How much time is allocated for analyzing case law during a trial In a rather simple trial (driving infringement, penal court - NOT criminal), how much time is allocated to each party to analyze each others case law? Is it expected to be done during the hearing, or is it expected to be done in writing within X days?
Canada's local court systems and procedural rules vary, especially at the lowest level, by province. So, I'm just stating some general principals. General speaking legal arguments are limited to closing arguments of the parties after all of the evidence has been presented by both sides (because this limits legal arguments to those with evidentiary support rather than merely hypothetical arguments). Opening arguments are usually supposed to be limited to a recitation of what the facts in the case will show. Presentation of evidence and examination of witnesses is also not a time for this to be done. Some courts in some jurisdictions allow a defendant to make a "half-time motion" at the close of the prosecution's case, arguing that the prosecution has failed to meet their burden of proof to establish grounds for a conviction before the defense presents the defense's evidence. But, such formalities are often dispensed with in traffic court. Some courts allow post-trial motions to be made after a verdict within a certain number of days set by court rule asking the court to reconsider its decision or overturn a jury verdict, although these aren't always available in a traffic court case. Sometimes these issues are also raised in a pre-trial trial brief or in motion practice prior to trial. The amount of time allowed for closing, and discretion to consider arguments at times other than time usually allowed are in the discretion of the trial judge. Usually, courts are more lenient regarding formalities when a non-attorney is arguing a case. Usually, there is less opportunity to raise legal arguments following a trial if the traffic court is not a court of record and appeal is by trial de novo in a higher court, and there is more opportunity to do so if the trial is in a "court of record" in which a transcript is maintained and if the trial is a jury trial (although in a jury trial, the legal arguments are made out of the presence of the jury in a hearing over jury instructions, rather than before the jury). In a traffic case in a court of record, in front of a judge, five or ten minutes, at most, would be typical and trial briefs would rarely be considered, but the judge might listen longer or take the case under advisement and ask for further briefing, if the judge thinks that there is merit to a legal argument and wants to do further research (which would be extremely unusual in a traffic case).
Yes. It will hold up in court. IMHO, there is no difference in the admissible portions of the two testimonies. "Few minutes" vs. "One hour" is immaterial The difference between "a few minutes" and "one hour" IMHO is immaterial given: the witness was unconscious and say, between 45 and 60 minutes would match both descriptions of the time interval. What other people saw and heard is hearsay Testimony about what other people saw and heard (with a few notable exceptions) is hearsay and not allowed into evidence because it is generally unreliable and not subject to cross-examination. So after the rejection of the hearsay portions, there is no difference in the admissible portions of the two versions. Qualification By "hold up in court," I mean it will be allowed as evidence. The weight and veracity of the testimony would be determined by the (judge or) jury after cross-examination.
This is an excellent explanation. All Australian jurisdictions have (in general) common road rules. In NSW these are enacted by Road Rules 2014 regulation under the Road Transport Act 2013. The relevant provision is Clause 306: 306 Exemption for drivers of emergency vehicles A provision of these Rules does not apply to the driver of an emergency vehicle if: (a) in the circumstances: (i) the driver is taking reasonable care, and (ii) it is reasonable that the rule should not apply, and (b) if the vehicle is a motor vehicle that is moving-the vehicle is displaying a blue or red flashing light or sounding an alarm. From your statement (a)(i) and (b) would seem to apply so it becomes a question if (a)(ii) does. Well, you don't know the circumstances so you can't judge if it is reasonable that the rule not apply: if the police car were involved in a collision, caught on a red light camera or booked then the driver would have to show that it was. It is worth noting that some road offences like drink or dangerous driving are not in the Road Rules, they are in the Crimes Act and so the exemption doesn't apply to them. It is also not a shield from civil liability although the difficulty of proving negligence goes up because disobeying the road rules is no longer enough.
