R. v. Bowie, 2025 ONCA 661 at para 27: Justice Trotter dismisses a bail pending appeal application from a convicted criminal lawyer through the public safety arm of the Oland test. This is rare. coadecisions.ontariocourts.ca/coa/coa/en/i...

R. v. Storey, 2025 ONCA 599 at para. 66: At sentencing, don't conflate NCR with moral blameworthiness. An offender's cognitive challenges can be mitigating even if the challenges don't rise to the NCR level. coadecisions.ontariocourts.ca/coa/coa/en/i...

R. v. Pierre, 2025 ONCA 589 at para 60: The Court overturns a murder conviction entered by their now-colleague. The jury instruction failed to fully explain what the after-the-fact conduct could not do: inform the mens rea generally. coadecisions.ontariocourts.ca/coa/coa/en/i...

R. v. Leclaire, 2025 ONSC 4203 (CanLII): Justice Kathy Jalali refused to impose a mandatory minimum prison sentence. The appeal court (SCJ) basically called this judicial misconduct. canlii.ca/t/kdntc

R. v. D.B., 2025 ONCA 577 at para 19: Failing to meaningfully engage with the collateral consequences of family separation is an error in principle. coadecisions.ontariocourts.ca/coa/coa/en/i...

Great piece. Stop subsidizing families who don’t need it through artificially constrained tuition. Take steps to support students in need. Tuition freeze should not be populist. It does not level the playing field, just destroys our universities. www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/arti...

Heather Mallick does a disservice to the women of the criminal defence bar by implying that their male clients hire them for the optics. I'm proud to have learned from many of the brilliant women who are leading our profession. Their clients hire them because they are excellent lawyers.

"No other court in the country has a rigid policy denying physical access to counsel." www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/arti...

R. v. Griffiths, 2025 ONCA 511, citing in R. v. Lu, 2022 ONSC 1918, at para. 58, per Di Luca J.: A person can be remorseful for having committed an offence while nonetheless exercising their constitutional right to a trial. The two are not incompatible. coadecisions.ontariocourts.ca/coa/coa/en/i...

R. v. Gilmore, 2025 ONCA 517 at para. 47, citing Easterbrook, 2022 ONCJ 647, at paras. 43-44, per @brockbjones.bsky.social: It is an aggravating sentencing factor that an assault was committed on public transit. In this case, it was the TTC subway. coadecisions.ontariocourts.ca/coa/coa/en/i...

R. v. Mariani, 2025 BCSC 1298: the retroactive elimination of "Faint Hope" is unconstitutional. Faint Hope applications are now permissible for anyone convicted of the applicable offences before or after December 2011. Another "Truth in Sentencing" provision is struck down.

R. v. Kinamore, 2025 SCC 19: The Supreme Court attempts to even the ledger on 276/Seaboyer/sexual history evidence. The Crown must bring an application that mirrors s. 276's procedural requirements to introduce this evidence. [1/5] decisions.scc-csc.ca/scc-csc/scc-...

I am pleased to announce that Peck and Company will be accepting articling applications for 2026/2027. Please submit your applications by July 15, 2025. If interested, please direct message me for further application details.

R. v. Attachie, 2025 BCCA 183: the mitigating effect of a guilty plea is enhanced if the Crown's case is weak. "A fragile Crown's case is a fundamentally important circumstance of the pleas, if not the most fundamentally important".

Hurry up and wait. That’s the unofficial motto of Ontario’s criminal courts — and it’s breaking the system. My latest for Canadian Lawyer on inefficiency, inconsistency, and how scheduling a trial can take longer than actually holding one. www.canadianlawyermag.com/news/opinion...

R. v. Singh, 2025 ONCA 460 at para 11: A judge cannot reason that as a matter of logic and common sense, one would expect a sexual abuse victim to demonstrate behaviour consistent with that abuse or change behaviour such as avoiding the perpetrator. coadecisions.ontariocourts.ca/coa/coa/en/i...

To get first access to new issues, be sure to subscribe via our website: crimhighlights.ca.

The Spring 2025 issue of "Criminological Highlights" is out now! In it we highlight studies exploring race and risk assessment, pretrial release, the right to remain silent, and much more. View the issue here: www.crimhighlights.ca/criminologic...

R. v. Anderson, 2025 ONCA 408: This case is going to the SCC on two issues: 1️⃣ fabrication instruction 2️⃣ unreasonable verdict coadecisions.ontariocourts.ca/coa/coa/en/i...

Weinrib on Constitutional Rights, buff.ly/mJ2KQbn - Jacob Weinrib (Queens University) has posted The Impasse of Constitutional Rights on SSRN.

Dan is building a different defence firm, alongside brilliant Lindsay Board, *and* he also does meaningful work for students at his alma mater, @queensulaw.bsky.social. We will celebrate tomorrow in Toronto when he receives an alumni award! @colleenmflood.bsky.social lawandstyle.ca/news/rethink...

We are proud to share the publication of the first article of 56:1 by @adelinaiftene.bsky.social and Allison Hearns! Read the full article in Volume 56, Issue 1 of the OLR! rdo-olr.org/sentencing-v...

