Criminal
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July 17, 2025
DEFENCES - Intoxication - Provocation
Appeal by Saunders from conviction for second-degree murder. Saunders maintained that he should have been convicted of manslaughter.
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July 17, 2025
Teen language, a.k.a. sociolect, plays key role in Alberta Court of Appeal decision
A sociolect is a form of language used by a specific social group, such as teenagers. Teenagers often create and adopt slang or code words to establish their identity and distinguish themselves from adults or authority figures. The Alberta Court of Appeal was asked to interpret a sociolect used in a courtroom before a jury in its recent decision in R. v. Cervantes, [2025] A.J. No. 522, when Enrike Jose Cervantes and Chngkouth John Makuag challenged their sexual assault convictions.
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July 16, 2025
N.S. renews funding deal with feds to help families of missing, murdered Indigenous people
Nova Scotia has renewed a partnership with the federal government ensuring “more families of missing and murdered Indigenous people” receive support.
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July 16, 2025
SENTENCING - Sexual offences, public morals, disorderly conduct and nuisances - Totality principle - Sexual offences against children
Appeal by accused Schofield against his eight-year sentence for three child sexual offences.
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July 16, 2025
Was Correctional Service’s internal investigation into Robert Pickton’s death a ‘whitewash’?
Rather than quelling concerns about how Robert Pickton died at Port-Cartier Institution in Quebec, Correctional Service Canada’s recently released internal Board of Investigation (BOI) report summary should raise red flags. The narrow focus of the investigation and the recommendations that fail to address core issues associated with the death make the report inadequate.
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July 16, 2025
View from inside prison: Opening the box
I’m not a person who is hugely attached to things. I have no trouble throwing out or giving away old clothes or furniture or even books. But I do tend to hang on to reminders of my past life, such as letters and pictures.
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July 16, 2025
Prepare for change: The plain language legal writing standard is coming
What lawyer has not heard that legal writing should be clear and concise? Everyone wants legal documents to be straightforward, client-oriented and “crisp.” Yet, cryptic memoranda, wordy submissions, legalese-filled judgments and insurmountable walls of text in contracts and policies remain common. Even with clarity in mind, writing clearly is hard without knowing the rules to guide the process.
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July 15, 2025
Ontario court expands right to reconsult counsel for strip searches
Ontario’s top court has ruled that the invasive nature of strip searches requires a second consultation with legal counsel after a suspect has been arrested.
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July 14, 2025
Federal Court judge strikes SRL’s submission in employment dispute over AI hallucination citation
In another sign of AI’s growing impact on the law, the Federal Court has ordered that a self-represented respondent’s motion record be removed from a court file because it relied in part on a non-existent court decision hallucinated by an artificial intelligence (AI) research tool.
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July 14, 2025
FINTRAC publishes updates to its guidance on ministerial directive on Iran
Canada’s anti-money laundering watchdog has updated its existing guidance related to the federal government’s ministerial directive on financial transactions associated with Iran.