Saturday, July 31, 2010

Conrad Black: The Birth of a Liberal?

Conrad Black reflects, after two years inside the U.S. penal system:

"In my 28 months as a guest of the US government, I often wondered how my time in that role would end. I never expected that I would have to serve the whole term, though I was, and am, psychologically prepared to do so," he wrote in the piece that discussed his final hours behind bars.

"Now that I have learned more of the fallibility of American justice, which does convict many people, who, like me, would never dream of committing a crime in a thousand years," he wrote.

...Black also spoke of seeing "the failure of the US War on Drugs, with absurd sentences, (including 20 years for marijuana offences, although 42 percent of Americans have used marijuana and it is the greatest cash crop in California)."

A trillion dollars, he noted, have been spent on the effort by US authorities, but the only result has been illegal substances in question being "more available and of better quality than ever, while producing countries such as Colombia and Mexico are in a state of civil war."

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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The Case for Pattern Jury Instructions in Canada

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court of Canada's decision yesterday, upholding the B.C. murder convictions of Robert Pikton, Peter McKnight, adjunct professor in the School of Criminology at Simon Fraser University, addresses the "inevitability" of judicial error in criminal jury charges and explores the case for pattern jury instructions in Canada:

Most American jurisdictions now use pattern instructions, and when they do, they make trial judges' jobs significantly more manageable. Judges often request prosecution and defence counsel to provide them with draft instructions based on the pattern instructions, and even if they don't, if the defence finds errors in the instructions the trial judge has composed, counsel is expected to object at that time, rather than remain silent and then use the errors as a ground of appeal.

...Pattern instructions have also benefited juries in the U.S., since they rarely take more than one hour to deliver (Williams spent four days charging the Pickton jury, and no juror, no matter how smart and attentive, could remember all of the charge). Finally, pattern instructions benefit the justice system as a whole, as only one to three per cent of appeals based on judicial errors are successful in the U.S., compared to Canada's 30-to 50-per-cent success rate.

....While pattern instructions solve some problems, they leave untouched what is perhaps the most serious problem of all: Studies have repeatedly demonstrated that juror understanding of judges' instructions, including pattern instructions, is poor.

See: Why judges' errors are inevitable from the Vancouver Sun. More on Peter McKnight is here.

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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When Courts Are Not Colour-Blind

Via Steve Benen:

"Someone accused of killing a white person in North Carolina is nearly three times as likely to get the death penalty than someone accused of killing a black person, according to a study released Thursday by two researchers who looked at death sentences over a 28-year period."

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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Friday, July 30, 2010

Canadian Bar Association: Keep Mandatory Long-Form Census

The Canadian Bar Association has called upon federal Industry Minister Tony Clement to drop plans to scrap Canada's mandatory long-form census.

CTV reports:

OTTAWA — The group representing Canada's lawyers says changes to the census will make it tougher for people who suffer serious personal injuries to get proper compensation.

In a letter to Industry Minister Tony Clement, the Canadian Bar Association calls for the return of the mandatory long-form census, saying lawyers and judges use the information to help determine how much injured clients should claim in court.

The association says the ditching of the mandatory form will especially hurt women, children, the disabled and others without a regular work history.

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

Update:

Strangely, the CTV link above has been edited, and no longer references the CBA position. The actual CBA press release is here.

GJW

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Solos Offline

Robert Ambrogi discusses the A.B.A.'s 2010 Legal Technology Survey Report, and is surprised by some of the data on the nation's sole practitioners:

The one finding that I would not expect is that almost half of solo lawyers do not have websites. Given how simple it is to put up a website.., and given that a website is about as essential to have as a phone number and e-mail address, I wonder why so many solos are still without a site.

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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Thursday, July 29, 2010

Legal Specialization Watch

Meet Atlanta's botched bris barrister, David J. Llewellyn.

Perhaps he should team up with this guy...

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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Thursday, July 22, 2010

Social Media Ubiquity Update

From New York Times:

Facebook, which surpassed MySpace in 2008 as the largest social-networking site, now has nearly 500 million members, or 22 percent of all Internet users, who spend more than 500 billion minutes a month on the site. Facebook users share more than 25 billion pieces of content each month (including news stories, blog posts and photos), and the average user creates 70 pieces of content a month. There are more than 100 million registered Twitter users, and the Library of Congress recently announced that it will be acquiring — and permanently storing — the entire archive of public Twitter posts since 2006.

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Conrad Black Granted Bail

MSNBC reports:

Jailed former newspaper magnate Conrad Black was granted bail on Monday , weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court kicked his 2007 fraud conviction back to a lower court.
Last month, the Supreme Court weakened the "honest services" law that was central to Black's fraud conviction. The justices left it up to a lower court to decide whether the conviction should be overturned.
Black, who has served more than two years of a 6 1/2-year sentence at a low-security federal prison in Florida, was also convicted of obstruction of justice after jurors saw a video of him carrying boxes of documents out of his offices, loading them into his car and driving off with them. The documents were sought by government investigators.

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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Major Changes Ahead for B.C. Family Law

The Province reports: B.C. proposes sweeping legal changes for separation, divorce, child custody:

Highlights of the government white paper on proposed changes to the Family Relations Act:

• Structure the law so that court is not the only implied starting point.

• Promote a broader range of non-court dispute resolution options.

• Adopt a conflict-prevention approach to family-law disputes.

• Increase the law’s ability to deal with family violence and safety issues.

• Use less adversarial terminology.

Also under consideration are revisions the the B.C. Family Relations Act that will provide common law spouses with the same property entitlements as married spouses, a parenting coordination focus with respect to child residency issues, and mandatory mediation by separating spouses prior to the commencement of court proceedings.

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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Tuesday, July 06, 2010

The Divorce Wall

She allegedly hides his heart medications. He allegedly blows out her Shabbat (sabbath) candles.

The decision of a Brooklyn, New York court: the couple has been ordered to build a wall down the middle of their house.

"This could be called the Divorce Wall," said Rabbi Mendel Gold, Pinchs' brother.


"It could probably even help healthy couples."

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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Sunday, July 04, 2010

TVO's Steve Paiken on G20 Police Action

"It was a sad, bloody day, I'll tell you that much."

From TRNN.com, TVO's Steve Paiken describes events on the ground at last weekend's Toronto G20 summit:

(via Law is Cool)

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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Thursday, July 01, 2010

The Newest Leaf

Former Chicago Black Hawk, Kris Versteeg, acquired by the Toronto Maple Leafs in a five-player trade last night:



- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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