The ReeveLaw Blog

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 and identification are inherently unreliable! This type of evidence HAS to be tested. This is why we have trials.

Jonah Lehrer on Memory, Witnesses and Crime | Head Case – WSJ.

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 provided in this format.

You may not be aware that concurrently we have been maintaining our Facebook page of Hobson & Reeve where we primarily post relevant and what we find interesting articles and commentary on current legal issues. In addition to our ongoing blogging we will now also be posting these articles here. We hope you find this interesting, informative and sometimes controversial.

We invite you to use the Facebook logo button at the top right of the screen to access our page and to “like” the page if you wish to follow these posts instead of revisiting this page. Also, we invite you to comment and/or begin a dialogue.

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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.” Continue reading “Spousal Testimony Could Be Required As Part of “Victims’ Rights Bill.””

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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 opioid overdoses as drivers killed in car accidents, according to coroner’s statistics. That number has more than tripled since 2002. Deaths resulting from prescription drug use outnumber heroin and cocaine deaths combined, and has cost Canada billions of dollars annually in lost productivity, medical expenses and criminal prosecution costs. Continue reading “Prescription Drug Trafficking in Ontario: Just As Serious As Dealing “Street” Drugs”

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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 to be accommodating, or a lack of understanding of their rights, drivers often consent to a search of their vehicle. More often than not, consenting to a search of your car can have profoundly negative consequences on your defence if you are ultimately charged with a crime based on what is found in such a search. Continue reading “You’ve Been Pulled Over. Can the Police Search Your Car and Should You Let Them?”

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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 criminal prosecutions. Whether it is cyberbullying, as I discussed here, or alleged threats taken wildly out of context as in this story I recently posted about, words and pictures posted online are increasingly being used as the basis for charges by Crown prosecutors or gathered and used by the police as evidence to obtain convictions. Continue reading “Social Media as Evidence of Guilt: Anything You Post Online Can and Will Be Used Against You in a Court of Law”

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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 as the leading cause of wrongful convictions. As Mr. Justice David Doherty of the Ontario Court of Appeals once wrote:

“The spectre of erroneous convictions based on honest and convincing but mistaken eyewitness identification haunts the criminal law.” Continue reading “Unreliable Eyewitnesses Can Be Key to an Acquittal”

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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 are passing on information based on what others have told them and is therefore of questionable accuracy. Due to its untrustworthy nature, coupled with the fact that the source of the hearsay evidence cannot be cross-examined, hearsay testimony is generally inadmissible in Canadian courts. Continue reading “Hearsay: Dealing With Second-Hand Information”

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If you have been arrested or detained for questioning by police, you have a right to seek advice from a lawyer. That right, as established in 1982 by Section 10 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, requires that you be informed of your right to counsel and your right to seek legal aid at the time of your arrest or detention. In fact, courts have concluded that Section 10 is violated if the police fail to provide that information even when the person who is arrested or detained decided not to see a lawyer. Continue reading “If I’ve Been Arrested, What Are My Rights?”

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Are Mandatory Minimum Sentences For Weapons Violations Constitutional?

In the wake of Toronto’s 2005 “Summer of the Gun”, Canada’s conservative government passed several laws as part of a tough on crime initiative, including mandatory minimums for possessing a weapon for a purpose dangerous to the public’s peace or for the purpose of committing a criminal offence. Specifically, Canadian Criminal Code Section 95 — possession of prohibited or restricted firearm with ammunition — sets forth a three-year mandatory minimum for a first offence, and five years for a second or subsequent offence. Continue reading ““Tough on Crime” Gun Laws Ruled Unconstitutional By Court of Appeals”