COFFIN WAS GUILTY - EXCERPT FROM THE BROSSARD REPORT (first part)

I begin today a reproduction and a literal translation of Part V of the Report of the Royal Commission of Enquiry on the Coffin Affair presided by the Honourable Justice Roger Brossard (hereinafter designated the Brossard Commission Report) 1964, from page 344 to363.

At the basis of all attacks, violent or moderate, direct or disguised, directed by certain advocates of the abolishment of capital punishment, against the administrators of justice in this province, on the occasion of the Coffin affair, we find the precise assertion that Coffin was innocent or the insidious suggestion, but real that he was; without this premise, the argument of those who sought, to sustain their assertion, an example illustrating in a remarkable way the necessity to abolish capital punishment lost its striking power; that is why they endeavoured, with so much vigour, to make believe in the injustice of the condemnation and execution of Wilbert Coffin. This is this premise that served as a basis and pretext to the two pamphlets of Jacques Hébert titled Coffin was Innocent and I Accuse the Assassins of Coffin of which we know that the thesis was, otherwise adopted, at least indirectly encouraged by media agencies who publicized these two books intensely and, in my opinion, carelessly and thoughtlessly.
From the first page of his second book, mister Hébert was saying: When the innocence of Wilbert Coffin will burst in broad daylight.
On the last page, he repeated in a different way his first assertion several times all along in his book in these terms: At last, you have the strict obligation to rehabilitate the memory of Coffin.
In my foreword, on the first sitting of our enquiry, I declared that a new trial susceptible of a judicial rehabilitation of Wilbert Coffin was not contemplated posthumously or the verdict rendered against him be confirmed. I do not intend to adopt now a different attitude and guideline that would exceed the powers bestowed on me by the order-in-council; the enquiry was not a trial, and consequently, this report is not a judgment biding judicially on whomsoever; this report constitutes essentially an expression of opinions based on my findings and interpretation of facts proven before the Commission.
However, in order to evaluate retrospectively the character, the importance and the consequences that the conduct and the outcome of the trial of Coffin, the doings of those who participated directly or indirectly to the preparation and the presentation of the evidence that served against Coffin and to weigh the value of belief or doubts that the participants may have entertain as to the guiltiness of Coffin, it is, I believe, indispensable to consider if, while taking into account the facts that were proven at the trial and to which judges and jury concluded to its guiltiness, there might be serious motives to believe in the possibility of his non guiltiness on the basis of facts proven before this Commission and which had not been at the trial; as far as I am concerned, I consider indispensable and of elementary justice towards all those against whom accusations and insinuations were made to study and consider this problem.
I believe in the necessity of this study because, on the one hand,
a) all the thesis of the authors of accusations, frank or crafty, is based essentially on the premise that Coffin was innocent, contrary to what was decided by the courts of criminal jurisdiction on the basis of the evidence adduced at the trial;
b) because, if it is the case, the condemnation of Coffin would have been a miscarriage of justice;
c) because it would then be necessary to conclude that the administrators of justice had voluntarily or involuntarily, as the case may be, contributed to the commission of this miscarriage of justice.

And because, on the other hand,
d) If the premise is false, there would not have been a miscarriage of justice, and
e) All reprehensible actions on the part of those who participated in the preparation and the presentation of the evidence would not have, from a point of law, strict and pure, been the cause of a miscarriage of justice; the rule of law of an accused in a just and legally carried trial the purpose of which is to allow an innocent to be acquitted; its fundamental object being not to permit to a guilty to be acquitted.

I believe, in other respects, that I am obliged to consider this problem and to study it, would it be not to acquiesce by my silence to the opinion that Mr Maloney had thought to express, without having been invited to do so, when he testified before the Commission, in the following terms:
Transcriptions at page 11743
So, I took the position that, regardless of the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, that is not by any means the end of the matter, you still have to consider the contents of Coffin’s affidavit and of the affidavits of the other people from the Gaspé area; and they should still give us a new trial.

(IF THIS PROPOSITION IS ACCEPTED, THERE IS NO MORE ACCUSED WHO SHALL PRESENT A DEFENCE, CERTAIN THAT HE SHALL BE, IF FOUND GUILTY, ABLE TO GIVE HIS AFFIDAVIT AND FIND OTHER AFFIDAVITS TO OBTAIN A NEW TRIAL.)

Transcription at page 11771:

Because, at that stage, I was of the view that a serious error had been made by the government in allowing this man to be executed and it is something that will never cease to disturb public opinion, this case. (Thanks, Mr. Maloney!)

I may add that it does not appear clearly from the testimony of Mr. Maloney if he has examined or not, before the present enquiry, the statutory declaration made by Coffin on the 6th of August 1953, filed at the preliminary enquiry, but not filed at the trial by jury, this declaration which the Crown kept in reserve in case Coffin would be called to testify and which was one of the main reasons, if not the essential reason, as we have seen, for the decision of Coffin’s attorneys to not call him to testify and to not call witnesses to be heard.

The question which poses itself now is therefore the following:

WHILE TAKING INTO ACCOUNT THE FACTS PROVEN AT THE PERCÉ TRIAL AND ON THE BASIS OF WHICH COFFIN WAS FOUND GUILTY, WOULD THERE BE SERIOUS REASONS TO BELIEVE IN THE POSSIBILITY THAT HE HAD NOT BEEN GUILTY ON THE BASIS OF FACTS WHICH HAVE BEEN PROVEN BEFORE THIS COMMISSION AND WHICH HAD NOT BEEN PROVEN AT THE TRIAL?
(to be followed)
Arthur Maloney was an attorney from Toronto. He took Coffin's case to the Supreme Court of Canada.
You can find that statutory declaration in the Appendix B of my book L'affaire Coffin: une supercherie? (The Coffin Affair: a Hoax?) published by Wilson & Lafleur in Montreal. It is a key document to understand the Coffin affair.