Last month, Ramnaresh Katwaru was on trial for manslaughter. Soon, a jury in Toronto would decide whether he had shaken his infant son, Darshand, to death.His trial began in earnest on May 15 with testimony from Dr. Glenn Taylor, the doctor who did an autopsy on the 5-month-old victim.
Taylor concluded the baby had died of severe injuries consistent with being shaken back and forth, or having his head or neck rotated.
Part of Darshand’s brain had pressed down on his spinal cord. The doctor called it “the end stage of very severe brain swelling.”
Covering the early stage of the trial for The Star was Peter Small, a veteran general assignment reporter with some courthouse experience.
Small’s opening story on the trial ran the next day, buried deep in the Greater Toronto section.
It was a short article, just nine paragraphs. But most journalists know it doesn’t take many words for a newspaper to land itself in trouble.
“Dad faces retrial in baby death,” said the headline, written as usual by an editor, one of five who worked on the news story.
The story noted it was a “new” trial. At an earlier trial, the baby’s mother had testified that her husband, then 24, “had choked the baby and then hit his head against a couch when he would not stop crying.”
The brief account wrapped up with three background paragraphs.
In 1998, Katwaru was sentenced to 10 years in jail after being convicted of manslaughter. The original charge was second-degree murder.
But in 2001, the Ontario Court of Appeal had ordered a new trial after quashing the conviction because of five errors by the trial judge.
Ontario’s highest court suggested the trial judge had diverted the jury’s attention from the possibility that the child’s mother was the killer.
The newsprint had barely cooled on Small’s story when the reporter discovered he’d made a blunder that could lead to a mistrial.
It’s against the law in Canada during a trial to print prejudicial information the jury hasn’t heard. The background information in The Star had potentially jeopardized a man’s right to a fair trial, breaching the law.
Regrettably, the ink was on the carpet and little could be done about it.
The story was purged from all databases to stop it from spreading further, especially on the Internet.
Tony Wong, a lawyer for The Star, prepared himself to face the court’s wrath when the trial resumed.
There was a mistrial, all right. But in what can only be described as a lucky break for The Star, the defective story wasn’t the direct cause.
There was another problem: a juror was unable to continue with the case. With Crown and defence in agreement, Justice Harry LaForme declared a mistrial for that reason.
On The Star’s behalf, Wong apologized in court for the mistake, saying the paper had had no intention to prejudice or delay the trial.
The judge thanked Wong for his submission, and also The Star for “coming to court today.”
The case resumed as a judge-only trial that ended Monday when Katwaru was convicted of manslaughter.
In finding him guilty, LaForme said he was “convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that (the mother) did not commit these acts.”
At The Star, there was remorse over a system breakdown.
“This was a real cautionary tale for everyone on city desk,” said deputy city editor David Annis. “No alarm bells went off. We even wrote the `retrial’ headline that by itself should have set off alarm bells.”
In all, a painful lesson. Reinforced on Tuesday with a long-planned newsroom workshop on legal and policy issues.
