tough on crime
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Petty Punishment
The Court of Appeal for British Columbia has struck down yet another element of the “tough-on-crime” agenda of the Conservative government in a recent decision, Whaling v. Canada (Attorney General), 2012 BCCA 435, holding that the abolition of accelerated parole could not be applied to prisoners sentenced before the coming into force of the Abolition of Early Parole Continue reading
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A Strike against Three Strikes
The Superior Court of Ontario has struck down another element of the Conservative government’s “though-on-crime” legislative programme last week, in R. v. Hill, 2012 ONSC 5050. (I blogged about another such case here.) The provision at issue in Hill was s. 753(1.1) of the Criminal Code, which provides that if an accused is convicted of Continue reading
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Minus the Mandatory Minimum
Last week, another mandatory minimum sentence introduced as part of the federal government’s “tough-on-crime” agenda was declared unconstitutional, this time by the Ontario Court of Justice. The provision at issue in R. v. Lewis, 2012 ONCJ 413, is par. 99(2)(a) of the Criminal Code, and imposes a mandatory minimum of three-years’ imprisonment for a first-time firearms Continue reading
Double Aspect 