Important Update: Please see the article by Juliana Ho about the Supreme Court of Canada ruling in R. v Fearon. The Supreme Court of Canada decided that the police search of Mr. Fearon's cellphone did breach his Charter s. 8 right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure but decided that … [Read more...]
Bench Press 39-5: Duress as a Defence to Murder
For the first time in Canada, an appeal court has upheld the use of duress as a defence to a charge of murder even though the Criminal Code explicitly rules it out. The Ontario Court of Appeal outlined the factors necessary to support both a statutory and common law defence of duress, for people … [Read more...]
When Prosecution Met Defence: The Michael Bryant Case
Facts of the Case At 9:47 p.m. on Aug. 31, 2009, former Ontario attorney general and CEO of Invest Toronto Michael Bryant, driving home after dinner with his wife, had a violent encounter with a younger man on a bicycle, Darcy “Allan” Sheppard. Sheppard was drunk, and at a traffic light on Bloor … [Read more...]
A Judge Balances Controversy with Compassion
No person is criminally responsible for an act committed or an omission made while suffering from a mental disorder that rendered the person incapable of appreciating the nature and quality of the act or omission or of knowing it was wrong. - Criminal Code of Canada, Section 16 This is known as the … [Read more...]
One Edmonton Youth in Conflict with the Law: A Case Study
We have all been there at one point in time: young, insecure, and impressionable. You would do anything to fit in: wear the right clothes; listen to the proper music; dislike the right people and share the same opinions as all the cool kids. But what if the cool kids were the RCMP acting as … [Read more...]
Age of Criminal Responsibility: An illusive dilemma
If we, as adults, reflect back on our youth, there is probably not one of us who can say we didn’t commit some type of infraction for which we could have been held accountable under the former welfare-oriented Juvenile Delinquency Act (JDA) – in effect from 1908 until 1984 – or the more legalistic … [Read more...]
Talking to the Police
The police are key players in the criminal justice system. “To prevent crime and to make sure that there is order in the community, police officers are given special powers to search, arrest and detain any individual who is committing, has committed or who is believed to have committed a criminal … [Read more...]
Whatever Happened to … David Chen and Citizen Arrests
Arrest consists of the actual seizure or touching of a person’s body with a view to his detention. The mere pronouncing of words of arrest is not an arrest, unless the person sought to be arrested submits to the process and goes with the arresting officer. – R. v. Latimer, [1997] 1 SCR 217 The … [Read more...]
Viewpoint 39-1: Like hockey, Court’s ‘Mr. Big’ decision clarifies the rule book and the ‘code’
What are Canada’s pre-eminent cultural symbols? Hockey is surely a top contender. The values of the rink are deeply embedded in our broader social values. Another contender is our criminal justice system, which strikes a quintessentially Canadian compromise between individual liberty, and collective … [Read more...]
Recent Developments in Criminal Law
It will come as no surprise to anyone tuned into the current political situation in Canada that changes in our criminal laws over the last several years have been consistently in a single direction: that of creating more offences and imposing stiffer penalties. Relying upon its position that … [Read more...]