FTA Lawyer

Well, Sharkman...thank you for demonstrating your outrageous bias and proving my point that everyone is quick to trash the system unfairly, but will not give credit to the good outcomes. "His life will consist of staring at the ceiling or his eyelids and little else?" This is not only offensive to disabled people as an entire group, but it is manifestly false and an outright deception for the purpose of trying to make your argument look like it has merit. We can all feel sympathy for the victim based on his actual suffering and not some fake image conjured by the "sharkman." Look at the Victim...staring at the ceiling...no wait, going to the courthouse and looking remarkably well. It is you that wants to ignore the evidence. The kid who did the laughing originally got a 20 month conditional sentence becuase he punched the victim during the attack. He was punished according to his actual participation in the crime. The concept of conditional sentences is very much dependent on a person showing they are worthy of serving a community based sentence, and so, jailing him for bursting out laughing is actually a principled and appropriate response. The kid who actually paralyzed the victim by whacking him with an axe three times and severing his spinal cord got 10 years in jail. His participation was far different than punching, and so was his sentence. The other kid got 3 years in jail, so I will guess that he was more involved than the laugher, less involved than the axe man. There was a fourth who was acquitted, so I'll assume he was not proven guilty of what he was charged with. The victim's family are quoted in the link I provided as being "happy" and "pleased" with the outcome. Ahh, yes, just another classic example of an irreparably "broken" justice system. Good work sharkman. Your credibility is soaring after this post! I can't wait for your next objective anecdote which proves how right you are... FTA

We make a second nurse sign off before one nurse pushes meds through an IV, most business accounts require two signatures to write a cheque, most university students get someone to proof-read their term papers etc. Requiring a warrant means putting a second set of eyes on the situation...eyes that are not immersed in the investigation and are likely to stop injustice due to overzealousness or mistakes before it happens. In my opinion that second set of eyes should not be circumvented and should not be lied to. I guess that makes me a lunatic lawyer or something. Of course police do their best to avoid such scenarios. But you make my point for me...even with warrants [validly obtained without lying or fudging based on cop hunches] mistakes happen. So why are you okay with cops not following the laws when they get warrants? Don't you see such practice drastically increases the risk of mistakes? You may well be right...but it is a dodge of the issue...if the cops become the "perps" because they openly disobey the law then they deserve the same contempt that you would show to my clients. You disagree with this because you presume that every time a police officer breaks the law it will be a stupid law that was just getting in his way and that his breaking the law was just to get a bad guy punished. You are naive if you think the honor and loyalty of police officers will serve to protect society as you want it to once you start telling police it's okay to cheat and deceive as long as they think they are doing it for a just cause. FTA

You're completely missing the point! How does the cop know AT THE TIME HE DECIDES TO BREAK THE LAW BY LYING TO A JUDGE TO BE ABLE TO STORM A HOUSE THAT LAWFULLY HE COULD NOT ENTER that he is well placed to do it because it will result in "justice" i.e. the means justify the ends. He doesn't. If he goes into an innocent family's home terrorizing them with machine guns you are okay with that because sometimes he will get the guy he's looking for. That's where we differ. I'd prefer to have my police follow the laws that they are sworn to uphold and if that means some bad guys get away, so be it. If my wife and young children ever have to suffer the trauma of a botched machine-gun wielding, ski-mask wearing police warrant squad, then what is the point of protecting them from criminal home-invaders? To a child the barrel of the gun and the shouting and the violence all look the same... FTA

