The ReeveLaw Blog

Prison Visitor Says Guards Made Her Prove She Was Menstruating By Letting Them Inspect Her Vagina | ThinkProgress.

If you’re 17 years of age, for example, the law does not prohibit you from engaging in consensual sexual activity with your 17 year old boyfriend/girlfriend however if the two of you agree to take a nude picture of each other or a video of your sexual activity you are committing the criminal offence of possession of child pornography and if you post it on social media or text it to each other you’re committing the more serious offence of publishing child pornography, even if it’s a selfie!

Here’s the point, as true in Canada as it is in the U.S. “If we’re serious public policy people, we would let the scientist figure this out. This entire discussion should be based on science. But the laughable thing is that the government is against this type of research.”

The Impact Of Smoking Marijuana Regularly On Your Lungs, According To Science | ThinkProgress.

 In a practical sense it is true that the criminal justice system operates primarily “to avoid accountability, collective or individual” usually at the cost of the accused. If you’re charged with a criminal offence you need a lawyer to protect you from a system that acts to protect itself.

Christie Blatchford: Shawn Rehn case shows Byzantine criminal justice ‘system’ built to avoid accountability | National Post.

Although the article doesn’t explain what the rules are at least in B.C. they recognize the problem and are acting on it. We need to do the same in Ontario.

Editorial: Record check changes are positive – Editorials – Times Colonist.

“A government that believes in fact-based legislation doesn’t starve itself of the funds required to find those facts. Unless it’s not really interested in facts at all. There, in a nutshell, is Peter MacKay’s approach to drafting laws: Ideology first, evidence never. How can MacKay — with a straight face — assure the public that his legislation is constitutional when the government purposefully suppresses evidence to the contrary?”

http://www.ipolitics.ca/2015/01/18/please-dont-confuse-peter-mackay-with-facts/

A court trial day is typically from 9:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. (with a 30 minute recess) and 2:15 to 4:30 p.m. (with a 30 minute recess) which allows at most for 4 and 3/4 hours of trial time in a day. No trial day runs without court interruptions or delays for a multitude of reasons. A trial consists of arraignment, motions, Crown witnesses examination and cross-examination, defence witnesses examination and cross-examination, Crown argument, defence argument, reasons for judgment and perhaps submissions on sentence. As a result the simplest of trials take at least one day of court time.

Judge calls out lawyers for lowballing trial estimates.

Regressive ideas –> regressive politics –> regressive laws. This university student was sentenced to the minimum mandatory sentence of 1 YEAR in jail for the non-violent offence of possessing 3 ounces of marijuana for the second time. While the rest of the world legalizes it, we send our university students to jail for it. We didn’t do that in my university days, but then, THIS is Harper’s Canada now.

Second drug conviction jails Sarnia man | Sarnia Observer.

GENERATING FALSE MEMORIES is not very difficult. What is difficult is responding to false memories that allege a past criminal offence as the maker of them is genuinely convinced they are real past events and that belief creates credibility. Since the false event is in the past there is usually no objective evidence capable of refuting it. That’s when you really need a lawyer experienced in this.

People Can Be Convinced They Committed a Crime That Never Happened – Association for Psychological Science.

Adults can forward sexts — sexualized messages or images of peers — they’ve received to others without facing criminal charges however if a youth does the same with their peers they’re committing the criminal offences of possessing and distributing child pornography – and will suffer the stigma of being pedophiles. Do you think this is equal treatment before the law?

Judge won’t hear teen’s challenge on whether her sexting constitutes child porn.