TORONTO - The Ontario Court of Appeal will hear the case of the last known parent who remained behind bars based on the testimony of disgraced pathologist Dr. Charles Smith.
Tammy Marquardt was convicted of second-degree murder in the death of her son Kenneth and was handed a life sentence in 1995.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court of Canada sent the case to Ontario's top court to weigh fresh evidence and whether the conviction constitutes a miscarriage of justice.
"We're going to have this case back and essentially redo it in the Ontario Court of Appeal," said Marquardt's lawyer, James Lockyer of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted.
"Now our task is to establish that she was indeed the victim of a miscarriage of justice."
Marquardt, 37, was granted bail last month pending the court's decision and released from the Grand Valley Institution for Women in Kitchener, Ont. Lockyer said she has been doing well since her release.
Marquardt, who grew up in Toronto, said she found her two-year-old son -- who suffered from epilepsy -- tangled in his bedsheets. Smith, once considered the dean of his profession, said the boy was smothered or strangled.
Smith's findings have since been rejected by six forensic experts, including one who said the epileptic boy could have died from a seizure.
Last October, the Goudge inquiry into Ontario's pediatric pathology system criticized Smith for "irresponsible" testimony in a series of child death cases.
When she was released on bail, Marquardt said outside court that thoughts of her other sons, who are now 12 and 14, helped her through the long incarceration.
Marquardt had briefly been on parole but it was revoked after she tested positive for cocaine.