Honest mistakes have always been distinguished from intentional acts of wrongdoing. I don't want to seem rude, but I can't give a summary of the complete works of s. 24 of the Charter on a forum like this. I've tried to explain before, there is a balancing process that gets followed, with the ultimate question to be answered being whether inclusion of the evidence in spite of a Charter breach or exclusion of the evidence would more likely bring disrepute to the administration of justice. Here's the basic test that trial judges are supposed to apply per the SCC in R. v. Collins: If you think that all "mistakes" lead to exclusion and acquittal then you have absolutely no idea about our justice system...and sadly, most of the posters in this thread fit that bill. The fact is that most "mistakes" are not "punished" by exclusion...and indeed, even some more blameworthy behaviour by police does not lead to evidence being tossed. At the end of the day, extraordinary cases are often decided in the best interests of the system as a whole. Here's about the best explanation of this point I have found recently from a SCC case called R. v. Greffe that involved police doing an anal cavity search on mere speculation of drugs, claiming that the search was incidental to a traffic warrant arrest (that's traffic as in bad driving, not trafficking): As for a case that relied on police good faith and mere "mistake" to tip the balance the other way, consider the case of R. v. Caslake where the RCMP did an unlawful "inventory search" of a car they impounded and should have got a warrant instead. They found a huge bag of marijuana: I know this is a very long post, but hopefully it sheds some light on the principles that are at play in these decisions. I accept that in practice, these ideals will not always be best served, but again, I disagree that there is such disarray in the justice system that the whole thing is "broken". FTA PS there's no links because I pulled these quotes from a pay service I use...but you can go to the SCC website and look up the case names for yourselves if you want to read the full judgments.

I've posed the question before...why do we accept utter incompetence in government, when you couldn't behave this way and keep your job at a Tim Hortons? I take better care of my gym membership card than do politicians with highly sensitive intelligence! Just how many of the world's governments' secrets are being misplaced by morons who have for some reason been entrusted to care for them? FTA

My citing bad police abusing the system was only meant as a hypothetical to show how a judge throwing out a warrant after another judge issued it can make perfect sense. Without details of the case you relied upon, it would be impossible to say if the judge made a terrible decision or a great one. Yes, the vast weight of my comments are siding with the justice system and critical (not abusive) of the cops because this is a discussion forum and I think the experience is better as a debate instead of 100% like minded people telling each other how right they are. It's lonely over here on my side, but I suggest that this thread is better with two sides is it not? Do I have some bias? Of course I do, I'm a criminal defence lawyer and a large part of what I do is challenge the propriety of police conduct. But that doesn't mean for a moment that I attack every cop I encounter. In fact, in the last appeal case I did, I argued that the judge may have been biased in convicting an accused. In summarizing the evidence of the police officers to the appeal court, I described each one of them as presenting as honest, forthright and fair in their description of events. I give credit where it is due. (And unfortunately, I can't give you a link becuase the court has reserved judgment...maybe in a month or two...) And let us all please remember, I don't have to personally love a judge to defend what they did, nor hate a cop to criticize them. We should be able to maintain that distinction. FTA

I must have missed the day they taught law in law school (to quote from A Few Good Men) becuase none of my professors were as brilliant as you to explain to me that I am supposed to presume my clients are guilty and then set about working for injustice. WTF? Now, wipe the foam from your mouth for long enough to really consider how you answer this one...how does the cop know that he is just "getting a guilty person punished" when he decides to violate the law to do it? See, if he knows the person is guilty (as opposed to suspects it) then even you will have to agree he has proof. And if he has proof of guilt, why does he need to violate the law? Just go lawfully arrest the criminal. What you fail to understand is that police are human and therefore not infallible. If we allow them to operate outside of the protections afforded by the law, then in their well-intentioned pursuit of bad guys, cutting procedural safeguards at every corner, they will unwittingly commit inappropriate infractions against the innocent. I have no doubt that the officer who arrested David Milgaard "knew" that he raped that nurse. I have no problem accepting that the cop who got Steven Truscott "knew" that little bastard killed that innocent girl. And I rather suspect that neither was an evil cop out to convict someone who didn't do it...but that's what happened. And you're not really going to stick with the proposition that innocent people get convicted as opposed to acquitted at a rate of 3 or 4 to 1 are you? FTA

