How bad is our criminal justice system? Pretty bad.

[Argus]

A two year study likely to be largely ignored by Canadians, paints a portrait of a slow, expensive, incompetent justice system filled with unnecessary delays. But is the federal government likely to look into drastic changes? Not a chance.

Hardly a surprise, btw, that Ontario is among the worst in the country. 43% of charges get withdrawn, and of those which go to trial, barely half result in a guilty verdict. What does that say about the brain power and legal acumen of those who are laying charges in the first place?

The findings reveal extraordinary crime rates in some jurisdictions, poor rates for solving crimes in others, inadequate support for victims, soaring costs, excessive delays, large numbers of cases stayed or withdrawn and high rates of aboriginal incarceration.

“With few exceptions, our justice system is slow, inefficient, and costly,” it concludes.

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/national/98slow+inefficient+costly+canada+criminal+justice+system+needs/12210894/story.html

The actual report is here.

Edited September 21, 2016 by Argus

[?Impact]

We don't have a justice system, we have a legal system. A report card however is not prescriptive, we need some good ideas and proper execution to move things forward. For a starter, we need to clean up the criminal code as was demonstrated by the case in Alberta last week where the judge ruled on a section that was declared unconstitutional on Mulroney's watch. Perhaps automation could help address some of the cost and efficiency issues, although that report card is way too high level to even begin to suggest how. My understanding of the legal system is that it is just a paper nightmare. Simplification however is the biggest issue. We have politicians wanting millions of boutique laws to buy votes, when what we really need is to clean up the mess to begin with.

[PIK]

How about our parole system. Graham James is getting full parole again.

[Argus]

We don't have a justice system, we have a legal system. A report card however is not prescriptive, we need some good ideas and proper execution to move things forward. For a starter, we need to clean up the criminal code as was demonstrated by the case in Alberta last week where the judge ruled on a section that was declared unconstitutional on Mulroney's watch. Perhaps automation could help address some of the cost and efficiency issues, although that report card is way too high level to even begin to suggest how. My understanding of the legal system is that it is just a paper nightmare. Simplification however is the biggest issue. We have politicians wanting millions of boutique laws to buy votes, when what we really need is to clean up the mess to begin with.

What we need to do is simplify laws, especially criminal laws, so they can't be misconstrued or played with through ridiculous and time consuming charter challenges, simply the administration and paperwork involved, and streamline trials. I recall one particular reporter's tail of the long, boring murder trial he had attended, which included, among other things, excruciating background detail of how a firearm worked, different types of firearms, and then how a gunshot is measured, then went on to do the same for how fingerprints worked. We're not talking a couple of minutes here, either. Every single thing presented had to be presented as if the jury had never been on this planet before, and wouldn't know what anything was unless it was described in long and fulsome detail. Even when these objects were peripheral to the question of guilt. And anyone who wants to read Christy Blatchford's reports from the Duffy trial would also see the tremendous amount of time wasted by his defense attorney, who went off on long, endless tangents that took up days of testimony.

[?Impact]

Every single thing presented had to be presented as if the jury had never been on this planet before

Yes, our juries are not made of professionals in the science of evidence gathering. Do you suggest that we try people based on their knowledge of television shows? I bet if you asked the common man on the street questions about chain of custody, they would fail miserably.

[Machjo]

Let's start at the bottom first. The police must learn to collect and corroborate evidence. You don't arrest someone and then after the person gest a lawyer you scramble to collect evidence and then think, oops, maybe the person's innocent.

I had read a police report investigating human trafficking. Yes, that's right, Human trafficking. They did not collect one witness statement even though they'd acknowledged that witnesses were on the scene, no audio or video recording, nothing, nada, zilch.

Now the evidence at the hearing showed that the person was innocent of all charges. Okay, fine, fair enough. But she should never have been charged in the first place.

Had the police done their job and sent an undercover agent with hidden audio and video to the house first to record who was doing what, had they then collected witness statements from every witness present, and all the evidence led them to believe that the person is probably guilty, they charge the person, and then it turns out some new evidence comes out showing the person to be innocent, I can forgive that sinse at least the police did their job and there was at least reason to believe that the person was guilty.

However, when the police collect no evidence prior to making a charge, then scramble afterwards to find the least bit of credible evidence of a person's guilt and fail to do so, then that kind of case is a waste of a judge's time. It creates backlog, wastes human resources, makes the judge do some basic work that the cop could have done himself. Those are cases where the cop could have discovered the suspect's innocence bu just collecting the most basic of evidence. It's not the judge's job to find the person innocent in such simple cases. The cop should do that job before it goes to court. The only ones that should go to court are when the person is clearly guilty or at least after evidence is collected, we can reasonably conclude that he's probably guilty.

