John Widders Case Study

The Canadian court system, like anything made by man, has flaws. One of these flaws is the wrongful conviction of many men and women like David Milgaard and Steven Truscott. These innocent men spent years of their life behind bars because of the court system, serving the sentence for a crime they did not commit.

Canadian Criminals are a major part of Canadian society. In our country if you were not the direct victim of a crime you tend to forget the members of society that take pleasure in causing societies grief. As in the case of James Hutchinson and Richard Ambrose, whose crimes were committed in December of 1974.1 They were convicted of killing two Moncton City Police officers. Today, years after the murders were committed Ambrose and Hutchinson are still the center of a major controversy that has plagued our parole system. In order to fully understand the controversy that Ambrose and Hutchinson posses you must look at the

The Steven Truscott case is one case that Canada will always remember. The day this young, innocent boy was brought in for questioning, his life would never be the same. This injustice started with the disappearance of a 12 year old girl, Lynne Harper. Her body was found 2 days after her disappearance, on

Findlay, M, Odgers, S, & Yeo, S 2014, Australian criminal justice, 5th edn., Oxford University Press, Melbourne, VIC.

22, 2010, when the government banned the double credit, Kevin Page, the former Parliamentary Budget Officer, predicted that the new approach would cost the federal and provincial governments as much as $5-billion a year by 2015-16. The Minister of Justice and Attorney General Nicholson’s statement on Second Reading of Bill C-25, or the Truth in Sentencing Act, criticizes judicial competency in our criminal courts. He uses the phrase, “generous credit for pre-sentence custody” four times, and links it to, “eroding public confidence in the integrity of the justice system.” That means that the judges, collectively, have been eroding public confidence in the justice

Assessment 1 - Analytical essay Restorative Justice Mohammad Shabeer Zia eLA: Angelica Cerizza Word Count: 1436 Restorative justice refers to those practices, which require offenders to acknowledge their wrongdoings, and in turn give back to those affected victims or communities. The main focus of restorative justice is to rehabilitate offenders through reconciliation with victims and the community in other words tries and repair the harm caused as a result of the committed crime (Daly & Immarigeon 1998). Each state government in Australia takes a particular approach to the restorative justice process; whilst some states are more committed others are lacking the same level of commitment. This essay aims to review the restorative

Considering the colonial history and racial discrimination, the pre-sentencing report puts the Aboriginal before the court and not just the behaviours that have brought them before the

One of the fundamental principles of the Criminal Law System is the presumption of innocence until proven guilty (McSherry, 2003). By enacting punitive legislation such as the examples given above, it has been said that it is removing this Common law right from the individual (Greig, 1995). It has also been said that it creates an exception to the general principle of law that no person shall be imprisoned unless a court comprised of Judge/Jury is convinced, beyond reasonable doubt that the person committed a very serious offence. Thereby effectively allowing people to be detained without the burden of proving guilt (Keon-Cohen, 1992).

Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Act 2002 (NSW), and is intended to allow for the exercise of professional judgement, Justice Campbell utilised his discretion to put forth a lessened sentence that would not be “crushing”, as his sentence focused largely on the rehabilitation of Loveridge rather than the level of punishment this is in accordance to section 3A of the Crimes (sentencing procedure) act 1999 (NSW). The questionable "lenient" sentence has been put in place with the expectation that throughout the duration of his sentence Loveridge can ‘pay’ for the results of his offences, and furthermore work towards correcting his conduct, in order to be discharged back into the community. This sentence sparked an enormous outcry from members of Thomas Kelly’s family and friends the public and the legal community, as it does not reflect the morals of society.