Wow... #1. How can any person "know" a fact when the "hard proof is sketchy"? That's called an internally inconsistent argument, and it's the premise of your entire attempted point. #2. If the police will try to get a warrant "even though they know they probably don't have enough" then what punishment do you imagine would make them not take the exact same chance the next time? #3. Do you know what it really means for police to "not have enough" for a warrant? They only need reasonable and probable grounds to believe...not concrete proof. So, my point is that it's way worse than people here make it out to be when the police invade people's homes but don't "have enough". #4. "Shady tactics" being acceptable because the "ends justify the means" is the recipe for disaster. The one thing you are missing here is who is deciding which ends can serve to justify which means? See, the system we have, imperfect as it may be, sets the parameters (put aside for a moment that there may be legitimate arguments to support shifting the parameters through democratic action). You are advocating that ignoring the parameters is okay, but you presuppose that ignoring the parameters will only be done toward the end of inherent good. As soon as the rules are not really rules anymore, then each police officer is free to determine which means he or she will use and to what end. Do you really think that this would lead to a safer society? #5. Consider this scenario... I'm a cop...not a bad cop, but a good cop who is just always doing his best to keep people safe. I "know" that you are making meth in your garage, but my "hard proof is sketchy". I had a neice die from meth so it's a particularly troubling offence to me. I know you are cooking some up right now, and I'm afraid that you'll have moved it out for sale before I can get the concrete evidence. So I employ a very basic "shady tactic" by finding a random nearby neighbour and ask them leading questions such that they agree that they have seen you quite a bit in your garage lately, and you have been behaving similar to how a meth manufacturer would behave. In my warrant application, I simply note the neighbour as a confidential informant and I make sure to remind the judge of my neice who died when I am asserting the urgency of my application. No real lying...just "shady tactics". I get my warrant. Meth labs are really dangerous and manufacturers like you are usually armed and ready to shoot, so we get the SWAT team for a fully masked dynamic entry (no knock warrant). We barge in guns at the ready and unlucky for you, you are playing the latest shooting simulation X-Box game. You turn to see what's the commotion and my training kicks in and I double-tap you two shots centre mass. You die. I know damn well that we should not have been in your house, because I used shady tactics to get a warrant when I knew I "probably didn't have enough." Worst case scenario...I was wrong...you were buying all the chemicals one needs to make meth, but were using them for their normal household purposes. My instinct failed me. It is because a scenario like the above is completely plausible that we have laws about search warrants and expect police to follow them. The "ends justify the means" policy only works if the ends are always pure, the means reasonable and the officer never makes a mistake. I accept that letting a possibly guilty person go by excluding illegally obtained evidence is an important part of a justice system that seeks to prevent innocent people from being harmed. It's not "pretending the evidence doesn't exist" its choosing to disallow its use as a policy to maintain order. None of this means that you can't argue that the system should exclude evidence less often or in only the most eggregious cases of police misconduct, but until those standards are democratically implemented as law, then in my view all citizens, including the police, should follow the laws as they exist. FTA

Okay, don't provide the link for me. Provide it for everyone else on the board. How did I defend the judge in the case you cited when you didn't cite a case or even attempt to provide any facts about what the judge is supposed to have done that made you so upset? Your post was blatant justice system bashing without foundation whatsoever...and even the posters who have been arguing against me will have to completely agree with me on that. As for me "always siding with the justice system" because I am "biased beyond belief" take a look at post #74...and then quickly erase it from your mind...so you don't have to let things like truth and fact get in your way in your next post: Post #48 has another good example of my outrageous inability to consider the other side of the argument: FTA

