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Full-Text Articles in Law
Electronic Evidence In Canada, Robert Currie, Steve Coughlan
Electronic Evidence In Canada, Robert Currie, Steve Coughlan
Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press
This chapter discusses the issues surrounding electronic evidence in Canada. Topics discussed include the best evidence rule, electronic signatures, web-based evidence, and video-tape and security camera evidence. In addition rules around protection of privacy, discovery, and confidentiality are pursued. Finally the chapter also considers the many issues which arise around gathering electronic evidence in the criminal context, including wiretaps, general warrants, and searches of computers and cell phones.
The Evolution Of The Law Of Evidence: Plus Ça Change…?, Robert Currie
The Evolution Of The Law Of Evidence: Plus Ça Change…?, Robert Currie
Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press
Originally prepared as a CLE backgrounder for criminal lawyers, this article provides a brief and occasionally critical account of developments in the law of evidence over the last three or so decades. Particular attention is paid to the Supreme Court of Canada’s introduction and development of the “principled approach.” It is argued that this framework has been most successful where it has coalesced into a more traditional-looking “rules-based” stance, albeit one based in principle, and less so where looser tests of principle have been given freer rein.
The Principled Exception And The Forgotten Criterion, Steve Coughlan
The Principled Exception And The Forgotten Criterion, Steve Coughlan
Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press
The principled exception to the hearsay rule is routinely described as being settled by the "twin criteria" of necessity and reliability. In fact a third criterion is also — or at least ought to be — at play: that admitting the evidence through hearsay would not undermine any other rule of evidence. The Court has made reference to this third criterion in the past, but it has largely been ignored in both Supreme Court and lower court decisions. The recent judgement in Couture depends in a limited way on that question, and so it marks an opportunity to articulate the …
Nothing Plus Nothing Equals... Something? A Proposal For Flir Warrants On Reasonable Suspicion, Steve Coughlan, Marc Gorbet
Nothing Plus Nothing Equals... Something? A Proposal For Flir Warrants On Reasonable Suspicion, Steve Coughlan, Marc Gorbet
Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press
Over a series of decisions, the Court has been backing itself into a corner with its section 8 jurisprudence. Section 8 protects against unreasonable searches. Since the earliest ruling on the section in Hunter v. Southam} searches are prima facie unreasonable if they take place without a warrant. Thus, before conducting a search, police must have a warrant. Before getting a warrant, police must have information about the accused. Obtaining information about the accused probably involves conduct that qualifies as a search. Thus for example in K. v. Kokesch, R. v. Wiley, and R. v. Plant, perimeter searches, conducted in …
A Brave New World Of Criminal Justice: Neil Gerlach's Genetic Imaginary, Steve Coughlan
A Brave New World Of Criminal Justice: Neil Gerlach's Genetic Imaginary, Steve Coughlan
Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press
In this well written and intriguing book, Neil Gerlach asks why the criminal justice system has accepted DNA evidence in much the same way that our Anglo-Saxon predecessors accepted trial by ordeal. Why have we not instead shown the same caution we show polygraph evidence? To be sure, he does not present the issue in those terms, and might shudder at the analogy. Still, the central issue he pursues in the book is the question of how DNA evidence has managed to assume its current aura of infallibility, as evidence which is somehow uniquely objective and "true": how it has …