Criminal Law/Policy
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R v Poulin: Charter Interpretation in the Spotlight
Introduction Section 11 (i) of the Charter guarantees the right to offenders “if found guilty of the offence and if the punishment for the offence has been varied between the time of commission and the time of sentencing, to the benefit of the lesser punishment.” Ambiguity ripples through this provision. Most notably, does the provision Continue reading
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What Was Equilibrium Like?
Do police need a warrant before pretending to be a child to attract would-be molesters? Continue reading
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Bad Taste
Overzealous prosecutors in Québec charge the author and publisher of a novel with child pornography for describing a rape Continue reading
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Sentencing Judgment Found Inside a Chinese Fortune Cookie
The sentencing judgment in the Québec City mosque shooter’s case is badly flawed Continue reading
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Double Aspect’s Twelve Days of Christmas
Announcing a riotous blogging symposium for the festive season Continue reading
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Can’t Take It
Can the police seize a computer (without searching it) if only one of its co-owners consents? Continue reading
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A Pile of Problems
A critique of Steven Penney’s take on the Supreme Court’s distinction between criminal and administrative penalties Continue reading
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More of the Same
Yet another “tough on crime” attempt to deny judges discretion about to be struck down Last week, the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench issued yet another in a long series of constitutional reverses for the previous federal government’s “tough on crime” agenda, holding in R v Ndhlovu, 2016 ABQB 595 that legislative amendments that rendered the making of Continue reading
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Someone’s Got to Do It
Was the Supreme Court right to change the law on the right to a speedy trial? In my last post, I summarized the Supreme Court’s decision in R. v. Jordan, 2016 SCC 27, in which the Court, by a 5-4 majority and over the vigorous disagreement of the concurrence, held that criminals prosecutions in which a Continue reading
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