Criminal Defence
In R v ADG, 2015 ABCA 149 (CanLII), a sex assault acquittal was overturned (surprisingly, the ABCA didn’t “fossick guilt from a fact-driven acquittal”, to borrow the glorious prose of McClung J.A. in R. v. Ewanchuk, 1998 ABCA 52 (CanLII) at para. 9). This was due to a reliance on rape myths by the lower court …
Continue reading “More Recent Wrongful Sexual Assault Convictions”
Disclaimer: the opinions expressed here are my own. Specific attacks against other academics are also entirely my own. I’ve greatly enjoyed Professor Sankoff’s seminars recently – both his free Youtube videos and his affordable (approx. $25 per seminar) online seminars. I watched his s. 276 webinar the other day (part 1 only), and my mind …
Continue reading “Progressive, eh? A review of Professor Sankoff’s s. 276 seminar”
I have been made aware of numerous complaints about Calgary Remand Centre staff and administration over the last week. None of it surprises me. The Centre is quite easily one of the worst remand centres in Canada in terms of how it treats its inmates, although it’s received little media attention compared to detention centres …
Continue reading “Recent Complaints Regarding Treatment of Inmates at Calgary Remand Centre”
Following up on my recent posts about Ewanchuk and Professor Elaine Craig’s horrendous book, I noticed a lot of ideas tracing their way to a respected law professor out of the University of Windsor – David Tanovich. He appears to be a part of a group of academics – whom I’ll call “the #Me Too …
I got into a Twitter spat last week. I noticed a lawyer calling out the Canadian judicial system for its apparent racial bias in a 1997 decision. I had a quick look at the case, and thought it was a weak claim. I tried to challenge the claim on Twitter, and met with a whole …
With extra time on my hands during this COVID era, I found myself looking up some horrendous U.S. Supreme Court decisions. I started with this list: Dred Scott v. Sanford(1857): Hands down the worst Supreme Court decision ever, Dred Scott held that African Americans, whether free men or slaves, could not be considered American citizens. The ruling undid …
This will be a fairly long post (approximately 8 pages). I’ll begin with the background to the Supreme Court of Canada’s latest pronouncement on starting point sentences in Friesen, using Alberta cases such as Hajar, Arcand, Gashikanyi, Godfrey and Parranto, as well as the SCC case of Lacasse. I’ll then discuss the effects of the …
I read Professor Elaine Craig’s 2018 book: Putting Trials on Trial: Sexual Assault and the Failure of the Legal Profession a year or so ago, and felt quite unsettled. I wanted to address it in a blog post, but then convinced myself that no one would take the book seriously. I then saw that the …
I saw this terrible article this morning and had no choice but to do a blog post. Angela Chaisson, a criminal lawyer, is quoted: “We’re having a lot more realization, and a lot of really good case law, coming out about bringing a racial lens to criminal law in particular, but we’re not having the …
Continue reading “Mandated judicial education for judges on sexual assault law”
In yet another disturbing sentencing decision (R v Felix, 2019 ABCA 458 (CanLII), the Alberta Court of Appeal overturns (in a unanimous 5-member decision authored by Antonio J.A.) a 7-year sentence for wholesale fentanyl trafficking, and imposes instead a 10-year sentence. Luckily for the respondent, the Crown only sought a 10-year sentence – otherwise the …
Moldofsky Law 