Toronto Criminal Lawyers Blog

Facing criminal charges can be intimidating and stressful. One of the first obligations the court puts on an individual accused of a crime is to “retain counsel”. In other words, the court hopes that you will find a lawyer as soon as possible to help you with your case. We strongly encourage you avoid representing yourself (see our blog on “The Self-Representing Accused” for more information on the dangers of representing yourself at trial). However, we understand that choosing a lawyer can often seem like a daunting task. There are so many lawyers to choose from and there are so many factors to consider. Here is some advice on how to sort through all the information to choose the ideal lawyer for you.

The first thing to keep in mind is that if you are facing criminal charges you should be looking for a criminal defence lawyer. You may already have a lawyer who looks after your business, taxes, will or other matters. However, finding a lawyer is not like finding a family doctor — one lawyer cannot deal with all your legal problems. The type of lawyer you select should correspond to the problem you are facing. Though there are some lawyers who do not specialize in criminal law who will take criminal law cases, most lawyers only practice in one area of law. When you begin searching for a lawyer to represent you in your criminal charges, you can make your search much easier by limiting it to criminal defence lawyers from the outset. Moreover, it is in your best interest to select a lawyer whose focus is criminal law. Criminal charges can jeopardize your livelihood and liberty, so you want to make sure that the individual who represents you is an expert in criminal matters.

Once you have limited your search to criminal defence lawyers, you will notice that there are a lot of factors which differentiate between individual practitioners of criminal law. People wading through all the information on the different lawyers out there often choose to focus on factors such as age, what law school the lawyer attended, and what firm the lawyer works with. These factors are largely irrelevant. Some young lawyers have excellent success rates — far outshining older lawyers. Some of the best lawyers choose not to work in large firms and prefer to work as sole practitioners for lifestyle reasons that have nothing to do with their legal competence. Finally, excellent criminal defence lawyers, judges and legal scholars have graduated from every Canadian law school. At the end of the day, the most relevant factors when it comes to choosing a criminal defence lawyer are cost, personality and experience.

Your budget will be a major determinant of what lawyer you retain. However, this is not necessarily a bad thing. It is simply not the case that all the good lawyers are incredibly expensive. Moreover, some of the best lawyers in and around Toronto do a great deal of Legal Aid case work. If you do require Legal Aid, you should inquire at the Legal Aid Office closest to you about obtaining a list of lawyers in your area who take Legal Aid cases.

If you do not require Legal Aid, you must decide how much you are willing to pay for a lawyer. Remember that in some cases, a good criminal defence lawyer may be the most important investment you make in your life, as your criminal defence lawyer is the most significant person standing between you and a criminal record, large fine, conditional sentence and/or, most importantly, jail time. With that in mind, make a generous but realistic determination of what you can afford. Try asking yourself two questions: (1) “how much do I want to pay for a lawyer?” and (2) (depending on the type of charges you are facing) “how much can I pay to avoid going to jail?” or “how much can I pay to avoid having a criminal record?” or “how much can I pay to avoid these charges interfering with my ability to see my children on a regular basis?”. You should aim to find a criminal defence lawyer who charges somewhere between the answer to question (1) and the answer to question (2). Most lawyers will want to meet with you before they give you an estimate of how much your matter will cost. This is because they often have to hear the full story before they can estimate how much time and effort your matter will require. This method is in your best interest as well since the best way to learn important information about a potential criminal defence lawyer, most notably their personality, is to meet with the lawyer in person.

Personality is an important factor to consider when choosing a lawyer. You want someone who you feel comfortable with, as you will have to communicate with your lawyer consistently throughout the trial process. You also want someone who strikes you as being competent and trustworthy. Remember that this lawyer is going to be representing you in court, so if he or she doesn’t make a good first impression when you meet, he or she probably will not make a good first impression on a judge either. Other factors to look for are common sense (as your lawyer will be helping you make important life decisions) and discretion (as you will have to trust your lawyer with some of your most private personal information).

