The Ontario government announced Wednesday that it will not provide compensation to Robert Baltovich for the nearly nine years he spent in prison.

“After careful consideration of the factors relating to this matter, the Attorney-General has concluded that the payment of financial compensation is not appropriate in this case,” said a statement issued Wednesday morning by the Ministry of the Attorney-General.

The province also announced that it would not compensate Anthony Hanemaayer, who spent nearly two years in jail for a sexual assault that was actually committed in 1987 by Paul Bernardo. The revelation about the innocence of Mr. Hanemaayer, came out as a result of a police interview of Bernardo, in advance of the re-trial of Mr. Baltovich in 2008.

In both cases the Crown and police “acted with integrity and in the best interests of the administration of justice,” the province said in its written statements.

James Lockyer, who represented Mr. Baltovich and Mr. Hanemaayer, was critical of the decision by the Ontario government to deny compensation.

“How can they say they did nothing wrong? Do they think people get wrongly convicted by magic,” asked Mr. Lockyer.

Mr. Baltovich was convicted by a jury in 1992 of second-degree murder in the death of his girlfriend Elizabeth Bain. She was last seen in June 1990 and her body was never recovered. A few days after she disappeared, her car was discovered near the Scarborough campus of the University of Toronto.

Mr. Baltovich always maintained his innocence and his lawyers pointed to Bernardo as a more likely suspect in the death of Ms. Bain.

The Ontario Court of Appeal quashed his conviction in 2004 and ordered a new trial.

Mr. Baltovich was acquitted in April 2008, when the Crown called no evidence at his re-trial, following several months of pre-trial legal motions.

The statement issued by the province on Wednesday repeated its explanation in April 2008 about why it called no evidence at the re-trial. “As a result of a number of developments in the case, including evidentiary issues and changes in the case law, the Crown determined there was no longer a reasonable prospect of conviction,” said the statement.

Mr. Lockyer agreed that there are some people who still do not accept the innocence of Mr. Baltovich. “The flat earth society has members as well,” observed Mr. Lockyer.

Mr. Hanemaayer pleaded guilty in 1989, based on advice from his lawyer at that time, who no longer practices law. The Crown case was based on testimony from the mother of the victim who picked out Mr. Hanemaayer based on his eyes and ear size. The attack was actually one of the first of a string of sexual assaults by Bernardo in the Scarborough section of Toronto in the late 1980’s.

Mr. Lockyer noted that the case had many of the hallmarks of other wrongful convictions, with police targeting a single suspect, based on questionable eyewitness identification evidence. Mr. Hanemaayer pleaded guilty because otherwise, he was told he would likely receive a much longer prison sentence

Mr. Lockyer indicated he has advised both men to retain a civil lawyer to look at filing lawsuits against the province for financial compensation.