Category Archives: Criminal

Rights, Camera, Action

By: Erin Sheley

 PDF Version: Rights, Camera, Action

Case Commented on: R v McCoy, 2016 ABQB 240 (CanLII)

The series of police encounters that triggered the Black Lives Matter movement have raised many bitter and potentially unanswerable social questions about the relationship between law enforcement and the citizen. From the perspective of criminal procedure, however, they have also demonstrated the importance of video evidence in establishing the “true” story behind the inherently fraught, often violent, almost-always subjective situation of an arrest. In a context where a few words or gestures can make the difference between a colourable case of resisting arrest and an unwarranted exercise of police force, we have seen how eyewitness accounts can be flatly contradictory. As Justice Iaccobucci pointed out in R v Oickle, 2000 SCC 38, referring to video-recorded confessions, police notes may accurately record the content of what is said, but cannot capture tone or body language in a way that recording can (at para 46, citing J.J. Furedy and J. Liss, “Countering Confessions Induced by the Polygraph: Of Confessionals and Psychological Rubber Hoses” (1986), 29 Crim LQ 91, at 104). In light of this potentially important evidentiary function, the in-car digital video system (ICDVS, or “dash cam”) has become an increasingly widely-used piece of police technology. RCMP officers are required to make use of dash cams in all cars equipped with them (see K Division Operational Manual at s 1.1). Continue reading →

Should the Dispute Remain Between the Accused and the Crown? Third-Party Intervention in Criminal Proceedings

By: Jessica Magonet

PDF Version: Should the Dispute Remain Between the Accused and the Crown? Third-Party Intervention in Criminal Proceedings

Cases Commented On: R v Vallentgoed, 2016 ABCA 19 (CanLII) and R v Barton, 2016 ABCA 68 (CanLII)

Should courts shun third party intervention in criminal proceedings? Two recent Alberta Court of Appeal cases address this issue: R v Vallentgoed, 2016 ABCA 19 (CanLII) (January 2016) and R v Barton, 2016 ABCA 68 (CanLII) (March 2016).

In Vallentgoed, the Edmonton and Calgary Police Services (EPS / CPS) were denied leave to intervene in a criminal appeal by Justice Veldhuis. The appeal concerned the scope of the Crown’s obligation to disclose approved instrument (AI) maintenance logs. Approved instruments are instruments used to measure blood alcohol levels. The accused, Vallentgoed and Gubbins, were charged with impaired driving offenses and had requested additional disclosure of AI maintenance records.

In Barton, Justice Berger granted leave to intervene to the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) and the Institute for the Advancement of Aboriginal Women (IAAW) in the Crown’s appeal of Barton’s acquittal for the murder of Cindy Gladue. Ms. Gladue, a Cree woman engaged in sex work, died as a result of an injury caused by Mr. Barton. According to LEAF’s press release, “At the trial, the jury accepted the defence argument that Ms. Gladue, an Indigenous woman, had consented to ‘rough sex’ and acquitted the man accused of her murder, Bradley Barton.” (Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) and the Institute for the Advancement of Aboriginal Women (IAAW) Seek Leave to Intervene in R. v Barton). Continue reading →

Good Kid, M.A.D.D. City: Seeking Proportionality in Drunk Driving Sentencing

By: Joshua Sealy-Harrington and Joe McGrade

PDF Version: Good Kid, M.A.D.D. City: Seeking Proportionality in Drunk Driving Sentencing

Cases Commented On: R v Lacasse, 2015 SCC 64; R v Sargent, 2016 ABCA 104

Constantly drinking and drive. Hit the powder then watch this flame that arrive in his eye. […] I live inside the belly of the rough Compton, USA. Made me an angel on angel dust.

–good kid m.A.A.d. city (Kendrick Lamar, 2012)

Despite the Supreme Court’s recent consideration of the law governing sentencing appeals, such appeals remain a controversial area of legal analysis for our appellate courts. This persisting ambiguity, which is rooted in how the law is applied, rather than the law itself, motivates us to revisit the Court’s leading decision in R v Lacasse. This comment summarizes the majority and dissenting judgments in Lacasse, notes the ambiguity left by the disagreement between those judgments, outlines a recent Alberta Court of Appeal decision – R v Sargent, 2016 ABCA 104 – which demonstrates that ambiguity, and discusses the significant policy consequences associated with the Supreme Court’s unanimous holding that it is appropriate to more severely punish individuals with sympathetic mitigating factors (good kids) when they reside in communities with high crime rates (mad cities). Continue reading →

Who Are the “Parents of the Nation”? Thoughts on the Stephan Case and Section 215 of the Criminal Code

By: Lisa Silver

PDF Version: Who are the “Parents of the Nation”? Thoughts on the Stephan Case and Section 215 of the Criminal Code

Matter commented on: Section 215 of the Criminal Code, RSC 1985, c C-46

Much has been written and said on the characteristics of a “good” parent. Such information is easily accessible by anyone with a library card and internet access. It can be found by a click of our mouse on various blog postings (click here for a list of parenting blogs, which share the “real truth” about parenting) and dedicated websites (click here for a list of “not-to-be-missed” websites). Even celebrity has something to say about parenting practices; cue self-styled “lifestyle” guru, Gwyneth Paltrow, who famously has her children on a controversial low-carb, sugar free diet. Social media is another fount of information, often in the form of criticism or apologies. All of these venues enforce a “normative” notion of parenting. But through all this data there seems to be a bright-line drawn between “good” and “bad” parenting. For example, “bad” parents administer cocaine to a child (R v TB, 2010 ONSC 1579), knowingly leave a child in a car for an extended period of time during a hot summer afternoon (R v Huang, 2015 ONCJ 46), or intentionally attack a child with a knife (R v BJG, 2013 ABCA 260). In those instances, the egregious conduct is not merely “bad” parenting but criminal behavior deserving of state imposed sanctions and its concomitant stigma. Although we can recognize “criminal” parenting when we see it, the real difficulty lies in identifying behaviors that are not so evidently “bad.” The recent Stephan case has ignited a debate on where that line between “bad” and “criminal” should be drawn; or is the line already drawn perhaps not as bright as we might have previously believed? Continue reading →

When Three Rights Make a Wrong?

By: Erin Sheley

PDF Version: When Three Rights Make a Wrong?

Case commented on: R v Oakes, 2016 ABCA 90

R v Oakes raised the specter always haunting the edges of criminal procedure: what happens when a procedurally fair trial turns out, after the fact, to have produced an unfair conviction?

Connie Oakes was convicted of the second-degree murder of Casey Armstrong, primarily based on the testimony of her alleged co-conspirator Wendy Scott. Scott, who is cognitively delayed and has an IQ of 50, told police that she had seen Oakes kill Armstrong with a knife in the bathroom of his trailer. Scott herself pled guilty to second-degree murder for her own involvement in the crime, after confessing during the course of numerous uncounseled interrogations between June 2011 and January 2012 (at para 4). Prior to implicating Oakes, Scott had accused three other individuals of the act, testifying at trial that she had lied on those three occasions (at para 16). Scott’s testimony was the centerpiece of the Crown’s case against Oakes in the absence of physical evidence linking her to the crime scene and given that a neighbor’s description of a suspect leaving the scene more closely resembled one of the other individuals Scott had originally implicated (at paras 15-18). Continue reading →