You confirmed your name to a stranger who then gave you a piece of paper with a somewhat familiar word written at the top of the page: subpoena. You’ve been served. What does this paper mean and what are you supposed to do? What is a subpoena? In the context of a criminal cases, a subpoena is a court order…
Why Do We Have the Presumption of Innocence? Famed American educator and diplomat Kingman Brewster once explained that the presumption of innocence, when approached in commonsense terms, “rests on that generosity of spirit which assumes the best, not the worst, of the stranger.” In Canada, we take this same approach. In fact, the presumption of innocence is not just a…
According to the Department of Justice, impaired driving is one of the leading causes of criminal death throughout all of Canada. It shouldn’t come as a surprise then that the penalties for impaired driving or DUI charges can be severe. But how do they differ from province to province? (Yes, in addition to penalties under the Criminal Code, there are…
Domestic assault charges can have serious and wide-ranging consequences. Under the Criminal Code, there is no specific offence for “domestic assault.” However, the fact that an assault happened in a domestic context is an aggravating factor on sentencing and domestic assaults are (often) treated differently by police and by prosecutors than regular assaults. So what is a “domestic” assault? Domestic…