Criminal Defence Law Blog
I’ve said a lot against the Harper Government “tough on crime” agenda. “The track record of the Harper government’s crime agenda reads like the ancient Greek myth of the hydra: For each unconstitutional law the courts cut down, two new laws — equally stupid — grow in its place.” It looks like I’m going to …
Continue reading “Somebody in this government needs to go back to law school”
“The young men who are vilified as non-contributing members of society are not the problem, they’re the solution. Being “tough on crime” is not the solution, it’s the problem! A Chance to Go From Hard Lives to Healing – NYTimes.com.
This is an extremely important point! “More than 75,000 prosecutions every year are based entirely on the recollections of others. While perjury is a felony, the overwhelming majority of eyewitness errors aren’t conscious or intentional. Rather, they’re the inevitable side effects of the remembering process.” Most of us don’t know or believe that eyewitness accounts …
Previously we have been blogging about some of the basic elements of criminal law including offences and defences so that people charged with offences and looking for a criminal lawyer to represent them could become better informed about what they’ve got themselves into. There is, of course, a limited amount of information that can be …
[text-wrapper] Canadians could soon be forced to testify against their spouses if a recent bill proposed by the Conservative government is passed. Tabled in the House of Commons on April 3rd, the proposed changes to the Canada Evidence Act are tucked into Bill C-32, which is a larger “Victims Bill of Rights.”
[text-wrapper] Prescription Drug Abuse Is a Serious Public Health Concern Prescription drug abuse is growing at alarming levels across Canada. Canada is the world’s second-largest per-capital consumer of prescription opioids (such as codeine, Vicodin, Percocet, and oxycontin). This widespread abuse is a grave public health concern: in 2011, twice as many Ontarians were killed by …
[text-wrapper] Know Your Rights, Including the Right Not to Consent to a Search When you’re pulled over by police, whether for an alleged traffic violation, suspected impaired driving or any other reason – police may sometimes ask whether they can conduct a search of your vehicle. Either due to a feeling of intimidation, a desire …
Continue reading “You’ve Been Pulled Over. Can the Police Search Your Car and Should You Let Them?”
[text-wrapper] Your Posts Can Be Your Undoing While it is said that “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,” what happens on social media stays on social media forever. More and more, people are discovering that what they post on Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites can have serious consequences when it comes to …
[text-wrapper] The Biggest Cause of Wrongful Convictions In a criminal trial, some of the most powerful and persuasive testimony can come from supposed eyewitnesses who can identify the accused or testify regarding the events underlying the offence. However, flawed, unreliable, and mistaken eyewitness testimony can have devastating consequences, and eyewitness misidentification has long been regarded …
Continue reading “Unreliable Eyewitnesses Can Be Key to an Acquittal”
[text-wrapper] When someone prefaces a story he is about to tell you by saying, “This is hearsay, but…,” you know that it may not be totally true. In fact, it may be completely false. The same is true in law. “Hearsay testimony” and “hearsay evidence,” refer to information provided to a court by witnesses who …
Continue reading “Hearsay: Dealing With Second-Hand Information”