The Glacial Pace of Justice in Canada

[Argus]

We all know it takes months if not years from arrest to trial or even sentencing for those who plead in Canada. Even the time to arrest can take years, if you look at BC, and how long it's taken them to arrest and charge people in the riots from last year.

I literally can't imagine a situation such as this

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-22766966

happening in Canada. Yesterday I read about a man who attacked a judge in his courtroom after the man sentenced his brother on an unrelated crime. Today, the man was sentenced himself to 18 months for his actions.

ONE DAY LATER!

And of course, it's been discussed here before about how quickly those arrested in the London riots were charged, convicted and sent away. That especially came up in relation to the glacial pace of 'justice' in BC. The British sentences were also considerably harsher than those meted out thus far in BC. In this case, for example, it's hard to believe an 18 month sentence would be given out for such an assault.

So why are the left wing Brits so much harsher on criminals, and most especially why are their courts so much more efficient than those in Canada?

[Keepitsimple]

I hope I don't stray too much off target but you've hit a nerve. I'm not a lawyer - that will become obvious. I'm not steeped in Legal mumbo-jumbo - and that too will become obvious. But I do consider myself to be a pragmatic, clear-thinking, regular Joe. I'd like to see our Parole system serve a purpose - other than to avoid a full sentence (statutory release after two-thirds) or to open the door as early as serving a quarter of their sentence. Here's a thought:

Many crminals are caught red-handed - or the evidence is strong enough that they are almost certainly guilty. Yet almost everyone pleads "not guilty" - knowing that the courts are clogged and a plea bargain will likely ensue. So - a guilty person gets a lesser sentence - and then is released early under our parole system.

Here's a thought:

1) The first action a guilty person should take in a civil society is to take responsibility and show remorse for one's actions. If someone does that - and pleads guilty - with a lawyer who can help explain the circumstances that led to the crime - then that person deserves the acknowledgement of the judge and the potential leniency of our Parole System.

2) If that same person pleads "not guilty" and is subsequently found guilty - they have NOT expressed remorse nor taken responsibility for their actions. In this case, the crminal forfeits a portion of parole eligibility - for example - he gets out after two-thirds of his sentence - instead of one-third.

This approach would return the parole system to something meaningful - and unclog the courts from never-ending defense motions that hope to win the battle of attrition for a plea bargain.

Unclogging the courts helps the innocent as well - their cases are completed earlier and the cloud of suspician is lifted - and they can get on with their lives. The losers are the guilty criminals who have been gaming the system.

Edited June 4, 2013 by Keepitsimple

[cybercoma]

We all know it takes months if not years from arrest to trial

This is false. You have a legal right not to be held without a hearing. The trial begins soon after you're arrested, as a general rule the vast majority of trials begin within 30 days. Pretty close 99% of them within 6 months. Trials can take a long time, but so what? The last thing we should advocate for are hasty prosecutions of people. I want to know if I'm arrested that they'll take their time with the hearing and give me a fair shake, not ram my case through as quickly as possible. The problem with people that complain about our system not being fast enough and not being punitive enough is that they look at the justice system the wrong way. They look at it from the point of view that the accused persons are guilty entering the trial. The justice system absolutely needs to be designed around the notion that the person on trial is innocent. And it does happen where someone on trial is indeed innocent. The last thing I want is a justice system that punishes innocent people hastily because they were more interested in expediency than thoroughness.

[cybercoma]

Argus, what I'm trying to say is that you have a fair criticism that the people from the riots haven't been arrested and prosecuted quickly enough. That is a very reasonable argument to make. However, it's not reasonable to take this particularly unusual incident of criminality and generalize about the entire justice system in Canada.

[eyeball]

So why are the left wing Brits so much harsher on criminals, and most especially why are their courts so much more efficient than those in Canada?

I'd suspect our system of governance in which just about every branch of it is always looking for ways to keep itself in lolly - a judicial-industrial complex of investigators, prosecutors, lawyers, judges all nodding and winking amongst themselves like a school of piranha.

The likeliest one's to be gaming the system are the one's who benefit the most from it.

So what about the pace of our white collar criminal justice system, is it on par with a glacial pace or would tectonic be more like it?

