Download or read book Report of the Commission of Inquiry Into Certain Aspects of the Trial and Conviction of James Driskell written by Patrick J. LeSage and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Criminal Cases Review Commission written by Michael Naughton and published by Springer. This book was released on 2009-10-29 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on the world's first publicly-funded body- the Criminal Cases Review Commission- to review alleged miscarriages of justice, set up following notorious cases such as the Birmingham Six in the UK. Providing a critique of its operations, the book shows that its help to innocent victims of wrongful conviction is merely incidental.

Download or read book Wrongfully Convicted written by Kent Roach and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2023-04-18 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A top legal scholar explains Canada's national tragedy of wrongful convictions, how anyone could be caught up in them, and what we can do to safeguard justice. Canada's legal system has a serious problem: a significant number of people are in prison for crimes they didn't commit. There are famous cases of wrongful convictions, such as David Milgaard, Guy Paul Morin, and Donald Marshall Jr., who were all innocent of the murders for which they were found guilty. But there are lesser-known cases that illustrate just how widespread our issues are, and how they put everyone at risk. Kent Roach, law professor, government advisor, and award-winning author, has dedicated his illustrious career to documenting this phenomenon. His work reveals that, yes, some people are found guilty of crimes they didn't commit. But also there are two other kinds of wrongful convictions: people who feel they have no option but to plead guilty, and people convicted of crimes that were imagined by experts or the police that never, in fact, happened. Wrongfully Convicted raises awareness of these issues and makes a compelling case that injustices cannot be solved by DNA exonerations alone. The problems run deeper. But there are solutions, including the creation of a permanent federal commission to evaluate and address wrongful convictions. Kent Roach's research and vast knowledge point to systemic failings in our legal system. But he also outlines changes we can make to ensure a more fair and equitable society. Until we do, many of the wrongfully convicted are still waiting for the promise of justice. It is an issue that affects all Canadians."--

Download or read book Forensic Science Reform written by Wendy J Koen and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2016-12-16 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Forensic Science Reform: Protecting the Innocent is written for the nonscientist to help make complicated scientific information clear and concise enough for attorneys and judges to master. This volume covers physical forensic science, namely arson, shaken baby syndrome, non-accidental trauma, bite marks, DNA, ballistics, comparative bullet lead analysis, fingerprint analysis, and hair and fiber analysis, and contains valuable contributions from leading experts in the field of forensic science. - 2018 PROSE Awards - Winner, Award for Textbook/Social Services: Association of American Publishers - Offers training for prosecuting attorneys on the present state of the forensic sciences in order to avoid reliance on legal precedent that lags decades behind the science - Provides defense attorneys the knowledge to defend their clients against flawed science - Arms innocence projects and appellate attorneys with the latest information to challenge convictions that were obtained using faulty science - Uses science-specific case studies to simplify issues in forensic science for the legal professional - Offers a detailed overview of both the failures and progress made in the forensic sciences, making the volume ideal for law school courses covering wrongful convictions, or for undergraduate courses on law, legal ethics, or forensics

Download or read book Honouring Social Justice written by Margaret E. Beare and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2008-01-01 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These essays provide an illuminating introduction to the background of important social causes, and describe dedicated examples of how to effectively champion calls for social justice.

Download or read book Manufacturing Guilt 2nd edition written by Barrie Anderson and published by Fernwood Publishing. This book was released on 2021-01-11T00:00:00Z with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Manufacturing Guilt, 2nd edition, updates the cases presented in the first edition and includes two new chapters: one concerning the case of James Driskell and another regarding Dr. Charles Smith, whose role in forensic pathology evidence led to several wrongful convictions. In this new edition, the authors demonstrate that the same factors at play in the criminalization of the powerless and marginalized are found in cases of wrongful conviction. Contrary to popular belief, wrongful convictions are not due simply to “unintended errors,” but rather are too often the result of the deliberate actions of those working in the criminal justice system. Using Canadian cases of miscarriages of justice, the authors argue that understanding wrongful convictions and how to prevent them is incomplete outside the broader societal context in which they occur, particularly regarding racial and social inequality.