How can you be so feeble minded as to not see that the adherence to "process" (i.e. the law) is what increases the likelihood that justice will prevail? Otherwise, as citizens we are subject to what any police officer might decide to do on any given day. You say "cops who don't follow the system" like I'm basing my stance on officers making typos on parking tickets. An officer who knowingly contravenes the established common law and the Charter and illegally searches a citizen's person or home is no better than the criminal who behaves for his own reasons like the law does not apply to him. If you are ever wrongfully accused of committing a crime, all of a sudden you will worship the "process" and will care a little bit more about the fact that the police broke the law to get the "evidence" they are using against you. Dare I say, you will even hire a defence lawyer and be thankful for his or her knowledge and skill. If you want a recent example of what I'm talking about, maybe read this story and imagine being this family who did absolutely nothing and found themselves handcuffed on the floor with guns pointed at their heads. I especially like the part how the police vicitims assistance line would not give the family access to counselling because they were "not victims of crime". Oops, we thought you were horrible criminals...sorry! Since when did we become a society that is so out to get criminals that we are willing to accept innocent citizens being victimized in state-sanctioned home invasions? When we let police get away with it by refusing to exclude illegal evidence because it looks like the guy might be guilty, we invite this. If I am the demon for demanding that police follow the constitution and the law and the "process", then I am proud to fill that role. FTA

I am a gun owner and unofficial advocate of lawful gun ownership, a critic of the gun registry, but what in the hell are you trying to say here?????????????????????????????? If she had smashed her mentally ill grandson in the side of the head with a baseball bat she may be alive today also, but I fail to see how any version of this story would be anything but tragedy. Poetic Justice? Are you trying to be funny but are really bad at it...or are you so stupid that you amaze yourself each day when you remember to breathe? FTA

I don't dispute for a moment that some out there would fight to keep a woman from being anything but First Lady in the Whitehouse, but I can't help but state the obvious: When a woman is right to the wire to become one of two candidates for "leader of the free world" as the US likes to say it, where pray tell is the glass ceiling if she is not already through it? Between presidential candidate and God? 'Cause that's really another topic then... If you ask me, rather than look for a glass ceiling, go for the most obvious explanation. She lost the campaign. Notice I didn't say Obama was smarter or a better candidate or anything else like that. There was a campaign...many very high powered men were crushed by Senator Clinton during that campaign...but, in the end, she came in second. FTA

By "these punks" are you referring to police officers who deceive judges to get search warrants? My attitude is one of frustration when people take unsubstantiated pot shots at the legal profession. Sharkman provides no link, no objectively reviewable facts, no context, no insight and says he has proof that the system is broken. My response was entirely appropriate. Hey, I think we should have a thread about the disarray in the plumbing industry. I'll get us started. This one time, I hired a plumber...and he said he snaked out my kitchen drain...but I'm pretty sure he didn't. (Sorry, no link but this one really got my blood boiling) What on earth have plumbers come to!?!?!?!?!? When will the government stop certifying people with no moral fabric to fit pipes and such!?!?!?! I for one think we should elect plumbers because then we'd clean the whole mess up... FTA

NEWSFLASH!!! An example (we assume because no link) of a centuries-old process of judicial review being used!!! I mean come on, this justice system bashing should be getting too much for even the proponents to take. When I find out that police had material exculpatory evidence that they kept from the judge when they got a warrant, or they misrepresented the evidence that they did have, then I apply to the trial judge to rule that the warrant was invalid. If the judge agrees and tosses the warrant and the evidence, he or she is chastizing the police who abused the system by misleading the judge, not the judge who was misled by bad cops. FTA

I'll take that as a "no"...you don't have any evidence that Mark Toews or any other MP's kid has been hired into a job they are not competent for. This hullabaloo by definition cannot be nepotism unless the person hired was given favoritism or priority due to his family ties. There is no evidence of that either in the media story or in your posts. This hullabloo by definition cannot be cronyism unless the kid was hired regardless of qualifications as a gift to the dad for his long history with the party. There is no evidence of that either in the media story or in your posts. There is no story. But I'll still ask you again...is your view that Mark Toews is required to forego any aspirations to federal politics because his dad is an MP, or must he apply for jobs in political parties not of his choosing? And, no, I don't care one way or another if it's CPC, Liberal, NDP...I hate pandering to partisan form over substance in whatever form it takes. I will equally ridicule those who said Cretien's lawyer daughter should not have been on a 2010 Olympic organizing committee if they had no evidence to show she was given favoritism in spite of lack of ability. To argue otherwise is to say that the spawn of very successful and talented people should be forced not to work in certain careers and I just can't accept that level of feeble-minded allegiance to mud-slinging. FTA