Primary Theory I suspect there might not be a legal answer to this question. I have always suspected a sort of pseudo-intellectual elitism (or simple preference or carelessness) with passive voice sentence construction in general. I sense license writers have not (yet) escaped this general trend. I would love someone to prove this theory incorrect. But, alas, I doubt it will happen. Alternative Theory But because this is a Law Q&amp;A site, I will advance the following alternative theory. I don't believe it's correct. But I will advance it because it's the only possible explanation I can think of that might be even remotely based on legal reasoning... Maybe they are just basing their construction on the way the law itself is written? For example, if the law says, "Permission must be granted..." Then it would follow that a writer who wants to comply with the law might choose, "Permission is hereby granted..." instead of something like "The authors hereby grant permission..." or, as the OP suggested, "You may..."
Considering that the US legal system is more or less similar in practice to the English Courts, yes it is possible to plea bargian a deal. I'm linking to the wikipedia article on the matter with a specific link to the England and Wales for guidence. Normally, I'd explain, but I'm an American and the differences between Magistrate and Crown courts are big enough differences that I can't tell you what the differences in the case is. I should point out this is a legal area where America differences with much of the world. 90% of the United States criminal cases (and a good number of civil cases, which are settled privately before discovery phase) are plea bargained to lesser sentences. Additionally remorse has nothing to do with the plea bargain. You might only be sorry that you got caught breaking the law and can still plea. The lighter sentence is sort of a "thank you" for saving the state money in not having to build their case against you. It is also used to coerce cooperation with the police, as they may have the accused dead to rights and can prosecute him successfully, but he's a little fish who can give intel to a big fish (this usually comes with the caveat of it being a sworn statement, so they can still prosecute you for something if you're lying... OR that the deal holds on condition that everything is factually true. If evidence contradicts you, you're charged as if you never made a deal). It's also important to note that the police will not honor their deals made for your confession... but they will offer you deals (In the United States, police are allowed to lie to you and do it all the time). However, the prosecutor will honor their deals. Another thing to be aware of is that a prosecutor who offers a plea could be doing so because they have a weak case. If you are absolutely sure the prosecutor has the wrong guy, it may be to your benefit to go to trial and have them prove it. Innocent people do go to jail all the time because they think there is something worse on them than the plea deal and its hard to fight off as you cannot appeal a plea deal as easily as a court conviction. Finally, most jurisdictions allow the judge final say at sentencing, so if the prosecutor does honor the deal and advises the sentence, don't get upset if the judge is tougher and gives you a harsher sentence on the crime, or rejects your plea outright (expect him to scold the prosecutor for wasting his time with a horrible deal, too. Watch the Law and Order SVU episode Raw for a particularly wonderful instance of this rare event occurring). As a part of US federalism, the rules about this change from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, so make sure you understand this. Another thing to be aware of is that a prosecutor who offers a plea could be doing so because they have a weak case. If you are absolutely sure the prosecutor has the wrong guy, it may be to your benefit to go to trial and have them prove it. Innocent people do go to jail all the time because they think there is something worse on them than the plea deal and its hard to fight off as you cannot appeal a plea deal as easily as a court conviction. I would definitely do some leg work into the English Legal system's opinions on plea bargains. Just because they have it does not mean the state lawyers like employing it and many jurisdictions see it as full on corruption in other parts of the world, even the Common Law jurisdictions.
This is a perfectly common question. &quot;What is your full name?&quot; &quot;Do you have any aliases?&quot; &quot;What other names do you go by?&quot; Like any other question, though, it must be relevant, and you should be prepared to explain why it is relevant. If the court allows the question, the defendant must answer.