Download or read book My Life in Crime and Other Academic Adventures written by Martin L. Friedland and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 537 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since his call to the Bar in 1960, Martin L. Friedland has been involved in a number of important public policy issues, including bail, legal aid, gun control, securities regulation, access to the law, judicial independence and accountability, and national security. My Life in Crime and other Academic Adventures offers a first-hand account of the development of these areas of law from the perspective of a man who was heavily involved in their formation and implementation. It is also the story of a distinguished academic, author, and former dean of law at the University of Toronto. Moving beyond the boundaries of conventional memoir, Friedland offers an extended meditation on public policy issues and significant events in the field of law, discussing their historical impact and predicting the course of their future development. Given his personal experience, there is no other person more suited to discuss these hugely important issues. Friedland puts the law and legal institutions into a wider context, looking at the role of personalities, politics, and pressure groups in the establishment of laws that continue to have tremendous importance for Canadians. My Life in Crime and other Academic Adventures reflects upon a life devoted to education, scholarship, and the law, and is an insider account of public policy issues that have come to shape life in this country in the twentieth century and beyond.

Download or read book When Justice Is a Game written by MaDonna Maidment and published by Fernwood Publishing. This book was released on 2021-01-10T00:00:00Z with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All too often the police do not get the right person. Wrongful convictions are framed as mistakes or failures of the justice system. However, many of the wrongfully convicted are from among the poor and visible minority groups. The law then becomes an ideological mask relieving us of the responsibility of engaging with the real issues that underscore wrongful convictions. MaDonna Maidment illustrates how the desire to get a conviction and paint the police and the courts in a positive light often means that false evidence and court decisions based on prejudice and racism lead to innocent people being convicted. “The official version of the law,” says Maidment, “despite its claims of impartiality, neutrality and objectivity, is a tool of the state and its elite club members designed to maintain the illegitimate domination of society.” Turning back to the very sys-tem that got it wrong in the first place therefore should be a non-starter.

Download or read book A Practical Guide To The Forensic Examination Of Hair written by James R. Robertson and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2021-10-21 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Practical Guide to the Forensic Examination of Hair: From Crime Scene to Court presents current best practices and methodologies for forensic microscopists and trace evidence analysts, in addition to lawyers and judges, to detail the utilisation of hair evidence in court cases. The 30-year evolution and development of forensic DNA analysis has placed very heavy focus on its value in identifying the source of biological materials in other evidence. In addition to some recent controversies over the reliability of hair evidence and analysis, the question arises: what to do with hairs and hair evidence presented in court cases? The reality is that this is a fairly common form of evidence present at, and relevant in, many types of crime scenes and scenarios. Are we to simply ignore hairs as an evidence type? This book outlines the case for hair evidence’s continued relevance as a valuable biological source that can contribute to assisting in answering questions of identity and questions of what happened or the criminalistic potential of hairs. The authors present a four-level approach to the case management of recovered hairs. This system, which can be incorporated into contemporary forensic practice, stresses the need for thorough and systematic recording of hairs and their microscopic features and on the need to focus on differences to effectively triage recovered hairs. The approach focuses on the efficient and accurate selection of hairs for nuclear and mitochondrial DNA analysis while addressing the criminalistic potential of hairs. Key Features: Outlines the latest advances in the collection and forensic hair fibres, and includes full-colour illustrative figures throughout. Covers the advances in DNA extraction and analysis of hair samples including nuclear and mt-DNA testing. Addresses all forensic aspects of hair evidence including recovery, collection, examination, analysis, testing and presentation of such results in court. A Practical Guide to the Forensic Examination of Hair is a practical reference written for practitioners and promotes the need for quality assurance measures, process standardization and proficiency testing to ensure the scientific reliability of hair examination. The book discusses how to interpret and report on hair findings to impart to investigators, and to the broader legal system, the appropriate weight that should be attributed to hair findings. It provides invaluable methodologies and guidelines that reinforce the ongoing value and validity of hair examinations.

