From Crime to Punishment: An Introduction to the Criminal Law System

One of Canada’s perennial and most popular subjects of contention is the functioning of our criminal justice system. To use the old expression, there is a perception across the land that people are getting away with murder, that the courts and the criminal law are working against the interests of society, that the victims of crime are being re-victimized in the process. This book explains how our criminal law works in practice. It takes the Criminal Code off the page and into the police station after the person is arrested, into the court where the accused is arraigned, into the jury room to understand how a verdict is rendered. Besides looking at the rules of evidence, the impact of technology on forensics, and the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, From Crime to Punishment deals with search and seizure, proceeds of crime and money laundering, the Charter, solicitor/client privilege, bans on publication and media restrictions, dangerous offenders, eyewitness testimony, and how judges decide on the credibility of witnesses. A very accomplished criminal lawyer in Ottawa, quoted recently in the Toronto Star , feels that the cash-strapped media have taken the easy way and are too focused on sensational coverage, which has led to a poor public understanding of the justice system, which has encouraged our governments to use it “as a political football.” This book looks unsparingly at the adversarial system, the judges, the prosecutors and the defenders, to help the reader appreciate the real world of law and order in Canada.