This course bridges the divide between law school and a criminal law practice. Students will receive advanced instruction on a variety of topics at the intersection of criminal procedure and evidence. Students will then learn how to apply these legal principles to a trial. Students will receive a “disclosure” or “Crown” package as though they are working through a real trial. Using this material, students will learn how to formulate Notices of Application and Response, how to develop a factual foundation to support or refute a motion, and how best to present the facts on a motion. Class topics will focus on a variety of different motions commonly raised in criminal trials including Charter applications (search and seizure, arbitrary detention, right to counsel motions), applications to lead expert evidence, and similar fact applications.
Course or Seminar Category: Criminal Law
Criminal Procedure
This course will provide students with an overview of the Canadian criminal process, with a special attention given to the limitations imposed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It will begin with an exploration of police investigative powers. The authority of Canadian police to search/seize, question, detain, and arrest will all be considered in detail. The exclusion of unconstitutionally obtained evidence, as well as the availability of other constitutional remedies, will also be addressed. The course will then shift to a consideration of the criminal process after charges are formally brought, including intake procedures, bail, disclosure, plea, plea bargaining, prosecutorial discretion, and the right to a trial within a reasonable time. If time allows, some trial and post-trial issues may be considered, including jury selection, res judicata, and appeals. Throughout, various theoretical perspectives on criminal law and process will be discussed. The course will also seek to introduce key historical connections and important points of comparison between criminal procedure in Canada and the United States, primarily in terms of their constitutional regulation, as well as with the common law of England.
International Criminal Law
Law in the face of political violence and mass atrocity reveals some of the most pressing issues in global politics and international law today. With the Russia/Ukraine war, the Israel/Palestine conflict, the broader destabilization of the Middle East and Donald Trump’s second term as U.S. President, many experts warn that the foundations of the post-World War II system of international law and the liberal ‘rules-based international order’ are not only under attack but are at risk of disintegrating.
Against the backdrop of current events in global politics this course will provide students with an introduction to the main concepts, rules and institutions of the field of International Criminal Law. It will explore the core international crimes of aggression, war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, as well as peripheral or emerging international crimes including terrorism and ecocide. Students will gain a foundational knowledge of the field, including how it is situated in the broader contexts of public international law, international human rights law and Canadian criminal law.
While the core structures of the field are now well-established, the goals of international criminal prosecutions are more elusive. The figure of the international criminal has come to stand in, often at one and the same time, for the human rights violator, the political enemy, and the social, philosophical and theological scapegoat. International criminal law is said to, variously: subject the use of force to the rule of law; punish the worst crimes and deter their future commission; create an accurate historical record of mass atrocity; provide redress and reparation to victims; address threats to international peace and security; facilitate transition from totalitarian regimes to democratic systems; and provide a common vocabulary through which to articulate the legal regulation of acts that ‘shock the conscience of mankind.’ But these objectives do not sit easily together, from either a theoretical or a practical perspective.
We will explore the sometimes-contradictory objectives of the field with a view to equipping students with a critical toolkit with which to assess the effectiveness of strategic and tactical international criminal law interventions in global politics. This conversation will be rooted in both the regulation of present-day violence and the broader history of the field, including the Nuremberg trials and domestic prosecution efforts like the Eichmann trial. We will look at International Criminal Law as a global criminal justice project deployed by specific actors for specific purposes. Students are invited to engage these questions as active political agents, asking whether, and how, this body of law and set of institutions and practices could be deployed to secure substantive policy objectives.
Using case studies and interactive learning, students will be asked to concretely evaluate the stakes of international criminal justice across a variety of jurisdictional contexts, asking how—and for whom—international criminal law might be a good thing or a bad thing. Various theoretical lenses will be deployed throughout, challenging students to evaluate doctrine and case law considering fundamental questions of global jurisdiction, constituency, and legitimacy.
Evidence
This course is an introduction to criminal and civil evidence law in Canada. Among the topics considered in the course are the following: understanding the law of evidence as law’s particular “way of knowing”; the substantive law of evidence, including basic concepts such as relevance and admissibility, exclusionary rules based on unreliability and prejudicial effects, exclusionary rules based on policy rationales, and other aspects of proof; the way that the laws of evidence work in trial practice, as well as the historical, social, political, and legal context in which they operate; the relationship between the laws of evidence and social justice, in particular the impact of the law of evidence on gender issues and Aboriginal justice; ethical issues in the law of evidence; and the effect of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms upon the law of evidence.
Criminal Procedure
This course will provide students with an overview of the Canadian criminal process. It will begin with an exploration of police investigative powers. The authority of Canadian police to detain, search/seize, question and arrest will all be considered in detail. Special attention will be given to the limitations imposed on each of these powers by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The course will then shift to a consideration of the criminal process after charges are formally brought, including intake procedures, bail, disclosure (the effects of non-disclosure and/or lost evidence), election and plea, preliminary inquiries, the right to trial within a reasonable time and plea-bargaining. The course will then focus on the trial, including trial venue, jury selection and trial procedure. This will be followed by an overview of the law of sentencing, and a brief consideration of appeals.