[Machjo]

Another stupid piece of taxpayer wastage that I know of.

The person was accused of working in Canada without a visa. She won the ruling.

The CBSA appealed, meaning that she had to return to Canada to attend a hearing to decide whether to exclude her from Canada for a year. However, the because of backlogs, the appeal hearing itself was rescheduled for over a year later. This meant, ironically enough, that had she lost the first ruling, she could already come back to Canada!

Worse yet, like the example above, the CBSA did not have the slightest evidence against her to th point that at the first hearing the judge did not even bother to listen to any witness in her defence or her lawyer's final statement. He jumped to his conclusion after the Minister's counsel's final statement and that was that.

In that particular case, after the judge had decided in her favour, the CBSA refused to return her passport until her lawyer had threatened legal consequences to the officer who witholds her passport the next day. She got the passport back, and as you can guess, the CBSA's illegal move can only help in the appeal.

Total incompetence.

[?Impact]

However, when the police collect no evidence prior to making a charge, then scramble afterwards to find the least bit of credible evidence of a person's guilt and fail to do so, then that kind of case is a waste of a judge's time.

Agreed, additionally why is the crown attorney/prosecutor bringing the case forward?

[Machjo]

And when the judge rules in the defendant's favour not on some constitutional technicality but because the evidence actually shows that the person really truly was just as the wrong place at the wrong time, why would we then appeal the decision when we already know that the ruling will be the same as before... ok, unless new evidence comes up, maybe. But especially when the evidence shows the person to be innocent, why the hell appeal the decision?

[Machjo]

I wonder if some of it has to do with pride.

For example, they make an arrest and a charge, and then scramble to find evidence and there is none. They lose, and they take it personally somehow. In other words, based on prejudice or other reasons, they insist the person must be guilty in spite of all the evidence, they can't take a loss, and so appeal just for the halibut even though they know they'll lose again.

[Machjo]

One thing I did hear is that apparently they fear that rulings against them set a bad precedent and can undermine the credibility of the police, CBSA, etc. in the eyes of the judge since the next time, if they've lost many cases in the past, there is the risk of a judge thinking oh boy, here we go again, another case with no evidence, even though this time around there may be. In other words, the judge develops a certain prejudice against the police.

I don't deny that can hapen, but then again, that's why we abvoid frivolous charges and vindictive appeals. Yes, the judge can develop a prejudice against the police or CBSA and so justquestion their competence. Again, don't bring stupid charges and appeals forward, and judges won't develop such prejudices.

In one case, a CBSA officer interviewed a suspect. I'd read the original handwritten interview notes in extremely broken English. The officer had asked a series of questions and then recorded that the suspect did not know the answers. Based on that, she laid the charge. At the bond hearing, the accused proved in the simplest way posible that she knew the answer to the questions by answering them.

Now I'm no lawyer so I don't know if it was possible for the CBSA to just drop the charge by then or if there is some legal Rubicon I don't know of that the CBSA had crossed essentially committing them to fight a losing fight.

If there is such a legal Rubicon, maybe change the law so that when things like that happen, they have to power to dismiss it then and there.

[Argus]

Yes, our juries are not made of professionals in the science of evidence gathering. Do you suggest that we try people based on their knowledge of television shows? I bet if you asked the common man on the street questions about chain of custody, they would fail miserably.

It isn't necessary to go into minute details about unimportant technical elements.

[square]

We should start by legalizing marijuana, duh.

[cybercoma]

Oh. We're doing this again today, are we?

[Argus]

Canada's courts face fewer cases to try, but takes longer to try them. I noted some time back the comparison between the riots in London England and Vancouver. They happened in 2011. Most of those arrested in the UK were tried and sentenced within a matter of weeks. It took over a year to even begin to lay charges in BC, and more than two years before trials/sentencing was complete. Why is our system so slow and clunky?

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/national/christie+blatchford+canada+fewer+fewer+crimes+wheels+justice/12229969/story.html

[cybercoma]

Pretty strange that Blatchford never once mentions the fact that the amount of evidence that is gathered and analyzed these days is way more than it was in the past. Lawyers have gone from bringing evidence binders to court to bringing bankers boxes full of evidence. What you're criticizing is essentially the courts being more thorough. Which thanks to things like mandatory minimums, they need to be. http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadas-courts-are-choking-on-an-increase-in-evidence

Edited October 3, 2016 by cybercoma