Marie Henein receives our honorary doctorate this year @queensulaw.bsky.social and gives a barn burner of a talk to our graduating Queen’s law students - calling on them to fight for justice in these difficult times. So much joy!

Today was a great, great convocation @queensulaw.bsky.social. We honoured Marie Henein for all she has done for the legal system. She honoured us with her always powerful words and fearless way of being. @colleenmflood.bsky.social

Lisa Kelly told me to read this book and I know enough to listen to her. 40 pages in and my thinking is altered. Mandatory one for the legal profession: profs, students, judges alike.

Oh man do I love this page in Harold Johnson’s book on his law school experience (hopefully a bit dated, but there are still some that fit ….)

Writing is like parenting. Mostly self-doubt with flashes of triumph.

Excited to see my wonderful colleague Colin Grey stepping away from the safety of the law school classroom (where mistakes have no consequences) up to the SCC podium for the first time in this one.

Kingston brewpub to celebrate brilliant Paul Quick making SCC submissions today on prisoner access to habeas corpus. I’m so glad we exist in each other’s lives and not just on screens! Also he schooled them on the inadequacies of judicial review / the prisoner grievance system.

Another big prison law case at SCC May 13. Paul Quick of Queen's Prison Clinic on for the John Howard Society @queensulaw.bsky.social Frank Dorsey & Ghassan Salah say habeas corpus should be available to prisoners denied transfer to lower security. Case is about warehousing + access to justice.

R v McGowan-Morris, 2025 ONCA 349: Rights to counsel are not suspended during Cannabis Act searches. Trotter JA distinguishes Orbanski and finds that failure to provide RTC at the outset of a CCA search infringes s. 10(b) of the Charter. Link here: coadecisions.ontariocourts.ca/coa/coa/en/i...

Henceforth I see all of culture only as a source of possible law lecture hooks Jacob is too brilliant, it’s unfair I have to share students with him

Crazy to have out of classroom writing assignments, for starters. Maybe we record content lectures and use in-class time for closed computer drafting and discussion. We can make changes people ….

I don’t know who is funnier here, Proudfoot or Carney …. Both have some great lines. “what it looks like when an economist’s soul leaves his body out of self-preservation….”

Vancouver’s Lapu Lapu festival tragedy underscores the tension between mental health and criminal justice. Accused killer Kai-Ji Adam Lo needed an intervention -- but who was responsible for acting? by @picardonhealth.bsky.social www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/arti... via @theglobeandmail.com

450% on would of, should of, could of

172% tariff on briefs that start PREMISES CONSIDERED

375% TARIFF ON THE USE OF THE WORD IRREGARDLESS

R. v. Lojovic, 2025 ONCA 319 at para 52: It is an error for a sentencing judge to treat a driver's mental illness, bipolar active disorder, as an aggravating factor on the basis that he should've known better than to drive while experiencing an episode. coadecisions.ontariocourts.ca/coa/coa/en/i...

Seeing the harrowing re-emergence of the U.S. Alien Enemies Act, it seems well past time for Canadians to confront our own cruel (legal) history of exile. Challenging Exile, Japanese Canadians & the Wartime Constitution by @ericadams99.bsky.social & Stanger-Ross is an extraordinary, necessary book.

we are back with a new episode!! the crew interviews Tommie Shelby on prison abolitionism, the function of liberal institutions, and the nature of transformative political projects! get it now www.patreon.com/posts/109-sh...

Liss on International Criminal Law and Complementarity, buff.ly/1pskNRk - Ryan Liss (Western University - Faculty of Law) has posted Complementarity and the Normative Structure of International Criminal Law (65 Virginia Journal of International Law 291 (2025)) on SSRN.

I didn’t think this story could get any more tragic. But this report, from the remarkable Kim Bolan, just makes everything more heartbreaking. And I hope it will help to quell the conspiracies, along with the craven political exploitation of this horror. It’s just tragedy piled atop tragedy.

Thank you @dorothywoodend.bsky.social for the stellar review of WILDFIRE in The Tyee! The series premieres on Knowledge Network this Tuesday at 8pm or stream it at www.knowledge.ca/program/wild... thetyee.ca/Culture/2025...

Ahead of election day on Monday, Chris Tenove warns us to be on the lookout for bogus election fraud narratives, and breaks down the risk to trust. Important read. macleans.ca/politics/is-...

Brilliant Chris Tenove on three kinds of election interference narratives on the rise in Canada: which should be debunked and which demand attention

The politics of the #ToxicDrugCrisis. The Liberals are promising to review the effectiveness of supervised consumption sites. The Conservatives have vowed to shut down 'drug dens.' What will happen post-election, by @echaudaily.bsky.social www.cbc.ca/radio/frontb... via @cbcnews.ca #HarmReduction

Spring, South of Longview Illingworth Kerr 1981

Fair point from @robynurback.bsky.social that there are options other than the notwithstanding clause. The law struck down in Bissonnette was a crude one, allowed only 25 year blocks. A more tailored law could be upheld on the logic of the decision. www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/arti...

The one entirely made in Canada kingston mattress shop has seen a 40% boost in sales over two months, lol