Finally, it is important to look to experience when choosing a criminal defence lawyer. By experience we do not necessarily mean age or even the total number of years the lawyer has been practicing. Rather, we mean the lawyer’s experience dealing with cases similar to your own. A lawyer who has been practicing for five years, but has accepted a high volume of weapons-related cases is far more useful to an individual facing a weapons charge than an individual practicing twenty years but taking mostly impaired driving cases. The lawyers at our offices, for example, specialize in drug-related charges, weapons-related charges, domestic assault charges, drinking and driving charges, theft charges and fraud charges. We also represent a lot of young offenders. If you have outstanding charges in any of these areas, or other similar areas, we invite you to contact our offices by calling 416-658-1818 to arrange a meeting with one of our lawyers.

The Supreme Court of Canada made headlines earlier this year when they released their decision in R. v. Patrick (“Patrick”) which confirmed, for the first time ever, that the police can legally search a suspect’s garbage without a warrant.

Section 8 of the Charter guarantees that every Canadian is free from unreasonable search or seizure. This means that a government agency cannot search an individual’s personal property unless that search is “reasonable”. In most circumstances, before the police search an individual’s property (their home, car, office, or person) they will obtain a warrant. A warrant is like a permission slip that authorizes the search of a place or thing. Without a warrant, it is generally against Canadian law for the police to search any individual’s person (unless incidental to arrest) or property.

However, in Patrick, the Supreme Court of Canada (“SCC”) ruled that the police may legally search an individual’s garbage without a warrant if source of the garbage puts it out to await collection.

The Calgary Police Department suspected Mr. Patrick of producing the drug ecstasy in his home; however, they did not have enough evidence to secure a warrant to search Mr. Patrick’s property. Instead, the police rifled through his garbage on several occasions until they discovered enough incriminating pieces of evidence to obtain a search warrant. They then forcibly entered Mr. Patrick’s home where they found evidence of an ecstasy lab and over 2,500 pills of ecstasy.

At trial, Patrick argued that his constitutional right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure had been violated by the warrantless search of his garbage. The SCC unanimously agreed that his rights had not been violated. The majority stated that when Mr. Patrick placed his garbage by the curb to await collection he had effectively abandoned all reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of his garbage.

There are several problems with the decision in Patrick.

The first is that the garbage awaiting collection was still situated on Mr. Patrick’s property. Ostensibly, Mr. Patrick has control over who enters and exits his private property. While garbage collectors may have Mr. Patrick’s implicit permission to reach over the property line and collect the garbage he had put out for them, it is safe to say that Mr. Patrick could not reasonably have expected police officers to trespass on his property to obtain the garbage. On the contrary, it seems much more reasonable for Mr. Patrick to assume that police officers would respect the law and refrain from trespassing on private property. In fact, in Calgary, where Mr. Patrick lived, it was against municipal by-laws to scavenge through another individual’s trash. However, the SCC were not convinced that this by-law was sufficient to create a reasonable expectation on the part of a home-owner that the police would not rifle through their garbage — or in other words, the fact that there was a by-law in place does not translate into a reasonable belief that the police would respect that by-law.

