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Full-Text Articles in Law

Committing To Justice: The Case For Impact Of Race And Culture Assessments In Sentencing African Canadian Offenders, Maria C. Dugas Jan 2020

Committing To Justice: The Case For Impact Of Race And Culture Assessments In Sentencing African Canadian Offenders, Maria C. Dugas

Dalhousie Law Journal

Canadian judges have made notable, although too limited, strides to recognize the unique conditions of Black Canadians in sentencing processes and decisionmaking. The use of Impact of Race and Culture Assessments in sentencing people of African descent has gradually gained popularity since they were first introduced in R v “X.” These reports provide the court with the necessary information about the effect of systemic anti-Black racism on people of African descent and how the experience of racism has informed the circumstances of the offence, the offender, and how it might inform the offender’s experience of the carceral state. This paper …


Creative Sentencing, Restorative Justice And Environmental Law: Responding To The Terra Nova Fpso Oil Spill, Cecily Y. Strickland, Scott Miller Oct 2007

Creative Sentencing, Restorative Justice And Environmental Law: Responding To The Terra Nova Fpso Oil Spill, Cecily Y. Strickland, Scott Miller

Dalhousie Law Journal

On 20 November 2004 the Terra Nova FPSO inadvertently discharged 165n3 of oily water into the surrounding waters of the Newfoundland and Labrador offshore area. Petro-Canada was charged with having caused a spill and thereby committing an offence pursuant to the Canada-Newfoundland Atlantic Accord Implementation Act. This was the first charge of its type arising from offshore oil and gas operations on the east coast of Canada. The authors provide a factual overview of the incident and identify some resultant legal issues, including the application of creative sentencing and the use of probation orders.


Proportionality As A Guiding Principle In Young Offender Dispositions, Paul Riley Oct 1994

Proportionality As A Guiding Principle In Young Offender Dispositions, Paul Riley

Dalhousie Law Journal

Sentencing is traditionally regarded as one of the most difficult and challenging functions of the criminal justice system. In arriving at the appropriate sanction to be imposed upon an offender, a court must reconcile the principles and objectives of the criminal law with the criminal act committed, the circumstances surrounding its commission, and the character of the offender who committed it. The court must, with the guidance of a few abstract, broadly philosophical, and often contradictory principles of sentencing, decide upon a sanction which is appropriate in the very concrete and factually specific case within which it is presented. This …


Sentencing Intimate Femicide: A Comment On R. V. Doyle, Teresa Scassa Apr 1993

Sentencing Intimate Femicide: A Comment On R. V. Doyle, Teresa Scassa

Dalhousie Law Journal

In August of 1989, Donald Michael Doyle murdered his wife of fifteen years by firing three shots into her chest while she slept. He was charged with first degree murder, and pleaded guilty to second degree murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without eligibility for parole until after the statutory minimum of ten years. The Crown appealed the sentencing decision of the trial judge, and argued for a greater period of parole ineligibility. The Nova Scotia Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and raised the period of imprisonment without parole to seventeen years. The differences between the sentencing decisions …