Canadian acquitted of 48-yr-old murder conviction

TORONTO, Aug 28 (Reuters) A Canadian man who was sentenced to hang for murder nearly 50 years ago when he was just 14, was acquitted today by an appeal court, which described the original sentence as a miscarriage of justice.

The Ontario Court of Appeal overturned Steven Truscott's 1959 conviction in the rape and murder of a 12-year-old classmate in small-town southwestern Ontario.

''The court unanimously holds that the conviction of Mr Truscott was a miscarriage of justice, and must be quashed,'' it said in its much-anticipated ruling. ''...We are satisfied that if a new trial were possible, an acquittal would clearly be the more likely result.'' Truscott was convicted for the strangling death of school friend Lynne Harper, becoming Canada's youngest death-row inmate. The sentence was later commuted to life in prison, and he was quietly released after 10 years behind bars.

He has always insisted he was innocent.

Since his trial and sentence, Truscott has become a cause celebre for champions of the wrongly convicted, particularly after he emerged from seclusion in 2000. That sparked a new public campaign that prompted the Canadian government to begin re-examining the case.

In 2004, then-Justice Minister Irwin Cotler conceded Truscott was likely wrongfully convicted and referred the case to the Ontario Court of Appeal, which began hearings last year.

The eight-month appeal attracted intense public attention, with Truscott's lawyers introducing expert witnesses, fresh forensic evidence, and older evidence that had not been made available to defense lawyers at the original trial or at a Supreme Court review seven years later.

The five-judge appeal panel was seen to have several options in its ruling on Tuesday: dismiss the appeal and uphold the original murder conviction; dismiss the conviction and order a new trial; stay the proceedings; or acquit Truscott, overturning the murder conviction.

Truscott's defense team had hoped for the court to also declare Truscott innocent, which would have set a precedent in Canadian justice. However, legal commentators widely held this to be unlikely.

SHOCKING CRIME Harper's death shocked the country when her body was discovered in a woods near the small southwestern Ontario town of Clinton. She had been raped and strangled.

Police suspicion immediately fell on Truscott, who said he gave Harper a ride on his bicycle shortly before she disappeared, two days before her partly clothed body was found in a wooded grove.

He said he saw her get into a car after he dropped her off at the highway.

He was charged within days, and found guilty in a trial that lasted two weeks.

However, doubts about Truscott's guilt began to surface soon after, and a book published in 1966 questioning police tactics prompted then-Prime Minster Lester Pearson to order a Supreme Court review.

The court upheld the original verdict, but the case bubbled back into the public's consciousness in 2000, when a CBC television documentary presented new information that key evidence had been bypassed in the original trial.

Later today, the soft-spoken Truscott was scheduled to respond to the court's decision.

REUTERS MS HS2221