Richard Brant

Richard Brant, fell victim to the injustices that result from wrongful accusations when on April 21, 1995 he was convicted of manslaughter.   

This was precipitated by the death of his 9-week-old son Dustin's death on November 17th 1992, followed by Dr Charles Smith’s diagnosis that the cause was Shaken Baby Syndrome.  This led to his arrest 1993 and after pleading guilty in 1995 to aggravated assault, Brant spent 6 months incarcerated.  The unraveling of the plausibility of Brant’s case began when Dr Smith's reputation was questioned because other faulty diagnoses came to light, and his became one of the 45 cases involving suspicious deaths of children that were reopened in 2005.  New conclusions by forensic neuropathologist Dr. Whitwell showed that no evidence supported the original findings by Smith allegedly ensuring Richard, nor Shaken Baby Syndrome caused Dustin’s death.   

The Ontario Court of Appeal exonerated Richard on May 4 2011, an entire 16 years later.  Richard claimed that “the truth always comes out.  I waited and it came”.  However, it isn’t as simple as announcing an exoneration and getting your life back, unfortunately as Richard stated in a telephone interview from a halfway house in Moncton, “With the conviction, it just put it into everybody’s head that I had done something”.