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I’m again in Las Vegas for the annual Public Defender’s Retreat.  This is my fifth time attending this conference.  My first year there was less than a handful of Ontario attendees.  This year, there are apparently 75-100 of us attending from Ontario. Retreat organizer David Rendahl (whom I interviewed last year on video) opened the conference this [...]

As much as all criminal lawyers like to claim they don’t need to know anything about sentencing (since none of their clients are found guilty), that just isn’t the reality.  The vast majority of people charged with criminal offences are found guilty of an offence.  Once this finding is made, either by way of a [...]

In R. v. Codner, the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld a 10-year sentence for Mr. Codner, who had pled guilty to robbery (x2), possession of a loaded firearm and a breach of a firearms prohibition.  Codner had entered an open garage with a loaded firearm, bound two people in the garage, and robbed them of [...]

The pocket dial is a common occurrence in the age of smartphones.  Most people have made them and most people have received them. In an Oregon city recently, the recipient of the pocket dial was a 911 operator.  Normally this would be an honest mistake that could be rectified with an explanation and an apology.  [...]

The two most common type of “breach” charges seen in court are fail to comply with a recognizance and breach of probation.  They involve one disregarding a court order in the form of a bail or probation order.  Examples include having contact with a person one has been ordered to stay away from or being [...]

As reported in this article in the Toronto Star, a couple from Lindsay, Ontario, was charged as a result of a fight that broke out at their home.  Supposedly the fight was over the last beer.  What makes this story interesting is that, when the police arrived, the couple were both covered with chips and [...]

Prior to the enactment Truth in Sentencing Act it was regular for offenders who served time in detention prior to sentencing to receive credit for their time on a 2 for 1 basis.  Much of the logic for this was that the time spent in custody prior to sentencing was “harder” time – conditions were often [...]