Criminal

Wednesday, January 23, 2019 @ 11:30 AM

Legal Aid Ontario (LAO) has released a five-year strategic plan that highlights collaboration with social service organizations as well as increased use of technology as central parts of its effort in assisting low-income Ontarians with their legal needs. ... [read more]

Tuesday, January 22, 2019 @ 8:28 AM

Appeal by the Crown from the sentence imposed on the 50-year-old respondent following his guilty pleas to eight sexual and pornography related offences and his designation as a dangerous offender. ... [read more]

Monday, January 21, 2019 @ 11:08 AM

Criminal defence lawyers and others are waiting to see how police interpret their broadened abilities to demand breath tests from drivers but are fully expecting the new powers to one day be constitutionally challenged. On Dec. 18, changes to impaired driving laws in the Criminal Code gave police the power to demand a breathalyzer test to any driver they pull over, whereas before they would need to have a reasonable suspicion the person was impaired. ... [read more]

Monday, January 21, 2019 @ 9:49 AM

McGill University law professor David Lametti, an accomplished IP scholar who plays hockey and punk-rock vinyl records to relax, has the intellectual heft, political judgment and communication and interpersonal skills necessary to excel as Canada’s 52nd attorney general and minister of Justice, say lawyers who know him from politics and academe. ... [read more]

Friday, January 18, 2019 @ 11:45 AM

Little more than a month after the jury was selected for the second second-degree murder trial of Dennis Oland in New Brunswick, the members of the panel were summarily dismissed and a mistrial declared. At issue: the jury selection process. ... [read more]

Friday, January 18, 2019 @ 9:05 AM

Last summer, designs for a new courthouse in Fredericton were unveiled with fanfare. Four months later, those plans were permanently put on hold. New Brunswick’s new Progressive Conservative Premier Blaine Higgs has called for an abrupt end to the construction of the capital city’s new courthouse, as well as other major construction projects underway in the province. ... [read more]

Friday, January 18, 2019 @ 8:49 AM

Application by Hills for an order striking the mandatory minimum sentence of four years’ imprisonment under s. 244.2(3)(b) of the Criminal Code as unconstitutional. ... [read more]

Wednesday, January 16, 2019 @ 1:46 PM

The Nova Scotia government and numerous partners, including the Mi’kmaw Legal Support Network and the Elizabeth Fry Society, have come together to reshape and redefine services available to survivors of gender-based violence and their families. The initiative is believed to be a first in Canada, said Shannon Kerr, spokesperson for the Nova Scotia Advisory Council on the Status of Women. ... [read more]

Wednesday, January 16, 2019 @ 12:11 PM

We are loyal to those that retain us. Biologists at the Centre of Forensic Sciences (CFS) are assigned case files to process exhibits submitted to them from the police. These cases are almost always of a serious nature, involving dozens to hundreds of exhibits. What ensues are ongoing teleconferences, meetings and e-mail correspondence between the biologist and Ident officer. ... [read more]

Wednesday, January 16, 2019 @ 11:55 AM

Sentencing for crimes involving marijuana should change now that the drug has been legalized, says a lawyer following a decision in which a judge cites a Bob Dylan classic in ruling that a Maritimer will not face jail for pot possession. ... [read more]