Criminal
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April 02, 2025
EVIDENCE - Documentary evidence - Electronic records - Photographs and video recordings
Appeal by Crown against the respondent’s acquittals on charges of robbery and choke to overcome resistance. The charges arose from an alleged robbery of a female sex trade worker (complainant).
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April 02, 2025
Highway Traffic Act, Criminal Code intersect in deadly driving appeal
A famous quote from William Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar has Mark Antony say, “The evil that men do lives after them.” Can a provincial driving prohibition outlive a prison sentence for criminal negligence causing death?
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April 02, 2025
What I know about halfway houses, part two | Michael Crowley
Halfway houses, a.k.a., community residential facilities (CRFs), serve a number of functions, but primarily they are intended to assist people who have been incarcerated, sometimes for many years, to begin the process of reintegrating back into society. They provide, or should provide, nothing less than safe environments where the residents can go to school or find employment, begin the process of resettling into their families, and do all of that in appropriate, prosocial ways.
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April 01, 2025
CJC finds little judicial misconduct as public makes 985 complaints against federal judges in 2024
The Canadian Judicial Council rejected all but three judicial misconduct complaints it decided in 2024, a year that also saw 985 complaints to the disciplinary body for Canada’s 1,224 federally appointed trial and appellate judges.
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April 01, 2025
Law schools, students need to prep for AI in profession: scholar
With the increased use of artificial intelligence in the legal profession, law schools need to consider new forms of education and a revamp in guidance when it comes to students’ career paths, says a scholar.
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April 01, 2025
What I know about halfway houses | Michael Crowley
The use of halfway houses has been a part of the fabric of the criminal justice system in Canada for many years and will continue for the foreseeable future.
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March 31, 2025
Judicial Council dismisses Barreau’s complaint; no sanction for sentencing judge’s ethical lapse
The Canadian Judicial Council (CJC) has dismissed a complaint from the Barreau du Québec against a sentencing judge who failed to meet judicial ethical standards in expressing from the bench his personal “disgust and contempt” for an offender and his crime.
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March 31, 2025
Inmate abuse underscores need for jail change | John L. Hill
They just let an inmate die. Three guards and a supervisor were charged with criminal negligence, but the prosecution was dropped after a preliminary hearing. A warden and deputy warden were fired. That was the outcome after Ashley Smith died gasping for air while correctional officers observed her suicide attempt at Kitchener’s Grand Valley Institution but did not intervene.
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March 31, 2025
Defending the rights of the worst to ensure they’re there for the rest | Justin D. Rochester
Many times, when I’m teaching the summary offences course at Centennial College in Toronto, students ask me, “How can you defend people who break the law?” My response is always the same: everyone deserves a defence, and we defend the rights of the worst of us to ensure they’re there for the rest of us.
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March 28, 2025
Yukon Appeal Court decision sheds light on deleterious effects of harsh jail conditions
In determining the length of parole ineligibility for assigning one convicted of second-degree murder, should harsh pretrial jail conditions be used in the calculation? That was the question on the table to be decided by the Yukon Court of Appeal when a man convicted of second-degree murder made a return appearance.