Most individuals would be shocked to think that nosy neighbors, reporters, private investigators, ex-spouses, and any other member of the public may legally rifle through an individual’s trash as it awaits collection. However, according to the SCC in Patrick garbage awaiting collection at the curb has been abandoned and an individual has no privacy interest in it. This means that any member of the public would be within their rights to snoop through your garbage. Most Canadians would likely be shocked to know that current Canadian law allows this type of behaviour. Though the average Canadian does not object to their trash being collected by garbage collectors or rifled through by bottle-collectors and the like, these activities are less objectionable because they tend to preserve the home-owner’s anonymity. It seems counterintuitive that police officers and private individuals can legally cross the property line to seize trash from an individual’s property in order obtain information about their private and personal habits against a homeowner’s wishes and without a warrant.
Another major problem with the SCC’s decision in Patrick is that it seems to directly contradict their earlier decision in Stillman. In Stillman, Mr. Stillman was accused of murdering a young girl and brought into RCMP headquarters for questioning. Mr. Stillman was seventeen years old and his lawyer provided the RCMP with a fax instructing them that Stillman was not, under any circumstances, to provide any bodily samples to the police. Nonetheless, the RCMP took several samples from him including bodily fluid samples taken from discarded Kleenex he threw out in the bathroom. On the abandonment argument, the SCC concluded that while in custody, providing bodily samples was “simply the inevitable consequence of the normal functioning of the human body”. They conclude that a person in custody cannot reasonably be said to have abandoned the bodily sample because the accused person has no choice other than to discard the samples in proximity of the police. It would be virtually impossible for an accused person in custody to “destroy every tissue he used, to hide every spoon he ate from, to keep cigarette butts, chewed gum or any other potentially incriminating evidence on his person at all times in order to prevent the police from ‘retrieving’ this ‘potentially useful waste’”. Thus, the SCC concluded that Mr. Stillman retained a privacy interest in his bodily samples even after the Kleenex was thrown out.
On that logic, individuals should retain a privacy interest in the biographical information contained in their garbage after the garbage itself is discarded. As was the case with Mr. Stillman, it would be virtually impossible for an individual out of custody to retain control over all trash to keep from providing possibly incriminating evidence to the police. Individuals living in the city of Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area are prohibited by law from burning their garbage. In Calgary (where Mr. Patrick lived), Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area, it is illegal to dispose of household garbage in any way other than by surrendering it to municipal trash collection. It seems that out-of-custody suspects are as powerless as in-custody suspects when it comes to trying to dispose of garbage in a private manner. According to the principle in Stillman, individuals who put garbage outside for collection should retain some sort of privacy interest in their garbage. However, Patrick tells us that this is not the case.
The major concern for both criminal defence lawyers and the general public post-Patrick is that police officers will be able to search through garbage as it awaits collection in order to obtain DNA, fingerprints, and other biographical information. The SCC in Patrick recognized the vast amount of personal information contained in an individual’s garbage. They acknowledge that “[r]esidential waste includes an enormous amount of personal information about what is going on in our homes, including a lot of DNA on household tissues, highly personal records (e.g., love letters, overdue bills and tax returns) and hidden vices (pill bottles, syringes, sexual paraphernalia, etc.)…a garbage bag may more accurately be described as a bag of “information”, and its contents, viewed in their entirety, paint a fairly accurate and complete picture of the householder’s activities and lifestyle”. Yet, despite this observation, the SCC rejected the view that household garbage should be considered private until it becomes anonymous, saying it was “too extravagant to contemplate” that an individual should have a privacy interest in their garbage until “the last unpaid bill rots into dust”.
Is it really so far-fetched to suggest that an individual has a privacy interest in their garbage until it becomes anonymous? One of the reasons we throw things out is to have them mixed with other refuse until they become so mixed they can no longer reasonably be connected back to us. Many people go so far as to shred important documents before disposing of them so as to hasten the intermixing process and achieve anonymity. It seems that individuals at least believe that they have a privacy interest in their garbage as it awaits pick-up since this is one of the few occasions where the garbage can properly be identified as belonging to them.
The best course of action for those who are concerned about the decision in Patrick is to store garbage in a locked receptacle, far within the property line until pick-up to clearly indicate your intention to keep the contents of your garbage private. In Patrick the majority notes that “until the garbage is placed at or within reach of the lot line, the householder retains an element of control over its disposition and cannot be said to have unequivocally abandoned it, particularly if it is placed on a porch or in a garage or within the immediate vicinity of the dwelling”. Keep your garbage close to your home and only put it out at the time of collection and you may retain some form of privacy interest in any personal information contained therein.