Download or read book The Lazier Murder written by Robert J. Sharpe and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2011-01-01 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In December 1883, Peter Lazier was shot in the heart during a bungled robbery at a Prince Edward County farmhouse. Three local men, pleading innocence from start to finish, were arrested and charged with his murder. Two of them — Joseph Thomset and David Lowder — were sentenced to death by a jury of local citizens the following May. Nevertheless, appalled community members believed at least one of them to be innocent — even pleading with prime minister John A. Macdonald to spare them from the gallows. The Lazier Murder explores a community's response to a crime, as well as the realization that it may have contributed to a miscarriage of justice. Robert J. Sharpe reconstructs and contextualizes the case using archival and contemporary newspaper accounts. The Lazier Murder provides an insightful look at the changing pattern of criminal justice in nineteenth-century Canada, and the enduring problem of wrongful convictions.

Download or read book Miscarriages of Justice in Canada written by Kathryn M. Campbell and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2018-06-12 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Innocent people are regularly convicted of crimes they did not commit. A number of systemic factors have been found to contribute to wrongful convictions, including eyewitness misidentification, false confessions, informant testimony, official misconduct, and faulty forensic evidence. In Miscarriages of Justice in Canada, Kathryn M. Campbell offers an extensive overview of wrongful convictions, bringing together current sociological, criminological, and legal research, as well as current case-law examples. For the first time, information on all known and suspected cases of wrongful conviction in Canada is included and interspersed with discussions of how wrongful convictions happen, how existing remedies to rectify them are inadequate, and how those who have been victimized by these errors are rarely compensated. Campbell reveals that the causes of wrongful convictions are, in fact, avoidable, and that those in the criminal justice system must exercise greater vigilance and openness to the possibility of error if the problem of wrongful conviction is to be resolved.

Download or read book Manitoba Law Journal Volume 44 Issue 1 Special Issue written by Michael Nesbitt and published by Manitoba Law Journal. This book was released on 2021-07-13 with total page 509 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Manitoba Law Journal (MLJ) is a peer-reviewed journal founded in 1961. The MLJ's current mission is to provide lively, independent and high calibre commentary on legal events in Manitoba or events of special interest to our community.The MLJ aims to bring diverse and multidisciplinary perspectives to the issues it studies, drawing on authors from Manitoba, Canada and beyond. Its studies are intended to contribute to understanding and reform not only in our community, but around the world. As part of our commitment to you, our team is pleased to announce the release of Canada’s premier publication on “Project Osage,” an inter-agency security operation that executed the largest terrorism-related sting in Canadian history. Canadian Terror: Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives on the Toronto 18 Terrorism Trials engages a multidisciplinary perspective that unites criminological, legal, and security analyses to consider the processes, as well as the shortcomings, involved in investigating and prosecuting terrorism in Canada. We are honoured that Canadian Terror is edited and co-authored by prominent Canadian academics

Download or read book Expert Evidence and Scientific Proof in Criminal Trials written by Paul Roberts and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Forensic science evidence and expert witness testimony play an increasingly prominent role in modern criminal proceedings. Science produces powerful evidence of criminal offending, but has also courted controversy and sometimes contributed towards miscarriages of justice. The twenty-six articles and essays reproduced in this volume explore the theoretical foundations of modern scientific proof and critically consider the practical issues to which expert evidence gives rise in contemporary criminal trials. The essays are prefaced by a substantial new introduction which provides an overview and incisive commentary contextualising the key debates. The volume begins by placingforensic science in interdisciplinary focus, with contributions from historical, sociological, Science and Technology Studies (STS), philosophical and jurisprudential perspectives. This is followed by closer examination of the role of forensic science and other expert evidence in criminal proceedings, exposing enduring tensions and addressing recent controversies in the relationship between science and criminal law. A third set of contributions considers the practical challenges of interpreting and communicating forensic science evidence. This perennial battle continues to be fought at the intersection between the logic of scientific inference and the psychology of the fact-finder‘scommon sense reasoning. Finally, the volume‘s fourth group of essays evaluates the (limited) success of existing procedural reforms aimed at improving the reception of expert testimony in criminal adjudication, and considers future prospects for institutional renewal - with a keen eye to comparative law models and experiences, success stories and cautionary tales.

Download or read book Crime Scene Investigations written by Daniel J. Baum and published by Dundurn. This book was released on 2015-01-19 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Police investigations can become legal minefields. Crime Scene Investigations is a clear guide to the powers and limitations of law enforcement officials. From the right to a lawyer's advice, to privacy law in search and seizures, to stop-and-frisk-style "carding" operations, this book covers the key topics in depth.

