DDSG Criminal Law remains open and fully operational during the current crisis – including 24/7 emergency bail and arrest services. While the Alberta criminal courts have suspended normal operations until at least June 1, 2020, several essential hearings continue to proceed during this emergency period. In-custody trial and sentencings, select out of custody trials, bail … Read More.
Identity theft involves obtaining or possessing another person’s identity documents with the intention to use them for a false, deceitful, or fraudulent purposes. These purposes could range from forgery to theft to identity fraud, and could severely impact a credit rating, reputation, or leading to the loss of thousands of dollars. The damage could take … Read More.
The Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) was introduced in 2003 to replace the Young Offenders Act. The primary reason for updating the legislation was to reduce the number of incarcerated youth, a punishment that could have a lasting detrimental impact on an individual. YCJA addresses criminal behaviour while understanding that youth can lack maturity and … Read More.
Consent is an important concept in cases of assault, especially cases of sexual assault – an intentional application of force of a sexual nature without consent. The application of force and the sexual nature are typically not an issue as this could be almost any form of physical sexual contact. Whether the sexual acts were … Read More.
Proactive patrol is a commonly used policing tactic where officers patrol an area looking for suspicious activity. While on proactive patrol officers will often use the very broad authority granted to them under the Traffic Safety Act (TSA) to stop vehicles for minor traffic, or vehicle equipment, violations to then attempt to discover evidence of … Read More.
Being charged with a criminal offence is a stressful experience for anyone. Feelings of guilt or anger (when falsely accused) combined with the disruption to your life and the potential for a criminal conviction and incarceration create a situation most of us are not accustomed to. Hiring a lawyer to help navigate the criminal justice … Read More.
The appeal process in Canada exists to allow a trial decision to be reviewed by a higher-level court and ensure the decision was legally correct and prevent injustices. An appeal needs to be based on interpretations of the law, or overriding errors in judgment, where the decision could not have been supported by the evidence … Read More.
A criminal record can be detrimental to finding and keeping employment in the modern economy. A pardon – also referred to as a record suspension – can be requested to remove criminal convictions from someone’s record. Canadians can apply for a pardon from the Parole Board of Canada after a certain amount of time following … Read More.
On December 18, 2018 dramatic changes to impaired driving laws came into force. Here are some of the more major changes: The legal limit will be reduced to 80 mg of alcohol/100 ml of blood or higher instead of “greater than 80 mg”. Readings which previously would result in a warning (80 mg to 89 … Read More.
On April 9, 2018 the new Alberta Administrative License Suspension law came into effect. This affects people who the police suspect have committed an impaired driving-related offence (such as impaired driving, driving with a blood alcohol content over 0.08, or refusing to provide a sample to a police officer). What prompted this change to the … Read More.