Andy Peekeekoot was not born a violent person, but the way he was raised and his experiences as a child influenced the way he acts as an adult, and the court must take that into consideration when trying an Aboriginal person. Nancy Macdonald mentions in her article that because Andy Peekeekoot is named a dangerous offender, he can be kept behind bars indefinitely. His lawyer believes that prison will not do him any good. “None of this, Hrycan says, will do him any good: ‘He’ll never get out. We’ve put someone in jail for the rest of his life for waving a four-inch knife” (Macdonald L76-78).One of the main points of Judge John Reilly’s TED Talk was that if you are not going to lock them up forever, do not lock them up at all. Andy Peekeekoot is now a changed man; he is married, and has not had a charge for violence in 9 years. Unfortunately, due to his dangerous offender designation, he will most likely never leave prison, when all he did was wave a knife. This shows that in the Canadian justice system, Aboriginals are not being treated with dignity, because of the ridiculous and unjustified amount of time they

Identity theft/fraud is becoming a major threat to the Australian community as technology advances. This section of crime produces substantial profits for offenders and causes considerable financial and emotions harm to the victims (Australian federal police, 2014). With this increasing alarm around identity theft/fraud in Australia, there has to be strong legal actions available to counteract the issue. Identity theft/fraud can be defined as a crime of obtaining the personal or financial information of another person for the sole purpose of assuming that person’s name or identity in order to gain benefit (investopedia, 2014). This essay will extensively discuss the current laws/legislations implemented for identity theft/fraud, the key stakeholders involved in the issue and an overview around the effectiveness of the current laws/legislations. After thoroughly analysing the current legislations used to counteract the threat of identity theft/fraud, it will be clear which aspects of the legislations are working efficiently and which aspects are proving inefficient for the Australian government.

R v Andrew Leigh Jones pleaded guilty in the magistrate court to trafficking a controlled drug and well as 12 other offences that was brought up from the magistrate court to be sentenced in accordance to section 18 A. Some of the 12 other offences included 5 counts of failing to comply with bail agreements, 2 counts of driving while disqualified, 1 count of driving a motor vehicle without being authorised, one count of driving an unregistered vehicle, 1 count of driving an uninsured vehicle, 1 count of possessing a prohibited weapon and 1 count of unlawful possession. For trafficking a controlled drug a maximum penalty of 50,000 or imprisonment for 10 years while the other 12 offences accumulative not including drug trafficking

On any given day in Canada, there are more blameless individuals in jail than liable ones. By "blameless individuals" I mean the individuals who have been blamed for a wrongdoing and are being hung on remand, anticipating a safeguard hearing or a trial. “dozens of innocent people might be languishing behind bars. Over the ensuing 30 years, more than 20 convicted murderers have been freed on the basis of serious doubts about the reliability of evidence and trial fairness in their cases.” The revealing of wrongly convicted wrongdoers has been apparently the overwhelming lawful improvement in Canada over the past half-century. In recent years, the issue of wrongful conviction has turned into an acknowledged reality in most common law jurisdiction; Prominent cases tend not just to attract our consideration regarding the deleterious impacts of a wrongful conviction on an individual but also to illustrate how parts of the criminal justice process have fizzled. An across the nation system of attorneys, columnists and legitimate associations have fought resolutely in the courts to get the freedom of offenders who had, in some cases, spent decades incarcerated. Clearly, wrongful conviction is the aspect of being in fact innocent but unfairly held accountable by a jury or other court of law for an act you did not do. Also a criminal code is a statute which implies or endeavors to set out all denied or criminal offenses, and their different disciplines. In this paper, I discuss

Have you ever received a credit card bill at the end of the month with a ridiculous amount of money needed to be paid that you never spent? This is because of identity theft. The FTC estimates that each year, over 9 million people are affected by identity theft. According to Sally Driscoll, this is because almost anyone with a computer and a slight bit of computer knowledge can pull off identity theft. Experts also claim that identity theft is the fastest-growing crime in the world. Identity theft is a global problem that cannot be stopped without effective measures. The problem is, effective measures are very hard to come by when dealing with identity theft because almost any security protocol can be by-passed.

One such method is organizational data gathering which rather than assembling statistical data it aims to collect profiling information to increase the chance of arrest therefore providing more data (Hayes and Prenzler, 2008). In 2003-4 the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) received a total of 63,695 complaints and enquiries and of that amount 480 were investigated of which 22 were taken to court. Overall in 2003-4 police investigated only 0.7% of possible white-collar crimes (ACCC, 2004). As technology increases so does the complexity of white-collar crime therefore facilitating for a predicted rise in frequency. White-collar crime is the highest costing of all crimes and damages people both directly and indirectly through economic manipulation.