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Articles 1 - 6 of 6
Full-Text Articles in Criminal Procedure
Brennan Lecture Evidence-Based Judicial Discretion: Promoting Public Safety Through State Sentencing Reform, Michael A. Wolff
Brennan Lecture Evidence-Based Judicial Discretion: Promoting Public Safety Through State Sentencing Reform, Michael A. Wolff
All Faculty Scholarship
In this speech delivered for the annual Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. Lecture on State Courts and Social Justice, the Honorable Michael Wolff offers a new way of thinking about sentencing. Instead of attempting to limit judicial discretion and increase incarceration, states should aim to reduce recidivism in order to make our communities safer. Judge Wolff uses the example of Missouri's sentencing reforms to argue that states should adopt evidence-based sentencing, in which the effectiveness of different sentences and treatment programs are regularly evaluated. In pre-sentencing investigative reports, probation officers should attempt to quantify - based on historical data - …
Improving Privacy Protection, But By How Much?, Steve Coughlan
Improving Privacy Protection, But By How Much?, Steve Coughlan
Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press
The discussion of reasonable expectation of privacy in R. v. M. (A.) is extremely useful. In the wake of Tessling, many courts had effectively reduced the protection offered by s. 8 based on two arguments: that what was detected was an emanation in the public domain similar to heat coming from a house, and that what was discovered merely related to informational privacy and was not part of the biographical core of such data. Justice Binnie's decision puts paid the notion that either of these arguments is a trump card. He suggests that generalizing about "emanations" is not a useful …
Reforming Homicide Law To Separate Guilt From Sentence: An International Gloss, Steve Coughlan
Reforming Homicide Law To Separate Guilt From Sentence: An International Gloss, Steve Coughlan
Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press
This article argues that Canadian homicide law is handicapped by trying to combine two contradictory approaches. In general, Canadian criminal law adopts the approach of setting out relatively rigid rules for determining guilt or innocence. That is, the Criminal Code sets out particular offences, and if the elements of an offence can be proven, then failing the presence of any defence (also relatively rigidly defined), any accused will be found guilty. The question of guilt or innocence is not individualized to the circumstances of the offender. On the other hand, sentencing decisions adopt exactly the opposite approach, and are made …
The End Of Constitutional Exemptions, Steve Coughlan
The End Of Constitutional Exemptions, Steve Coughlan
Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press
In R. v. Ferguson (reported ante p. 197) the Supreme Court decided that constitutional exemptions are not available as a remedy when a mandatory minimum sentence is said to violate section 12 of the Charter. This is a well reasoned and sensible decision. As mandatory minimum sentences are the context in which the possibility of the constitutional exemption as a Charter remedy has most frequently arisen, as a practical matter Ferguson largely disposes of the issue. Nonetheless, a further clarification at some point that constitutional exemptions are not available in any context, for other violations of section 12 or of …
Arbitrary Detention: Whither - Or Wither? - Section 9, Steve Coughlan
Arbitrary Detention: Whither - Or Wither? - Section 9, Steve Coughlan
Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press
It is a remarkable fact that more than 25 years after the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms came into effect, we still have no section 9 jurisprudence. It is not that there have been no decisions at all concerning the right not to be arbitrarily detained, of course, but taken in total they do not come anywhere near setting out an analytical framework. This stands in contrast to most other legal rights in the Charter. Section 7 jurisprudence has established the two-step approach to take in assessing claims under that section, including a three-step test for determining whether a …
Drugs And Justice, Erik Luna, Margaret Battin