N.L. compensates Dalton for 8-year prison wait

The Newfoundland and Labrador government has agreed to compensate a man who spenteight years in prison waiting to appeal a murder conviction.

Ronald Dalton will receive $750,000 in compensation, Justice Minister Tom Osborne said Friday afternoon in a statement.

Dalton's case was one of three studied by a Royal Commission headed by retired Supreme Court of Canada justice Antonio Lamer, who chastised the provincial government and Dalton's lawyers for letting his case drag on.

Dalton had been convicted in 1988of murdering his wife, Brenda Dalton, and waited more than eight years for the appeal that led to a new trial. A jury subsequently found him not guilty in 2000.

"No individual should languish such a lengthy period in prison awaiting an appeal," Osborne said in a statement.

"It is hoped that this compensation will help bring closure to this terrible ordeal for Mr. Dalton and his family."

The Newfoundland and Labrador government apologized to Dalton in June 2006, when it released Lamer's report, for any part it may have played in the delay in justice being rendered.

Clyde Wells, the chief justice of the Newfoundland Supreme Court's appeals division, apologized to Dalton on behalf of the court, after the Lamer report was made public.

The terms of reference for Lamer prohibited him from looking at Dalton's prosecution. Instead, Lamer could only study why he waited so long for his rights to an appeal to be observed.

The provincial government has already compensated Gregory Parsons and Randy Druken, the other two men whose cases were studied by Lamer. Both Parsons and Druken have been declared wrongfully convicted.