Download or read book Manitoba Law Journal Volume 44 Issue 6 Robson Crim 2021 written by Richard Jochelson, et al. and published by Manitoba Law Journal. This book was released on with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Manitoba Law Journal (MLJ) is a peer-reviewed journal founded in 1961. The MLJ's current mission is to provide lively, independent and high caliber commentary on legal events in Manitoba or events of special interest to our community. The MLJ aims to bring diverse and multidisciplinary perspectives to the issues it studies, drawing on authors from Manitoba, Canada and beyond. Its studies are intended to contribute to understanding and reform not only in our community, but around the world. Robson Crim is housed in Robson Hall, one of Canada's oldest law schools. Robson Crim has transformed into a Canada wide research hub in criminal law, with blog contributions from coast to coast, and from outside of this nation's borders. With over 30 academic peer collaborators at Canada's top law schools, Robson Crim is bringing leading criminal law research and writing to the reader. We also annually publish a special edition criminal law volume of the Manitoba Law Journal, providing a chance for authors to enter the peer reviewed fray. The Journal has ranked in the top 0.1 percent on Academia.edu and is widely used. This issue has articles from a variety of contributing authors including: Robert J. Currie, Brandon Trask, Evan Podaima, Joshua Ozymy, Jarrell Ozymy, Chelsey Buggie, Lewis Waring, Sean Gallop, Kelly Shae Delvac, Kaitlynd Hiller, and Shawn Singh.

Download or read book Manitoba Law Journal Criminal Law Edition Robson Crim 2017 Volume 40 3 written by Richard Jochelson, et al. and published by Manitoba Law Journal. This book was released on with total page 525 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Robson Crim is housed in Robson Hall, one of Canada's oldest law schools. Robson Crim has transformed into a Canada wide research hub in criminal law, with blog contributions from coast to coast, and from outside of this nation's borders. With over 30 academic peer collaborators at Canada's top law schools, Robson Crim is bringing leading criminal law research and writing to the reader. We also annually publish a special edition criminal law volume of the Manitoba Law Journal, providing a chance for authors to enter the peer reviewed fray. The Journal has ranked in the top 0.1 percent on Academia.edu and is widely used. This issue has articles from a variety of contributing authors including: Richard Jochelson, Amar Khoday, David Ireland, Kent Roach, R. C. L. Lindsay, Michelle I. Bertrand, Andrew M. Smith, Marie Manikis, Peter Grbac, Amar Khoday, Jonathan Avey, Jeffery Couse, Rebecca Bromwich, Joshua Watts, Michael Weinrath, John Burchill, Dmytro Galagan, James Gacek, Julie Yan, Michelle S. Lawrence, and Melanie Murchison.

Download or read book The Evolving Role of the Public Prosecutor written by Victoria Colvin and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-09-24 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The modern public prosecutor is a figure both powerful and enigmatic. Legal scholars and criminologists often identify “three essential components” of criminal justice systems: police, courts and corrections. Yet increasingly, the public prosecutor occupies a distinct role independent from any of these branches. Acting outside of the court, and therefore largely out of the public eye, the prosecutor’s control over whether and what charges proceed to court can limit judicial discretion on sentencing, open pathways to alternative measures and even deny entry into the criminal justice system entirely. In this sense the prosecutor serves as a true “gatekeeper” to the criminal process. This book addresses key aspects of the evolving role of domestic and international prosecutors in common law and civil law systems in the twenty-first century, and the challenges posed by this evolution. This collection of chapters from respected scholars takes an international, comparative approach and explores how these different legal systems have borrowed theorisations and articulations of the prosecutorial role from each other in adapting the office to changing conditions and expectations. The volume is structured around four main themes relating to the role of the modern prosecutor: the nature of the prosecutor’s office, the role of the prosecutor in investigations, prosecutorial discretion and how it is exercised, and politicisation and accountability of prosecutors. This book is essential for scholars and students in criminal justice, pre-law/legal studies, criminology, justice studies and political science, and is useful as a resource for those interested in legal change around the world.