There may be two questions sort of embedded in here: How long does the government have before it violates Speedy Trial; and How long does the government have to turn over its evidence? Unfortunately, they're probably both impossible to answer at this point. Question 1 Under the Speedy Trial Act (18 USC 3161): In any case in which a plea of not guilty is entered, the trial of a defendant charged in an information or indictment with the commission of an offense shall commence within seventy days from the filing date (and making public) of the information or indictment, or from the date the defendant has appeared before a judicial officer of the court in which such charge is pending, whichever date last occurs. If a defendant consents in writing to be tried before a magistrate judge on a complaint, the trial shall commence within seventy days from the date of such consent. IRA was indicted on February 16, 2018, so 70 days later would be April 27, 2018, which has obviously already come and gone. But their initial appearance wasn't until May 9, 2018, which pushes the time back to July 18, 2018. That would be the default latest date for a trial to begin, but the Act also allows delays for a variety of factors. Among them are delays "resulting from other proceedings concerning the defendant," which includes time the court spends considering the defendants' motions. So if IRA moves to dismiss the case, all the time spent fighting over that motion would "toll" speedy-trial time, meaning that it would stop the clock until the motion was decided. Another provision of potential relevance is 18 USC 3161(h)(8): Any period of delay, not to exceed one year ... [if] an official request .. has been made for evidence of any such offense and that it reasonably appears, or reasonably appeared at the time the request was made, that such evidence is, or was, in such foreign country. So if there's evidence somewhere in Russia linking these guys to the crimes they're accused of, that might push speedy trial back by a year just to deal with that issue alone. So the short answer to Question 1 is that Speedy Trial requires the trial to begin on July 18, but that practically speaking, that probably won't happen. Question 2 The timing of discovery, the process of each side turning over its evidence to the other side, varies based on the kind of evidence involved, so there are usually multiple disclosures of evidence between the time of indictment and the actual trial. Under current DOJ guidelines, prosecutors are encouraged to provide "broad and early discovery." More specifically: Exculpatory evidence available under Brady v. Maryland should be turned over "reasonably promptly"; Impeachment evidence available under Giglio v. United States should be turned over "at a reasonable time before trial to allow the trial to proceed efficiently"; and Material available under Rule 16 should be disclosed "as soon as is reasonably practical." As you can see, these aren't really hard deadlines. The defense will ask for the documents, the government will turn over documents, and then they'll probably both fight about turning over some other documents, and then they'll wait for the court to decide what to do. So when does Mueller have to turn over his evidence? Probably the best answer we have right now is: "When a judge tells him to."
While it is true that jury instructions are typically less than optimal, it is ideological hyperbole or cynicism to claim that instructions are purposely confusing. The ultimate source of the confusion is that the legal system has to assume (pretend) that it has clear-cut rules that any reasonable person can easily understand and automatically apply. In order to maintain uniformity of the law, there is an externally-defined instruction that a judge may read (rather than giving his personal spin on what "reasonable doubt" means or what the relationship is between "reasonable doubt" and convicting a defendant). Once the relevant body of government (committee of judges and lawyers) has established the apparently correct formula for expressing the applicable legal concept, they don't mess with it, until SCOTUS overturns decisions enough times based on crappy instructions. Legal professionals are trained to carefully scrutinze language so as to achieve a single interpretation of a given clause (never mind the fact that there turn out to be many such interpretations). Since they can apply these interpretive rules, it is assumed that anyone can apply them. But in fact, we know that people don't just use literal semantic principles to reach conclusions – but the law resist pandering to that imperfection in human behavior. There is a huge literature on problems of jury instructions, some of the better of which relies on psycholinguistic experimentation to establish that a given instruction is confusing or gives the wrong result. See for example Solan's "Refocusing the burden of proof.." (and references therein) that addresses the problem of the "beyond a reasonable doubt" instruction, which has the unintended consequence of implying that the defense has an obligation to create a doubt (which is not the case, and allows conviction if there is the weakest imaginable evidence which hasn't been refuted). But who gets to decide what the improved instructions should say? The instructions have to correctly state what the law holds (where "the law" means not just statutes, but the trillions of relevant court decisions and applicable regulations). Thus there is massive inertia, and improved jury instructions will not come about quickly.