I would use the word "vast". The decision has the effect of allowing the InSite facility to operate without any government permit or blessing until June 30, 2009 (or shorter if the government passes legislation in response prior to then). What the true problem is for the government is that the way in which the judge decided the issue. The judge has declared the CDSA prohibitions against possession and trafficking of all controlled substances to be unconstitutional and of no force or effect. Absent new legislation carving out exceptions for addictions treatment programs (or a successful appeal or the use of the notwithstanding clause) prior to June 30, 2009, then as of that date, there will no longer be a Canadian law prohibiting the possession or trafficking of any controlled substance. Obviously, that would be disaster. The silver lining for the government may be though, that they will be able to speedily pass whatever new legislation they put forward because no opposition party will want to be blamed for letting the June 30, 2009 date pass without replacement laws in place. FTA

Sooner or later, someone here other than me will go to the source, and not the poorly paraphrased media crap. In stead of posing a question in a cloud of confusion, just READ THE JUDGMENT!!!!!!!!!!! What the Judge Actually Said Now you can actually debate the judge's reasons, and not the rhetoric that can be trounced up by either side of the issue. FTA

???????????????????? Radar detectors are meant to allow users to speed and not get ticketed...can't really try to get philosophical on that one. If no one sees the tree fall in the forest, does that mean it didn't fall? When you speed, you break the law...has nothing to do with whether you get caught. Apply your statement to rape or murder and I think you'll see what I mean. Similarly, if detecting speeders with radar is unethical, then isn't wiretapping, surveillance tape, fingerprinting and DNA profiling out the window too? Are they not all just examples of police using technology of some sort to enforce law? FTA

Avoid what? Respond to my post dobbin...you're now doing what you openly trash as the "but Liberals" style of argument putting in a one-liner that the other parties are not breaking the rules better than the Tories are not breaking the rules. The fact remains that the Tories are not breaking the rules and you can't articulate why that bothers you so much. Do you have evidence that Mark Toews is an incompetent worker who could only have been hired by a Tory MP as a favor to Vic Toews? If not, you have nothing and you prove that the story is nothing. FTA

Criminal law requires an act and criminal intent...even for manslaughter where the consequence (death) is unintentional. If she did not have the necessary criminal intent, she is not guilty in spite of the act. I rather suspect that this woman could be tried a hundred times and each jury will have at least one person who cannot get past the "there but for the grace of God go I" analysis. At some point, the Crown will have to conclude there is no public interest in pursuing another trial, but recent history would suggest that they will not throw in the towel until after trial #3 (In the Ferguson case - the Alberta Mountie who killed the young guy in cells - the conviction which has stood up to all appeals was obtained after 2 prior hung juries). FTA

The Headline of the article states that the rules allow the hires...what exactly are the Tories "getting around"? This has got to be about the dumbest criticism I have ever seen. Guess what, doctors' kids often become doctors, lawyers' kids often become lawyers, teachers' kids...well you get the point I hope... Before I went to law school I worked at my uncle's law firm...ooohhh!!! oh my God, how can that be?!?! shouldn't somebody write a newspaper article about it? Let's see, I'm a 20 year old political science major at a respected Canadian University. I want desperately to cut my teeth on "the Hill". But wait, my dad is an MP!?!?! Woe is me, the stupid asses who wrote this article would have it so that I am precluded in pursuing my career ambition because my dad has the job?!?!?! Who do you think you would apply to for a job if you were Mark Toews???????????????????? Are you actually expecting anyone to seriously think that he ought to either: 1) Not be allowed to learn and gain experience in a vocation of his choice for however long his dad might be an MP or 2) Be forced to send his resume to Stephane Dion so that when he "gets around" the nepotism prohibition it looks better?!?!?! Did I mention this is the dumbest criticism I have ever seen? FTA

