N.B. men won’t face retrial after decades-old murder convictions quashed | Globalnews.ca

Two New Brunswick men whose 1984 murder convictions were recently overturned have been formally found not guilty.

Robert Mailman and Walter Gillespie appeared at a hearing at the Court of King’s Bench in Saint John on Thursday.

The two men were convicted in the Nov. 30, 1983, killing of George Gilman Leeman, and both have been on parole for about 20 years. Gillespie served 21 years of his life sentence in prison, while Mailman served 18 years.

Federal Justice Minister Arif Virani quashed the two second-degree murder convictions last month, saying there was reasonable basis to conclude that a miscarriage of justice likely occurred.

The chief justice of the Court of King’s Bench said Thursday that both men are cleared in the killing.

Gillespie is now 80 years old, and Mailman is 75. Ron Dalton, co-president of Innocence Canada, an organization that advocates for the wrongfully accused and that took up the men’s case, said Mailman has a terminal cancer diagnosis and was given just months to live.

— with a file from The Canadian Press

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