In our experience as criminal defence lawyers, domestic assault charges are very common in Toronto courts. Individuals accused of domestic assault are often deprived of the support system usually provided by family either because of family discord or by the strict bail conditions routinely applied to those accused of domestic violence. Though these conditions are sometimes necessary to protect victims of domestic violence from retaliation by abusive partners, in other cases it is an unfortunate burden that an accused person must be separated from children, home and spouse as they await trial. Moreover, those facing these charges often find that the Toronto court system is very hard on those accused of domestic crimes. In the Toronto court system, the Crown has a zero tolerance policy when it comes to dealing with domestic assault charges. The trial process is further complicated by the special process the Toronto courts use to hear domestic matters. As criminal defence lawyers, we see first hand every day how complicated and discouraging this process can be for the thousands of men and women in the greater Toronto area accused of domestic violence each year.

What is Domestic Assault?

Domestic assault charges refer to charges which arise within the context of a domestic relationship. In other words, when an incident occurs between two or more individuals who are deemed by the Crown to be in a domestic relationship the resulting charges are labeled as domestic. A domestic relationship can be a relationship between a wife and husband (including commonlaw and same-sex partners), a girlfriend and boyfriend, children and parents (including step-children and adopted children), children and grandparents, or any other individuals who are related to one another.

Special Court Procedures

The Toronto court system segregates domestic matters from other types of charges. Domestic matters are all heard together on specific days at those courthouses which hear domestic cases. A court which hears domestic matters is referred to simply as “domestic court”. Courthouses which hold domestic court are listed below along with the dates, times, and courtrooms it takes place in:

• ¥ Old City Hall: Domestic Court every Monday and Wednesday at 2 PM in courtroom 114.
• ¥ College Park: Domestic Court every Friday at 10 AM and 2 PM in courtroom 505.
• ¥ 1000 Finch: Domestic Court every Monday and Wednesday at 9 AM in courtroom 301.
• ¥ 2201 Finch: Domestic Court every Mondays and Wednesday at 2 PM in courtroom 202
• ¥ Newmarket: Domestic Court every Tuesday at 9:30 AM in courtroom 102

The Crown Attorney in domestic court is often selected because he or she has a special interest in combating domestic violence. This usually means that he or she is an expert in this type of charge. It is highly recommended that an individual accused of a domestic crime retain criminal defence counsel as soon as possible to ensure that his or her rights are adequately represented in domestic court.

Special Programs

In many cases, the entire family is suffering because of the domestic charges. Often, it is everyone’s desire to put the charge behind them to restore the family unit. Because of the zero tolerance policy Toronto has adopted when it comes to domestic crimes, the complainant has no power or control over the proceedings once they have involved the police. For example, the complainant does not have any control over whether to press charges nor does he or she have the ability to stop the proceedings against the accused. Once the police are called the Crown and police will almost certainly press charges. The rationale for this attitude is to protect victims of domestic violence who attempt to withdraw charges out of fear for their own safety or the safety of their children. Unfortunately, in many cases these rules are detrimental to individuals who are forced into an artificial and prolonged separation due to an erroneous or minor charge of domestic violence.

In those situations involving minor charges such as an assault (not including an assault with a weapon, aggravated assault, or an assault which resulted in injury) where the accused has no criminal record, the Crown will often make an offer to the accused which would modify the accused’s bail to allow them to reunite with the complainant. In exchange the accused must plead guilty to the offence and undertake to attend a special counseling program. There are two such programs: PARS (Partner Assault Response Systems) and EIP (Early Intervention Program). These counseling programs typically run one hour a week for sixteen weeks. The program focuses on the nature of the domestic relationship and specific strategies for anger management in the context of a domestic relationship. At the end of the sixteen weeks, the program leader will prepare a report on the accused’s progress through the program. If the report is favourable, the Crown will likely agree to a request for a Conditional Discharge. A Conditional Discharge is a finding of guilt; however, it is not a criminal record. See our blog on Discharges for more information on this result. Though this option may sound appealing because it allows an accused person to reunite with their partner, it is important to remember that this does result in a finding of guilt being made against him or her by the court. We highly recommend that you consult with a lawyer before entering into either of these programs.

An information session on the PARS domestic assault program is held at the 1000 Finch courthouse on Tuesdays at 1 PM in courtroom 303.