In lieu of the current wildfires in Alberta, Canada, I sent a message of concern regarding the safety of my new friend and colleague, Lorraine Dmitrovic, who resides in Ontario. Lorraine responded by saying that her area was seeing something resembling residual smoke from the Province that is engulfed in the actual flames.
Lorraine co-hosts an Ontario based podcast called, The Ultimate Movies Broadcast Show. She invited Joan Van Houten and me onto her show recently as a follow-up to a previous interview she did with Mark Saxenmeyer, CEO of The Reporter’s Inc, about an upcoming wrongful conviction documentary he is producing called, Guilty Until Proven Innocent (which will include the Wisconsin Monfils case).
With Joan being the step-daughter of Michael Johnson, one of the six men convicted in this case that is still incarcerated, and me, an advocate on Johnson’s behalf, Lorraine wanted us to inform her audience of our advocacy in this case.
Joan Van Houten
Joan Treppa with exoneree Michael Piaskowski; the only one of the six to be exonerated in the Monfils case
Each interview that Joan and I do reflects back, giving a mirrored image of the infinite devastation that befell countless innocent lives, in the wake of this flawed case. Our goal is to reach new audiences, to educate, inspire, and caution, about the prevalence of wrongful convictions within our society. With a record breaking 151 exonerations in 2015, an average of 3 per week, this issue is slowly becoming less obscure, as that number surpasses those of previous years, and as news reports continue to unveil additional stories of innocence.
My husband and I awoke this morning to a definite haze, as described by Lorraine, that ironically traveled both from Canada and from a small town just north of us; Bemidji, Minnesota. I likened this phenomenon to the Monfils case, a travesty of injustice with its vagueness, incomplete and questionable gaps that failed to bring clarity to the resulting death of the deceased victim. Expectations were placed on a dazed jury, forcing them to reflect on evidence that amounted to nothing more than a smoke screen. Their decision to convict these six innocent men leaves us all in a cloud of residual smoke that lingers to this day…
Smokey sunrise over Laddie lake
Here is the full thirty-six-minute interview with Lorraine Dmitrovic.
