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Criminal Law Commons

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Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Criminal Law

Equality And The Defence Of Provocation: Irreconcilable Differences, Isabel Grant, Debra Parkes Oct 2017

Equality And The Defence Of Provocation: Irreconcilable Differences, Isabel Grant, Debra Parkes

Dalhousie Law Journal

Recent amendments to the defence of provocation have limited access to the defence to those who are provoked by conduct that, if prosecuted, would have been an indictable offence punishable by at least five years imprisonment. The paper argues that these amendments are both over- and under-inclusive and fail to confront the central problem surrounding provocation which is that it privileges loss-of-control rage often in the context of male violence against women or in response to same-sex advances. The paper supports the abolition of the defence of provocation but only if mandatory minimum sentences for murder are abolished providing trial …


Employing Older Prisoner Empirical Data To Test A Novel S. 7 Charter Claim, Adelina Iftene Oct 2017

Employing Older Prisoner Empirical Data To Test A Novel S. 7 Charter Claim, Adelina Iftene

Dalhousie Law Journal

This article builds the case for expanding s. 7 of the Charter of Canadian Rights and Freedoms to apply to prison regulations and decisions in the specific context of an aging prison population. As original empirical data shows, prisons are highly insensitive to age-related problems, and inappropriate or insufficient medical treatment receives official sanction from a wide range of correctional documents. The stark inadequacies of the current system endanger older prisoners' security of the person, and sometimes their lives, in ways that violate their rights under s. 7, since the deprivations they suffer result from legislative policies and state conduct …


Hit Them Where It Hurts: State Responses To Biker Gangs In Canada, Graema Melcher Oct 2017

Hit Them Where It Hurts: State Responses To Biker Gangs In Canada, Graema Melcher

Dalhousie Law Journal

From civil and criminal forfeiture, to "gangsterism"offences in the Criminal Code, Canada does not lack for tools to address biker gangs. Yet attempts to stamp out bikers have met with little to no success. State responses to criminal organizations should use those organizations' own structures and symbols of power against them. A gang's reputation may be effectively used against a gang, but this strategy poses significant challenges to prosecution. Attempts to use a gang's internal hierarchy and administrative structure can succeed, but may only produce circumstantial findings if not supported by sufficient and substantial evidence. Attempts to combat gang violence …


The Intellectually Disabled Witness And The Requirement To Promise To Tell The Truth, Jonas-Sébastien Beaudry Apr 2017

The Intellectually Disabled Witness And The Requirement To Promise To Tell The Truth, Jonas-Sébastien Beaudry

Dalhousie Law Journal

Mentally disabled victims of sexual crimes may be prevented from acting as witnesses in a criminal trial if their mental capacity is challenged. They face an important obstacle to access justice if the case against their alleged aggressor mostly relies on their testimony In R. v. D.A.I., in 2012, the Supreme Court of Canada revisited the Canada Evidence Act's requirement of promising to tell the truth and lowered the previously ambiguous threshold of cognitive capacities required to satisfy this requirement. The Evidence Act has been amended in 2015 to reflect the Court's decision. While apparently facilitating people with mental disabilities' …