Did you think that day was going to come? Some days, yes, but, you know, doubts were there too. The doubts were there too.

Yeah. What were those, do you mind me asking, what were those days like when you doubted that you would hear that day that you had been cleared? Oh, all kinds of thoughts go through your mind. Like, you know, it's not easy. Like it's depressing a lot of times. Like days like that, like, yeah, you don't want to go on. Like, you know, but then again, there's your family.

You got to think about your family on your own. Well, it's different again, because family matters a lot and you live for that. Russell was a friend of yours since childhood, is that right? Yes. He was, like, you guys were a year apart in age? I think so, yeah.

Yeah. Very close. What was it like for you to know that he died without getting that sense of relief that you did, without being exonerated? You know, I'm sure he would appreciate it a lot too, because it's, it bothers everybody. Like to me, even up to today, it still bothers me that nothing was done to clear your name, and you got accused for something you didn't do. It's

very hard, hard to live with that because you're being looked at as somebody that's a violent person, especially with crime like that. It bothered me a lot and then, but you know, I had to live with it. Clarence, can you tell me a little bit about Russell and what you remember about your brother from when you were growing up? When we used to go up, we used to go, we used to have a, we used to do something, we used to have fun all together all these years.

You had fun together all those years. Yeah. Yeah, what did you have fun doing together? Oh, just playing outside, we used to play outside all the time. Yeah. Yeah. What did you have fun doing together? I was just playing outside. I used to play outside all the time after school. James, you're here, you know the family well through the work that you have done and the work that you've done in trying to get their names cleared. The person that Brian and Clarence and Russell and Alan were accused of killing was Ting Fong Chan who was a 40 year old father of two stabbed and beaten to death in Winnipeg of 1973.

He was walking home from a shift at a restaurant. How did these four men end up behind bars for a murder that they didn't commit? You know, that's a really hard question to answer. And really, only the police at the time could answer it. And I don't think they could either. But they focused on a nearby house that was occupied. The tenants were indigenous men. And they came to believe that the four men who eventually got charged, and others, they charged others too, but then didn't proceed with those charges,

that these four were at the house that night. They weren't. And having decided that they were, they took them to the police station and assaulted each and every one of these young indigenous men and forced them to sign false confessions. I don't just say that, that's now been acknowledged by the head crown in Manitoba publicly and of course by the Chief Justice, Chief Justice Joyal of the Kings Bench Court in Manitoba. The Chief Justice who said that this case was in his words infected by racism. It was. If I can just give you a little quote from the trial judge. At one point in the trial he said this and I'm literally quoting from the transcript.

He said to the four men, this is not a jungle where we live, it is not a wild land. We are not subduing this land from anybody. We are not still taking it from wild people. I mean, if that's not a series of racist sentences, I've never seen anything quite like it in a judicial setting particularly, but that's what the judge said. Pete Slauson Brian, what do you remember about that night when you were arrested? You were at home,

is that right? Brian Yes, I was. Pete Slauson Tell me about that night and what you remember. Brian We were, I was on the reserve that time. And that evening, I used to travel back and forth with this man, Harry Anderson, that's supposed to be my uncle. And he and I would travel back and forth to the community, like usually on Friday evenings after work. And back again Monday mornings or Sunday night. But this specific time his car broke down,

so he had car problems, he couldn't leave that Sunday. And then Monday morning RCMP, along with the police constable, came to my dad's house where I was staying and they took me in and like you know I thought that was being picked up for something that I had a fine at the time I didn't pay for it but my mom told me that it could be that's why they pick it up and that was that until I got into the police car and they told me that I was wanted by the Winnipeg police.

And then I asked, what for? Then they said for murder. And I didn't believe that, like it was a shock to me. I thought they were just joking because many times them plus the bad constable, they used to pick me up on the highway when I was walking somewhere, gave me a ride home and they would say that I was, they picked me up for some reason but you know they just joked about that and that was just, that's what I thought, I didn't believe them at all.

What happened when you got to that police station? James talked about, and this is to get to the confession, James said that you were assaulted, that you were roughed up. Yeah. They started questioning me where I was at the time, like last week they said, and the last week was I started to remember what days was that, and they told me what they were looking for, and they said that they had

witnesses, that I was with them, and I asked who these people were, so they told me just Alan Woodhouse, Clarence Woodhouse, Russell Woodhouse, and that they had made statements, and they said that I was with them. And then, like you know, I didn't say anything, I kept quiet and I had my head down and he grabbed me by my chin over here, like you know, to start talking or to be like you know, or make it tough on myself. So you know, when one of the cops start getting rough with me, he grabbed me by my chin, pulled my head up and cracked my neck at the same time. And then, well, that startled me as well.

And then, I can't remember exactly how it just went about before the signing part of this piece of paper that I signed. They had told me to empty my pockets at the time I think, or it was before that. But anyway, they told me I was signing for my personal belongings. That's what you thought you were signing? That's right, yeah. And instead it was a confession. Yes. Anyway, that's what happened.