[Moonbox]

You're weighing on the "Scales of Justice" Argus. It's probably true that a lot of deadbeat losers could sensibly be railroaded into prison a lot faster than is presently happening, but the cost of making this sort of thing systemic is that innocent people are not given a proper trial, and that's a cost that's too high to pay IMO.

That's not to say that our judicial process couldn't be sped up considerably and that lawyers don't woefully abuse it and bog it down in order to collect legal fees, but it's never going to be a quick process.

[eyeball]

Too bad you're not this sensible when it comes to our mental health system.

[Moonbox]

Disagreeing with you on one topic, (or a number of topics ) does not mean I disagree with you on all topics, nor that two people can't have opposite (but still sensible) opinions.

Edited June 4, 2013 by Moonbox

[AlienB]

Its just BS. The legal system is intentionally broken. First off laws are poorly crafted with vague and ambiguous language, second the method of "justice" is based on insane principles of "precedence" of previous occurrences as opposed to individual events and people. Its not judging people it is judging a crude value to peoples actions in abstract terms. It isn't one crime one sentence, it is one crime lets haggle. Facts aren't established they are convinced, justice isn't about reforming people it is about the justice system acting superior to regular people.

It is just a broken system, frankly there is no need for lawyers and judges. The system needs to BS the lay, its procedural, it isn't about people it is about pomp and charades.

Justice will never be served until those involved have left the system of man, because they are just BSing, they know nothing but semantics and procedure they aren't real, they aren't about making the system better they are just about BSing people and picking sides you can do that in 5 minutes. What happened? How can it be fixed, it can't? What the books says x y who the hell cares about a book, make a moral and good public, and you can have anyone figure out a solution to the result rather than penalizing the past, its what is right now that matters, what happened means nothing aside from its effect on now.

They are just a holes.

It isn't justice system, it is the system of delusions and false facts.

They are going to pay for the harm they have caused eventually, and they deserve it for condemning people on fancy for what they think has happened but know not.

The system is wrong and a corrupt and self destructive aspect of society. Its not about making good it is about corrupting the public good to serve elitists interests. They deserve pain and torment for their perversion of right honour and goodness, they are scumbags.

Edited June 6, 2013 by AlienB

[August1991]

So why are the left wing Brits so much harsher on criminals, and most especially why are their courts so much more efficient than those in Canada?

I can't comment on the situation in Britain but our judicial system - like so much else in Canada's public sector - is wastefully bureaucratic. Our education system is top heavy, our health system allocates resources blindly and our judicial system is all about case management. State bureaucracy is a relatively new phenomenon in human history. I doubt whether it is sustainable.

[guyser]

Average length of time for completion of court case from charge to sentence (or exoneration) in UK is....154 days.

Average length of time for completion of court case from charge to sentence (or exoneration) in Canada is ....118 days

for the latter.... http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2012001/article/11646-eng.htm

For the former....https://www.gov.uk/government/.../swift-justice-stats-july2012.pdf.pdf‎

[August1991]

Guyser, you failed to quote that Statscan cite completely:

Following a period of relative stability from 2005/2006 to 2008/2009, the median amount of time from first court appearance to case completion fell for the second year in a row to 118 days (about 4 months) in 2010/2011. Despite recent declines, however, the elapsed period of time remained higher than a decade ago when the median length was 101 days.

....

Cases involving certain types of charges or multiple charges tend to take longer than others to complete. In 2010/2011, homicide cases generally took the longest with a median length of 391 days, followed by attempted murder (303 days) and sexual assault (300 days) (Table 3). Similarly, the median length of cases involving two or more charges was considerably longer than those involving single charges (147 days and 82 days, respectively).

Previous research has identified several other factors that tend to be associated with lengthier case completion, namely trial cases and those involving bench warrants (Thomas 2010). Trial cases are generally resource and time intensive as they often require many appearances to present evidence, hear the testimony of witnesses, and review victim impact statements.

IOW, the historical trend is longer court time and larger backlogs. When a case is thrown out because of long delays, Statscan counts that as a "case resolved".

Your link provides an interesting insight to Canadian criminality: DUIs, theft and common assault - or failure to comply.