## Chapter 6

The truth will set you free — but first it will make you uncomfortable. — Gloria Steinem

James came to the shoeshine stand one weekday afternoon, dressed in a way that made me second-guess what decade we were in. Cardigan under a blazer, loose dress slacks, old Clarks with a wide sole that barely made a sound as he walked. The look reminded me of London in the eighties — scholarly but a little rebellious, like someone who’d grown too busy to care about looking put-together.

He sat down, and I asked him the same question I ask everyone. “Where are you headed?”

“I’m just in town for a talk,” he said. “At the university.”

“Are you a professor?”

He smiled. “Not quite. I’m a lawyer.”

That interested me, because my sister is a paralegal. I want her to pursue becoming a lawyer in time. I think she’d be great. But it’s tricky. As a young law student, the echoes in the study halls are about “changing the world,” and I guess that’s daunting. Still, I wanted to know more, so I asked. That’s how it started — a simple exchange. I had no idea that the man in the chair was one of the country’s most respected defence lawyers, known for his work on wrongful convictions and his role with the Innocence Board of Canada.

As we talked, he told me about a case that defined his career, one that still haunted him. A man had been convicted and died in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Years later, James took up the case and proved the man’s innocence. But he said the victory was bittersweet. The man was gone. The damage was done. The name cleared, but his life couldn’t be returned.

At that point in my life, I didn’t fully understand it. I remember thinking — maybe I even said it out loud — “What’s the point? The man’s gone. Why pour time and resources into something that can’t be undone?”

It wasn’t cynicism, not really. Just immaturity, the kind that sees time as currency and not as purpose. I was younger then, more focused on money and on results, on the visible things you could hold in your hands. Justice, legacy, redemption — those were abstract to me. What do those things really mean in day-to-day life?

James didn’t flinch. He just said quietly, “It matters. To the family. To history. To the system that will decide the next case.”

He told me that clearing a name after death isn’t about undoing the past; it’s about restoring truth for the living. Because lies echo through generations — in the families of the accused, and in the hearts of those who believe them. To correct the record, he said, is to heal something bigger than one case. It’s to rewrite history with honesty.

That stuck with me. I didn’t feel the full weight of it then. But I do now.

The blessing of defence, I’ve learned, isn’t just about defending people. It’s about defending truth. Even when it’s inconvenient. Even when it’s too late to change the outcome. Because truth has a way of freeing the accused and the accuser too, if you really think about it.

Over time, I started to see how that applies far beyond the courtroom. We put people in boxes all the time — friends who wronged us, family members we’ve written off, people we’ve decided are beyond redemption. We label them. “Selfish.” “Dishonest.” “Toxic.” And once the label sticks, it becomes their verdict.

But what if we got it wrong? What if our version of the story was incomplete? What if, years later, perspective could prove that the person we condemned was just human — flawed, but not evil?

That’s what James’s work taught me: it’s never too late to revisit judgment. It’s never too late to say, “Maybe I didn’t see the whole picture.” And justice is about who’s willing to keep looking for the truth. That’s the work that James was doing.

Since then, I’ve realised that we all have our own small innocence projects — people and moments we need to revisit with fresh eyes. The friend we misjudged. The parent we resented. The version of ourselves we’ve been too hard on. Sometimes defence means standing up for others, but sometimes it means defending ourselves against our own unforgiveness.

James’s story made me rethink what it means to be right. Maybe being right isn’t about proving others wrong. Maybe it’s about understanding them, even after the fact. That’s a hard lesson to embrace. I’m still working on that one.

The blessing of defence isn’t only about fighting battles. It’s about restoring balance. It’s about choosing to see people not for their mistakes, but for the truth of their humanity. And in a world quick to judge, that kind of defence — patient, persistent, and compassionate — might be the truest form of justice there is.