OLDER vs. YOUNGER LAWYERS – WHICH IS BETTER? I generally agree with this young practitioner’s proposition that younger is more flexible than older however he lacks the understanding and perspective of a lifetime of experience managing change.
Veteran attorneys are usually more rigid in how they approach the practice of law, while younger attorneys typically embrace flexibility.
Source: Older Attorneys And Younger Lawyers Practice Law Very Differently
THE AGE OF CRIMINAL LIABILITY – This is something we don’t often think about. It’s a cultural value judgment. No child here can be held criminally responsible for their actions until they reach the age of 12 years. In Manila, they’re lowering their age from 15 to 9. Different culture.
After months of deliberation, the House Committee on Justice is set to finalize the bill seeking to lower the age of criminality from 15 to nine years old..
Source: House finalizes bill lowering age of criminal liability | Philippine Canadian Inquirer
NEW DRIVING LAWS – If you drive home, park, go inside and have a couple of drinks in the next two hours that puts you over the legal driving limit, you will be committing a criminal offence of impaired driving. Make sense?
Canada’s new impaired-driving law allows police to give breath tests to any drivers they want, even if they have no reason to suspect drunkenness.
Source: How the rules for breath tests in Canada have changed
RETURN THE PARDONS – Harper changed a pardon to a “record suspension”, increased the rehabilitation period, increased the fees and ensured there was always a long backlog. Liberals promised to rectify that. They haven’t.
The recommendations of a parliamentary committee looking into the criminal record pardon system is a microcosm of a government that has come up short on their promises for criminal justice reform, say criminal defence lawyers.
Source: Action needed on pardon system, say criminal lawyers | Canadian Lawyer Mag
POLICE CARDING – “It is remarkable that a government in 2018 is seeking recommendations on a police practice that is so obviously unacceptable in a free and democratic society. Will no one in office simply state for the record that carding, as defined by the new report and lived by far too many innocent people in Ontario, is reprehensible?”
Carding by its very nature is a civil-rights violation
Source: Globe editorial: It’s time to end police carding once and for all
Lawyer joke.
PROPOSED CHANGES TO TRIAL PROCEDURE: BAD CASES MAKE BAD LAW 1. No peremptory challenges to the jury panel. Who then is going to ensure the jury is representative and impartial if anybody? The Judge? Or will the jury simply be the first 12 people on the list? 2. No more preliminary inquiries. In practice, preliminary inquiries work to speed up the entire process.
Legal experts say proposed changes to the Criminal Code after a high-profile acquittal in the fatal shooting of an Indigenous man are short-sighted.
Source: Canadian lawyers worried about proposed changes to trial system
CRIMINAL LAW BASICS: REPRESENTING YOURSELF – An example.
CRIMINAL LAW BASICS: REPRESENTING YOURSELF – An example. This defendant didn’t know evidence of his criminal record would normally not be admissible as evidence, yet he just blurted it out to the jury. Would you try to perform minor surgery on yourself to save some money? No. Of course not. That would be ridiculous. Right? A criminal conviction can have even more serious life-changing consequences.
CRIMINAL LAW BASICS: REPRESENTING YOURSELF
The advice is good but the system is not rigged, it’s extremely complicated. To learn the system takes 7 years in university, a year of learning under a lawyer and testing and then years of practice to learn, amongst other things, the complex evidentiary rules, advocacy skills of how to examine and cross-examine, how to make submissions and to become familiar with local prosecutors and Judges. You can’t learn to be a lawyer from youtube.