Lawyers in England are refusing to represent some people because their legal aid system is insufficient to maintain a viable practice. The legal aid system in Ontario is similarly perpetually on the brink.

“Lawyers are refusing to represent people charged with certain crimes amid a crisis over solicitors’ pay, with one burglary suspect turned away by 12 legal firms, the Law Society president has said. Richard Atkinson, who leads the organisation representing more than 200,000 solicitors in England and Wales, said its members lost money if they took such cases and warned that other crimes, including lower level sexual offences, also risked becoming uneconomic for practitioners.”

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2024/dec/16/lawyers-refusing-to-represent-people-charged-with-certain-crimes-amid-pay-crisis

Since 1982 accused persons have had the right to a trial within a reasonable time. We’ve had the Askov, Morin and now the Jordan cases of the Supreme Court of Canada trying to ensure that right, with only limited success. So now the courts are stacking cases on top of other cases on their daily trial lists that have no possibility of being reached for trial on that date.

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/how-an-invented-supreme-court-ruling-has-rocked-the-canadian-justice-system/article_69e79ee9-d70a-53fa-b2b0-e26a9813d3ae.html?source=newsletter&utm_source=ts_nl&utm_medium=email&utm_email=0B41BB051FF7EA38DB4BDD5E33BA3AB2&utm_campaign=frst_6636&utm_campaign_id=nonsub

JUSTICE DELAYED IS JUSTICE DENIED – Every person charged with a criminal offence has the constitutional right to have their trial held within a reasonable time. Our Supreme Court has twice attempted to define what is reasonable through the cases of Askov and Jordan. The result has been decades of hundreds of cases being “stayed” from proceeding due to delay and further delays caused by the complex application procedures required to assert that right. Nothing has changed. Simply demanding that the trial process proceed expeditiously doesn’t work.

https://toronto.citynews.ca/2024/11/08/time-limits-were-meant-to-speed-up-justice-they-also-halt-hundreds-of-criminal-cases/?

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR BAIL SYSTEM? – The federal government enacts the criminal code. The province applies it. The province builds and owns the courts. The province hires the Judges, the Justices of the Peace, the Crown Attorneys and court staff.

“The administration of bail is a provincial responsibility,” the Minister’s office said in a statement provided to CityNews.

“Ontario must step up and ensure their courts and prosecutors are well resourced, that provincially appointed Justices of the Peace are applying the law — and when they don’t — provincially appointed crowns need to initiate bail reviews.

“Doug Ford also needs to ensure that there are enough spaces in provincial detention facilities to house people in custody awaiting trial. It’s time to stop deflecting and start enforcing the laws we’ve already passed in collaboration with them.”https://toronto.citynews.ca/2024/10/03/feds-fire-back-at-ford-over-bail-barbs-saying-its-a-provincial-responsibility/

YET ANOTHER ILL ADVISED CROWN PROSECUTION OF AN INNOCENT MAN (The Star May 28, 2024)

AFTER TWO YEAR IN JAIL, A JURY TOOK JUST TWO HOURS TO FIND HIM NOT GUILTY.

Timothy Clarke Anthony spent two years in jail awaiting trial for a fatal hit-and-run that shocked the Hagersville community. Once his day in court arrived, it took a jury just two hours to find him not guilty, Jacques Gallant reports. “I wasn’t sure what they were going to think,” the 37-year-old said. “I’m an Indigenous man in a white court.” In the 2021 incident, the motorcycle driven by 21-year-old Alexander Dalton was hit from behind by a speeding Chevrolet Tahoe, throwing him from his vehicle and into the path of oncoming traffic. Anthony was arrested for his alleged involvement, despite evidence to the contrary, after another suspect in the case claimed he was behind the wheel. Take a closer look at what happened.
• Context: The defence noted witness descriptions of the driver didn’t match Anthony’s profile and his DNA wasn’t present in the vehicle. The evidence against Anthony was “essentially reliant on a witness who had all the reason in the world to lie,” his lawyer, Tonya Kent, said.
• The fallout: Kent said Anthony’s case was another example of a prosecution that should never have happened. But despite the weak evidence against him, he was repeatedly denied bail and kept in jail until last month.

What strikes me about this article is the prior belief that crimes were committed only by the poor and working class people. It makes me wonder how much the past ideas of eugenics still instruct our beliefs about our criminal justice system. “the case became a sensation because of the killers’ wealth and social status, which ran counter to the then-popular theory that crime was confined to the lower classes. “The murderers went against the grain of popular belief in criminology,” he said. “The idea was that only the poor and working-class people committed crimes, which was the basis behind eugenics.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2024/05/20/leopold-loeb-murder-bobby-franks/?utm_campaign=wp_must_reads&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_mustreads