The question for, for, um, for Clarence and for Russell was around whether they knew what they were signing and whether, whether Clarence or Russell knew enough English to read or write a confession. Is your sense that they knew what they signed? I don't think so. You don't think that they did? Yeah.

What about for you, James? I mean, you've said in some ways that Russell was convicted because he was forced to put his signature to a false confession in a language he did not speak. Yes, Russell and Clarence, indeed all four of them had been brought up to speak the Salto language. That's the language they spoke at home. Brian and Alan Woodhouse were still fairly proficient, were proficient in English, but

Clarence and Russell were not, and yet they were said to have given confessions in fluent English. The whole proposition should have been absurd and was absurd, but in those days, it seems in the early to mid-1970s, the racism towards indigenous was such that an all-white jury was going to buy it, along with the white judge and all the white lawyers as well, Crown and Defense. So they would just seem to be doomed from the outset. They get assaulted by the police. When they tell the court, that's what happened to them, the court disbelieves them.

They tell the jury the same thing, the jury disbelieves them, and they end up spending all this time in prison for something they had absolutely nothing to do with. Are you ready to take control of your finances and build the life you've always dreamed of? I'm Jessica Morehouse, a Canadian money expert, accredited financial counselor, bestselling author, and host

of More Money. Each week, I bring you inspiring interviews and practical advice to help you make smarter financial decisions. Tune into More Money on your favorite podcast platform and let's start your journey to financial empowerment today. podcast platform and let's start your journey to financial empowerment today. Brian, when you were in prison, you worked to get yourself free. You had a teacher who worked with you in prison to help you.

Yes. Tell me about that. What was, what were you doing with that teacher? I chose to go to school and then I met the school teacher and one day I asked him, can you give me a hand, help me write a letter to my lawyer. I said, so he did.

And then he said to that, okay, I'll write him a letter too that I helped you on this. So he did. And then the lawyer wrote back and told him to leave my case alone or else like you know you get fired like you know I'll get I'll get you fired he told him and then school teachers told me that you know he says there's something wrong here like this Lord supposed to be helping you instead of against you I didn't know anything about that like I didn't know anything what was going on on there. So he told me that he would help me out. Eventually he said, I will get a polygraph expert.

He could do a polygraph test, he told me. So I did a polygraph test. He paid for it as well. And then I passed that. And then after that, he said, I'm gonna ask to see if I can get, see TV people to come interview you here, he said. So, which that happened as well. Yeah, that's how I met the school teacher. That must have been, I mean, you talked about those dark days when it felt like you would never get out

and when people weren't listening to you, it must have meant a lot to have somebody who was taking your case on. I mean, you talked about those dark days when it felt like you would never get out and when people weren't listening to you. It must have meant a lot to have somebody who was taking your case on. Yes, it was, but you know, like, you know, he still had doubts too, like if anything would ever come over. Yeah. James, the work that you do in many ways is tackling cases like this. This is your life's work.

This is what you have done over the course of your career. By the time you got involved in this, decades had passed from the time that these men went into prison. They were all out of prison by then, but Russell had died in 2011. How difficult was it to convince the court to exonerate the other three? What had to be done to have their names cleared? done to have their names cleared? Well, they, uh, Brian in particular, uh, asked uh, Innocence Canada to, uh, help with his case. Um, and, uh, in fact it was Jerome Kennedy of Innocence Canada who, uh, and Baban Sodhi who, uh,

took it up, uh, and their only remedy was to go through the minister of Justice in Ottawa because they had exhausted all their appeals. And so we petitioned the minister in Ottawa. We put the case together, and his representative who investigated the case and our petition was very supportive such that the minister exercised his highest power which was to quash their convictions and direct a new trial that's his best power which took us back into the trial court of the King's bench and in the meantime the Manitoba Justice the prosecutorial

division of Manitoba had acknowledged to prosecutorial division of Manitoba, had acknowledged to the minister that they agreed that these convictions were wrongful convictions and founded on racism, on the part of the police, the prosecutors, and the court. And frankly, I think they could have counted him a defense lawyers as well, although they did not. And we went before Chief Justice Joël, who gave an extraordinary series of statements, exonerating using that word. First, it was Alan and Bran, that was back in July of statements, exonerating, using that word. First, it was Alan and Bran. That was back in July of 73. We hadn't found Clarence, but then we found Clarence and brought an application for him as well. And once again, his case went before the Chief Justice, Chief Justice Joyall, who exonerated Clarence as well.

And that was just last year. And so what has to happen now for Russell to be posthumously exonerated? Well, we brought an application on his behalf through his sister, Linda Anderson, to the Minister of Justice. We brought the application at the same time as we did the one for Clarence, but the minister responded to Clarence quicker because obviously he's still alive. Perhaps that's not quite the way I should put it. He's more important, but you get it. That's an element of this too, right, in terms of why something like this matters. Yes, and for Russell, I think it is important.

It will be the first posthumous case of clearing someone. I'm confident that the minister will do the right thing and again, direct a new trial. He may feel he has to refer the case to the Court of Appeal of Manitoba just because of legalistic issues when the applicant is dead, but we're confident we'll get his case back before the courts through the minister. And the point here is that a miscarriage of justice is a miscarriage of justice. It doesn't matter whether the person is alive or dead, that you need to acknowledge and rectify that.

