This essay will give a critical review of the R-v-Guy Paul Morin case, which started to take place in Canada over twenty years ago. It will look at both the prosecution and defence cases, the evidence given within both cases and the decisions from both court cases and the appeal, which finally freed Guy Paul Morin.
On New Years Eve 1984 Christine Jessop a nine-year-old girl from Ontario, Canada was found murdered in a field about fifty kilometres from where she lived. Christine Jessop’s body had been left in disgusting position, she had also been sexually assaulted and decapitated. The police felt they needed to arrest this killer before another similar crime could be committed. After extensive investigation by the police of at least three hundred and fifty suspects, a young musician and next door neighbour of the Jessop’s, Guy Paul Morin was arrested and spent eleven months in jail waiting for the case to be brought to trial. Whilst incarcerated, an undercover officer was placed in Morin’s cell to try and extract information from him relating to the crime. This was done because the police were aware of the weakness of their case. In all the time Morin was under observation, by the undercover officer, he at no point admitted any involvement in the murder of Christine Jessop. In 1986 the case went to trial, mid-way through, in an astonishing tactic Morin’s lawyer tried to prove that he was schizophrenic. The jury didn’t believe the evidence of the schizophrenia, but never the less Morin was still acquitted of the crime.
In the years following the acquittal the Canadian legal system was tested to its limits, Morin’s acquittal was reversed and a new trial was ordered. In 1992 Morin was found guilty of the murder and sentenced to twenty-five years with no chance of parole. In the years following new DNA evidence surfaced proving that Morin was a convenient fall guy in a badly botched investigation. There were a lot of questions, which needed to be asked of both the investigation and the centre of forensic investigation.
The prosicution team knew that their case was weak and thus as mentioned before an under cover officer was placed in a cell with Morin. According to the officer, when he asked Morin how he managed to deal with life’s frustrations, Morin answered, “Me I just redrum the innocent. That’s my cure man.
Convicted for the murders of his wife and two kids, thirty-four years ago, Dr. MacDonald still endures the agony of being accused of killing his family. Even after twenty-four years of imprisonment and several unlawful court hearings, additional documentation continues to up hold Dr. MacDonald’s testimony.
Evidently, Truscott received financial compensation for the ordeal and the suffering it brought to his life by being awarded $6.5 million from the Government. This led to the conclusion that in this case (like many others) the police were solely and unjustly targeting one person. I learned a great deal from this case about Canada’s previous laws. Prior to the case, I had known about the death penalty and that it was legal in Canada, but I did not know when it could be implemented.
This essay will analyze the entire case R. v. Morin and evaluate the facts, issues, positions of the Crown and accused. The decisions made during this case and reasons that ultimately lead to the final verdict by the Ontario Court of appeal. This essay will evaluate the decision of whether the delay of the R. v. Morin and the cases that it set precedent for were valid decisions made by the court. This evaluation will describe the arguments made on both sides during these trials. It will discuss how the decision made by the court to decide the trial delay being reasonable were the correct decisions and that section 11(b) of the Charter was not violated. The essay will also discuss the court cases R. v. Godin...
Robert William “Willie” Pickton is currently serving a life sentence for the second degree murder of six British Columbian women. Although convicted for the murders of six victims, physical and forensic evidence for thirty-three women was uncovered at Pickton’s Port Coquitlam pig farm which served as the crime scene for his murders. Numerous other missing women, mostly marginalized prostitutes with chronic drug addiction, from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside area remain unaccounted for. It is not unreasonable to assume that they too, met the same disturbing fate as the other murder victims. Pickton’s modus operandi for the serial murders was the same; he would prowl the drug and poverty ridden Downtown Eastside neighbourhood of Vancouver looking for potential victims, take the victims back to his Port Coquitlam pig farm, and then sexually abuse, torture, and murder them before mutilating and disposing their bodies. Most disturbingly, the victim’s remains were allegedly fed to the pigs on his farm, which were then slaughtered with the meat given out to associates of Pickton or to visitors of the farm (The Pickton Trial, CBC.ca/news).
On June 9, 1959, 12-year-old Lynne Harper was raped and murder, her remains found two days later, near Clinton, Ontario. 8 In September 1959, Steven Truscott was convicted for all crimes committed against Harper. Truscott was only 14 at the time and was initially supposed to be a death row inmate, with the sentence later reduced to life in prison. This is important, because 48 years later in 2007, he was exonerated of all charges. This case shed light on the problems of the criminal justice system, as the conviction of Steven Truscott was a miscarriage of justice brought upon by police tunnel vision and suppression of evidence.
