After 36 years in jail, Phillip Tallio mounts second attempt to get bail
Credit to Author: Dan Fumano| Date: Wed, 08 Jan 2020 02:02:48 +0000
Lawyers for Phillip Tallio, a B.C. man who has spent 36 years in prison for a murder he says he didn’t commit, will argue again on Wednesday for his release on bail pending his appeal.
Tallio, then 17, pleaded guilty in 1983 to the second-degree murder of a child, but has maintained his innocence ever since. The University of B.C.’s Innocence Project has been working on Tallio’s case for several years, and his lawyers filed a notice of appeal in March 2017. His appeal is expected to be heard later this year in the B.C. Court of Appeal.
Tallio’s lawyers applied last year for his release on bail pending his appeal. But a B.C. Court of Appeal justice, Elizabeth Bennett, refused in August. She said the longtime prisoner would require more community support and supervision than the release plan proposed. However, Bennett ruled Tallio could reapply, saying she “would consider release if a more structured and supervised environment was available for Mr. Tallio.”
In last year’s bail application, Tallio indicated a desire to be released to live in a transitional living house in the Fraser Valley. Lawyers for the Crown opposed that, arguing the facility would not provide a sufficient level of supervision, and that he should apply for day parole instead.
In materials filed with the court late last month, Tallio’s lawyers say they have “been able to create a more structured and supervised environment within which his release could be managed.”
Phillip Tallio is seen in an undated photo from prison. He has been in custody since 1983 for the murder of a child in Bella Coola.
Tallio’s new plan would address what the documents describe as a “core concern” with last year’s original bail application: The lack of 24-hour supervision at the facility to which Tallio sought to be released. In recent months, Tallio’s lawyers worked with a non-profit society to secure a place in a different Fraser Valley location, a residence where staff are on site 24-7.
An affidavit outlines the security and supervision protocols at the facility, which is “currently holding a room in which Mr. Tallio would reside if his application is successful.”
Tallio has spent more than two-thirds of his life behind bars for the 1983 murder of 22-month-old Delavina Mack. Members of Mack’s family were in court last summer for the three days of Tallio’s initial release hearing, and they opposed Tallio’s release. The victim’s family was “terrified” of inadvertently running into Tallio if he were to be released, the court heard last year.
In 2018, Tallio’s only child, Honey Hood, who was born seven months after he was incarcerated in 1983, died at age 34. Tallio’s adoptive mother is now in her 90s, the judge noted last year, “and he would like to spend more time with her.”
B.C. Prosecution Service spokesman Dan McLaughlin declined to comment in advance of Wednesday’s hearing.