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Criminal Procedure

The Peter A. Allard School of Law

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Articles 1 - 8 of 8

Full-Text Articles in Law

Instrumentalizing The Expressive: Transplanting Sentencing Circles Into The Canadian Criminal Trial, Toby S. Goldbach Jan 2015

Instrumentalizing The Expressive: Transplanting Sentencing Circles Into The Canadian Criminal Trial, Toby S. Goldbach

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This Article examines reforms to criminal sentencing procedures in Canada, focusing on Aboriginal healing circles, which were incorporated as “sentencing circles” into the criminal trial. Using the lens of comparative law and legal transplants, this Article recounts the period of sentencing reform in Canada in the 1990s, when scholars, practitioners, and activists inquired into Aboriginal confrontation with the criminal justice system by comparing Euro-Canadian and Aboriginal justice values and principles. As a way to bridge the gap between vastly differing worldviews and approaches to justice, judges and Aboriginal justice advocates transplanted sentencing circles into the sentencing phase of the criminal …

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Juries, Lay Judges, And Trials, Toby S. Goldbach, Valerie P. Hans Jan 2014

Juries, Lay Judges, And Trials, Toby S. Goldbach, Valerie P. Hans

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“Juries, Lay Judges, and Trials” describes the widespread practice of including ordinary citizens as legal decision makers in the criminal trial. In some countries, lay persons serve as jurors and determine the guilt and occasionally the punishment of the accused. In others, citizens decide cases together with professional judges in mixed decision-making bodies. What is more, a number of countries have introduced or reintroduced systems employing juries or lay judges, often as part of comprehensive reform in emerging democracies. Becoming familiar with the job of the juror or lay citizen in a criminal trial is thus essential for understanding contemporary …

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The Movement Of U.S. Criminal And Administrative Law: Processes Of Transplanting And Translating, Toby S. Goldbach, Benjamin Brake, Peter J. Katzenstein Jan 2013

The Movement Of U.S. Criminal And Administrative Law: Processes Of Transplanting And Translating, Toby S. Goldbach, Benjamin Brake, Peter J. Katzenstein

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This article examines the transplanting and translating of law in the domains of criminal procedure and administrative law. The transnational movement of law is full of unexpected twists and turns that belie the notion of the United States as a legal behemoth. Furthermore, the movement of legal procedures which occurs both within and across countries with common and civil law legal traditions challenges preconceived notions of an orderly divide between legal families. While the spread of elements of the U.S. jury system and methods of plea bargaining reveals the powerful influence of U.S. legal ideas, the ways that these procedures …

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Untold Stories Or Miraculous Mirrors? The Possibilities Of A Text-Based Understanding Of Socio-Legal Transcript Research, Emma Cunliffe Jan 2013

Untold Stories Or Miraculous Mirrors? The Possibilities Of A Text-Based Understanding Of Socio-Legal Transcript Research, Emma Cunliffe

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Austin Sarat has described legal understandings of the transcript as “the verbatim record of a present soon to become past, a mirror/a record/a voice machine in which the “author” exercises no authorial presence.” In this paper I argue that when seeing a transcript as an authorless mirror of court proceedings, lawyers and socio-legal scholars risk overlooking the ways in which the technology of transcripts influences the record that is produced. Paying attention to the laws and practices governing transcript production allows those who engage in transcript research to appreciate how the transcript is defined in relation to the spoken proceedings …

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Admissibility Compared: The Reception Of Incriminating Expert Evidence (I.E., Forensic Science) In Four Adversarial Jurisdictions, Gary Edmond, Emma Cunliffe, Simon A. Cole, Andrew J. Roberts Jan 2013

Admissibility Compared: The Reception Of Incriminating Expert Evidence (I.E., Forensic Science) In Four Adversarial Jurisdictions, Gary Edmond, Emma Cunliffe, Simon A. Cole, Andrew J. Roberts

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There is an epistemic crisis in many areas of forensic science. This crisis emerged largely in response both to the mobilization of a range of academic commentators and critics and the rise and influence of DNA typing. It gained popular and authoritative support through the influence of the National Academy of Science (NAS) and a surprisingly critical report produced under its auspices by a committee of the National Research Council (NRC). Interestingly, as this article endeavors to explain, the courts themselves seem to have played a rather indirect, inconsistent and ultimately ineffective role in the supervision and evaluation of forensic …

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Sentencing Circles, Clashing Worldviews, And The Case Of Christopher Pauchay, Toby S. Goldbach Jan 2011

Sentencing Circles, Clashing Worldviews, And The Case Of Christopher Pauchay, Toby S. Goldbach

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The case of Christopher Pauchay demonstrates some of the differences between predominant Euro-Canadian and First Nations approaches to dispute resolution. The principles of sentencing circles sometimes overlap with the principles of restorative justice and suggest their potential incorporation into the criminal justice system. The use of alternative processes that share some common values is not enough to overcome to chasm between Euro-Western and Aboriginal justice. Where underlying worldviews diff er, those who can choose between competing values amidst limited possibilities will likely choose the values that refl ect the conventional system. A comparison of Euro-Western and Aboriginal approaches to crime …

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Writing The Circle: Judicially Convened Sentencing Circles And The Textual Organization Of Criminal Justice, Emma Cunliffe, Angela Cameron Jan 2007

Writing The Circle: Judicially Convened Sentencing Circles And The Textual Organization Of Criminal Justice, Emma Cunliffe, Angela Cameron

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Trial court judges who work in remote Northern Canadian Aboriginal communities use judicially convened sentencing circles to gather information and develop sentencing recommendations in some intimate violence cases. Proponents claim that judicially convened sentencing circles are a restorative justice practice that heals the offender, his community, and the survivor of the violence. Proponents also look to sentencing circles as a tool to find a just outcome that minimizes Aboriginal men's incarceration. We use a methodology developed by feminist sociologist Dorothy Smith to consider whether the institutional priorities being established and approved by courts in sentencing circle cases provide adequate protection …

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Why Do We Punish?: The Case For Retributive Justice, Joseph Weiler Jan 1978

Why Do We Punish?: The Case For Retributive Justice, Joseph Weiler

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The never-ending debate about the substantive and procedural rules in our criminal justice system rarely addresses itself to the most fundamental question- why do we punish at all? The answer to this threshold question has traditionally taken one of two lines, retributionist or utilitarian. On the one hand, there is the view that punishment of the morally derelict is its own justification for it is right for the wicked to be punished. This imperative flows from a view of the very nature of man as a responsible moral agent to whom rewards or punishment should be assessed according to the …

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