Monday, July 21, 2014

When is fairness intolerable?

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The right to legal advice was central to R v Taylor , 2014 SCC 50 (18 July 2014). The defendant had requested legal advice but this reques...
Thursday, July 17, 2014

Noted in passing ...

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Three recent decisions: Of narrow interest is R v Quesnelle , 2014 SCC 46 (9 July 2014) on when a defendant can have copies of reports...
Thursday, July 10, 2014

Unnecessary gender pronouns in legal writing

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One of the advantages of writing is that an author has more time to think about how to put into words a thought that a speaker may only clu...
Saturday, July 05, 2014

Rights and the clutter of precedent: prisoner access to judicial determination of recall

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A prisoner who has been recalled to prison after being released on conditions during the term of the sentence may wish to have the legality...
Thursday, July 03, 2014

The faster you go the bigger the mess?

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One reflects, as one must, on the appellate delay in Sabapathee v The Director of Public Prosecutions (Mauritius) [ 2014] UKPC 19 (25 Jun...
Thursday, June 26, 2014

Privacy and electronic records

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At common law a cell phone, seized when a person is arrested, cannot be searched. I say “at common law” because the rule may be modified, s...
Friday, June 20, 2014

Who shall yield? Recovering proceeds of crime from joint offenders.

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Forfeiture orders, to recover benefits obtained by crime, may be issued against each participant in the offending for the full amount of th...
Thursday, June 19, 2014

Beyond the law: the kindness of strangers

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At common law, once a defendant has been convicted, disclosure obligations change. This is because of the public interest, particularly the...
Friday, June 13, 2014

IQ and intellectual disability

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One of the things about the death penalty is that the Supreme Court of the United States has held that no legitimate penological purpose is...
Tuesday, June 10, 2014

The prosecutor's discretion

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Judicial interference with decisions about what submissions a party to litigation should make will occur only rarely, to prevent an abuse o...
Wednesday, May 21, 2014

When the right hand unfairly finds out what the left has been doing

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If something can go wrong, it will, and there can't be many criminal defence lawyers who will be surprised that there has been a glitch ...
Sunday, May 18, 2014

Harmless lawbreaking by judges

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There are times when judges fail to obey the law, in the conduct of trials, but that failure doesn't matter. For example, in Stout v R ...
Saturday, May 17, 2014

Assessing reasonableness of suspicion

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When can a tip-off provide the police with reasonable grounds to suspect that an offence has been committed?  If the informant is not kn...
Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Dangerous indifference

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Recklessness as to whether a complainant is consenting to sexual activity is not the same as recklessness as to why the complainant isn'...
Saturday, May 03, 2014

Paying for doing harm

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For discussion of how to determine the amount of restitution (often in criminal law called reparation) a defendant should pay a victim who...
Friday, April 18, 2014

Article by Lord Phillips: Closed Material

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As a special favour to yourself – a reward for a virtuous life – read the article by Lord Phillips on the way courts accommodate the need t...