You do as a society, especially given who Russell was, an indigenous man so sorely treated by our criminal justice system. And I think it's going to be a great day for the family. Clarence is his brother, Clarence and Linda, his sister as well, and the extended family when he too is exonerated. Pete We asked the minister's office when this might resolve itself, and they said they couldn't tell us anything about the case because they needed to, in their words, maintain the integrity of the process and respect individual privacy. You said that it would be inconceivable for this not to be resolved in some ways within a full exoneration. It's inconceivable to me, talking as a lawyer,

I think it's highly unlikely that he won't be successful. So I should qualify a bit when I talk as a lawyer rather than as a human being, two different things. So, and yeah, I'm not surprised they said that to you. I would have expected that, and I don't think it's an unreasonable position on their part. That the process has to work itself.

That the process has to work its way through. I just wish they could be a little bit quicker, that's all. Brian, you were in prison for more than a decade. Alan Woodhouse served 23 years, Clarence 12 years behind bars, and Russell had a 10 year sentence. How do you think of that time that you spent behind bars? It wasn't right what they did to us. Not right at all. They just toyed with us sort of thing.

They were just toyed with this sort of thing. They did whatever they wanted. Nothing stopped them. But I don't want to feel sorry for myself. I don't want to go that far. It happened to me and it's gone already. It's passed. I'm happy that I'm free now. Is having a court say that you are innocent, is it enough to make up for what you went

through? It's good to hear that people see your point, but that's not enough. They need to do something right away. I think other people I've heard of that went through the same thing as I did. They were dealt with right away. And being dealt with, I mean, part of this, this is about compensation, right? Yes, part of that is in there, yes. You have a lawsuit that is against the provincial and the federal government seeking compensation.

Yes. What are you looking for in that? Well, I hope I get something out of it, like, you know, because, like, I'm not different from anybody else, from any other race. I should get something back too. Like, I'm a human being just as a... What does it mean to be a free man now? I mean I think it's something that a lot of people don't

think about unless they've gone through something like what you have gone through. What does freedom mean to you now? Well it's nice to not have to report to anybody like it's something like you know what I didn't like is people coming from different parts of the world to come and tell me how to live my life. And that's always been like that with native people. They've always been told or held back from trying to live a happy life. Like, why can't I have a app like everybody else? Like even in jail, like, you know, all these, all the employees over there, all the guards and whoever else is working in there telling you how to live your life or what to do or when to do this, when to do that. Like, I hated that. Like, you know, it's hard to try and forget that.

Like, it's been, like, you know, you live with that shit for 10 years. And like, you know, you're not gonna forget it that easy. You feel like you're able to live a happy life now? I don't think so. Like, you know, it'll be hard. Like, I'm still trying to adjust. Yeah. It's gonna be hard to do.

Clarence, what would it mean for you to have Russell declared innocent? What would that mean for you? Well, I'll be happy. I'll be happy for it to get to that. Do you think he would have been happy? Yeah, yes. Yeah. It must be something that you've been waiting for for a long time. Yeah, it is, yeah. Yeah. James, what is the...

You and I have spoken a number of times about the work that you've done in terms of clearing people's names, in terms of rectifying wrongs in our legal system. What is this story about, do you think? Ah, it's about succinctly four young indigenous men, one of whom was only 17 at the time, four young indigenous men, one of whom was only 17 at the time, Alan Woodhouse, who were the victims of a criminal justice system that needs improvement, especially when it comes to its treatment of the indigenous. There's a lot to learn from it, in other words, and we've been pushing that forward. We need to be much more respectful of the indigenous as a

whole. We need to stop sending so many of them into our prison system. We need to have parole officials who know and understand the cultures of these people, the indigenous. And we need to use the government term, truth and reconciliation. We haven't got it yet. I remember when Alan Woodhouse won his case, I ended up getting into a ridiculous argument with his parole officer who claimed

that he was still on parole. And I ended up having to hang up on him and I just told him that if he did anything to Alan in terms of punishment because Alan wasn't doing what he was saying that he would be facing a significant civil suit of his own it was the only way to shut him up. But it was indicative of how our system can treat our original inhabitants. So there is a lot to learn from this case, but above all, it's a very human story of these four now aged men. I mean, they're all in their 70s now. They went through this for, well, 52 years and

they're still going through it. It's good for us to think about their situation and their case, I think. It's good to have you here. Thank you very much. Pleasure. Clarence, thank you very much. Yes. And Brian, thank you and I wish you the very best. Okay, thanks, James. Okay, thank you, Brian. Thanks,, thanks James. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Brian. Thanks Clarence. Take care. Yeah.

Take care guys. Bye bye. Bye. That's Clarence Woodhouse, the brother of Russell Woodhouse, along with Russell's friend, Brian Anderson, they were in our Winnipeg studio and their lawyer, James Lockyer was here with me in Toronto.