In my mind, a true "patronage appointment" suggests lack of merit...that is, you don't really qualify for the job but get it because of political affiliation. I agree that a "cooling off period" is better than not having one, but...if making Mr. Toews a judge is a "patronage appointment" for the purposes of a "golden parachute" and is not meritorious, then how is it better two years from now? Conversely, if Toews is objectively qualified for the job (as it would appear his resume would support) then isn't appointing him direct from cabinet better than appointing someone with questionable abilities who just happens to have never served in government? Call me crazy, but I want intelligent and qualified judges in the courtroom...I couldn't care less who puts them there or what their last job was. Crown prosecutors who become judges don't necessarily prove to be hard-ass convicters and former defence counsel on the bench are sometimes the toughest on crime. I think this is a tempest in a teapot. FTA

Yeah, I'm a total dupe who can't recognize that some of my clients are more truthful than others. Holy shit...now that you mention it, I think I'm going to change careers...it never occurred to me before that some of my clients actually did what they were accused of!!!!!! You know those stats I was referring to earlier, well guess what, they apply to my clients the same as anyone else's...if you need that spelled out completely, that means the vast majority of my clients plead guilty. Of those who go to trial, many of them are nevertheless convicted. Oh, and would you change your tune if you knew the "crocodile tears" were coming from clients of mine who were themselves police officers?!?! Now that's a bit of a conundrum for the critics here isn't it?!?!? FTA

The police surveiled the residence to get their grounds for the warrant...through intelligence gathered they are expected to do a risk assessment (e.g., if they see a baby is living there, things are to be done differently than if the house is unoccupied). THEY SKIPPED THAT STEP. In fact, from the evidence of THE OFFICERS THEMSELVES they had no reason to believe that there was any risk of destruction of evidence, and no reasonable suspicion that there were any violent persons staying there or weapons on site. Then, they knock and announce at the front door, and quickly move 'round to the back to smash in with guns pointing every which way. One would think that those of you always slamming judges for never having common sense would agree with the judge's following statement: At the end of the day, the judge in this case notes the serious risk (to both occupants and the police themselves) that is created by the police when they do no homework to find any evidentiary basis for a dynamic violent entry and just do it because they can. As in the previous Feeney example, the police here totally disregarded the law that was clearly set out for them in 1989 (just shy of 2 f--king decades ago) as noted by the judge: But again, for some inexplicable reason no one on this board seems to want to look at the actual case and the actual facts and the actual decision of the judge...it's way easier to slam her by relying on media paraphrasing and politician's expressions of outrage. EVERY PROVINCE HAS WEBSITES REPORTING ACTUAL JUDGMENTS!!! No one expects police to let dangerous offenders arm themselves before entry for a warrant...just first have some shred of evidence that there might be a dangerous individual with something he may arm himself with in the home you are going into. Oh, and don't be surprised if the occupants don't let you in the back door after you knock on the front... FTA

I have within the last year faced the mother and sister of a girl who died while a passenger in the car driven by my client, I have arranged to get property from a client so it could be returned to someone he took it from, I have been commended by a youth court judge for respectful cross-examinations of a teenage crime victim... and I could go on and on. I have also watched grown men unlawfully victimized by the police openly weep in my office, I have choked back tears while their wives testified about why their children are afraid of police officers, I have stood with pride as fabricated charges were dropped against my 4-month pregnant client who was unlawfully held in custody for 21 hours without food. I don't read about vicitms in the paper...I work with them in person. And I certainly don't need to satisfy the on-line persona known as "Wilber" that I practice my profession with respect and integrity. You may not have intended the slight you made, but look to your left, that is asphalt...look to your right, a sewer grate...yup, you're in the gutter. FTA