The Canadian Justice system is run like a well-oiled machine. It is based on the fair and humane treatment of suspects who remain innocent until proven guilty. There is one big question that has been debated since July 14th, 1976 - should the death penalty have been abolished in Canada? The new younger generation of Canadians seems to agree with me that the death penalty should be resurrected in Canada.
Wrongful convictions in Canada is a very sensitive and disturbing topic that has created concerns as to why individuals are being wrongfully convicted. As people in Canada read about cases involving wrongful conviction, such as Guy Paul Morin, Rubin Carter and David Millguard, it often undermines their faith in the criminal justice system. Tunnel vision, the use of questionable DNA evidence, and eyewitness misidentification are the three main causes of wrongful convictions in Canada. Recognizing and addressing these concerns has led to a reduction in cases of wrongful convictions in Canada.
In the year 1970, the Canadian government founded the Law Reform Commission of Canada to ensure the progression of law making and to make recommendations for legal changes . The Law Reform Commission of Canada is constantly importing and suggesting proposals towards the criminal code of Canada. During the year of 1985, t...
...ff the slide or was on it very briefly enabling us to explain in our own words what had gone on in the case or what we had found out through the research. Unfortunately there was elements of our work that didn’t come across during our presentation as strongly as we’d hoped especially regarding linking the research we had done and the theories on homicide we had learnt, for example 2 of the three men convicted were part of a subculture of violence, this is show through the lack of remorse they showed in court and during questioning they answered as if they were used to the environment, and the third, Fadi, would fit into the strain theory he needed money and believed he couldn’t achieve this through legitimate means the only way he was going to get himself up in social classes and have the ability to almost start again was through the murder of his wife.
Welsh, B., & Irving, M. (2005). Crime and punishment in Canada, 1981-1999. Crime and Justice, 33, 247-294. Retrieved from http://library.mtroyal.ca:2063/stable/3488337?&Search=yes&searchText=canada&searchText=crime&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dcrime%2Bin%2Bcanada%26acc%3Don%26wc%3Don&prevSearch=&item=18&ttl=33894&returnArticleService=showFullText
“Murder is unique in that it abolishes the party it injures, so that society has to take the place of the victim and on his behalf demand atonement or grant forgiveness; it is the one crime in which society had a direct interest.” - W.H.Auden. Serial, a weekly podcast brings to light a murder from 1999 and it’s safe to say that society has an interest in this case. With over 60 million downloads, the story of 17 years old high school student Adnan Syed being convicted for murder is the subject of many debates; guilty or not guilty. This case -like many others- has copious amounts inconsistencies and uncertainties. Finding the truth about what went down on that January day seems unlikely and absurd. Sarah Koenig (the host) published 12 episodes in the
The Uniform Crime Report, which was developed in the 1930s, is commonly used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a record of crimes committed all across the United States. These crimes, which fall under two categories, Part I and Part II offenses, are reported by local police to the Federal Bureau of Investigation each year. Part I offenses are considered to be the more serious of crimes recognized by society. Such examples of this are homicide, forcible rape, robbery, arson, motor vehicle theft, etc. Part II offenses are those that are considered less serious, such as fraud, simple assault, drug abuse, gambling, stolen property, embezzlement, etc. Part I crimes can also be subdivided into what are known as violent crimes and property crimes. (Barkan, 2012). However, there are both some positive and negative aspects of this type of crime measurement. The following paper will explore the small amount of pros and numerous cons associated with the Uniform Crime Report.
Quinsey, V. (2009). Are we there yet? stasis and progress in forensic psychology. Canadian Psychology, 50(1), 15-15-21.
Best Answer: Basically it was created as the Bureau of Investigation in 1908 to give the U.S. Attorney General an investigative staff of his own within the Justice Department to gather evidence for the prosecution of the few federal crimes then on the books. Prior to this the Justice Department had relied on investigators furnished by the U.S. Secret Service. Among the early crimes placed by Congress within the investigative jurisdiction of the Bureau were opium smuggling (1908), interstate transportation of women for immoral purposes (1910), and interstate transportation of stolen motor vehicles (1919). They did not, and do not, investigate federal crimes that were either Postal (mail robbery, mail fraud, etc.) or Treasury (counterfeiting, tax evasion, etc.) violations. In the early days the agents
In Intro to Criminal Justice class, I had the opportunity to learn about the Criminal Justice System more thoroughly. I learned that there are three components that make up the Criminal Justice System such as the courts, law enforcement, and corrections. Each component has its own role in making sure the the Criminal Justice System is functioning properly. If one of these components are not efficient the Criminal Justice system will not be as strong as it could be.