Pierre Bonsu – Lawyer

Do You Think I’ll Get Bail?

Posted on November 3, 2019     Leave a Comment

When someone is in remand awaiting a bail hearing at facilities like Maplehurst and Toronto South or at courts such as 1000 Finch in North York, 1911 Eglinton Avenue East in Scarborough or the Brampton court at 7755 Hurontario Street, they most often want to know the chances of them leaving via a bail hearing. Practically speaking, what most don’t realize is that you really only get one shot at it since a bail review is an available but costlier process that requires the court to see a change in circumstances before they would let you out. So if you think that a personal undertaking is unlikely, you’d might want to give it your best shot with a reliable and trustworthy surety who is a Canadian citizen, over 21 and is known as a responsible person (preferably with a job and is sound of mind) and a lawyer that has experience getting people out of these types of jams.

Most people get out on bail since most crimes committed in our criminal justice system are on the lower end of the spectrum in general. What crimes and offences make it the least likely that you will get bail, you ask?

In no particular order, it’s harder to get bail if you:

• Have been accused of going on a serious crime spree with several (2 or 3) charges that suggest wanton indifference to public safety in a recent time span.
• You’ve been charged with murder or another major crime (terrorism).
• You’ve been accused of being associated in gang related activity involving guns.
• You have failed to appear to court in the past even though you have promised the court that you would.
• You don’t have a surety to vouch (pledge) some money for you.
• You are from another province or country and don’t have a surety or you have a surety but they don’t have the money to put up for your behalf.

It’s only in the last case that the court usually asks for money up front. In all other cases save for a personal undertaking, your surety merely pledges to give money on your behalf should you fail to meet the conditions imposed upon you by the court. That being said, a bail hearing is no walk in the park. The prosecutor will do their job to represent the public interest and try their hardest to evaluate the situation as per their experience and while your lawyer will focus and concentrate on the pros to letting you out, the prosecutor will moreso aim for the cons (no pun intended). If you’d like to know about your chances of getting bail, contact Pierre Bonsu…

He Knows These Streets!

How Elections Affect Your Procedural Rights

Posted on October 22, 2019     Leave a Comment

As the elections numbers have shown us, not everyone votes. Some do this because they reason that their votes won’t have any effect in any event. Nevertheless, whether you vote or not, the people that you elect have a huge impact on your procedural rights should you ever get caught up in the criminal justice system. Everything from legal aid to how much public sector employees get paid can be subject to the debate by politicians that are elected to political office.

Recent conversations with clients of mine have made me realize that the magnitude of important procedural changes enacted by politicians at the federal level have not entered into the normal everyday conversations of the average citizen.

A lot of Canadians don’t realize that through Bill C-75 (that came into being within the last month), they have lost the right to peremptory challenges when selecting a jury and the right to a preliminary hearing to see if the crimes you’ve been accused of have any merit to them, with the only exceptions being crimes that have a potential penalty of 14+ years such as Murder and other serious crimes found in the criminal code.

In the end, is this end result of a lack of basic knowledge about procedural changes because a lot of people don’t vote? Rather, I’d say that it is more so a symptom of a society that is apathetic towards political issues. It is one thing not to partake in a system and another to completely ignore it altogether.

Failure to Remain

Posted on September 6, 2019     Leave a Comment

Failure to remain is an offence under most provincial statutes. However, the criminal code of Canada actually has failure to stop after accident under section 320.16.  The main difference between the two is that if you’re charged under the criminal code you could possibly face jail time if convicted. You could, of course, be charged with both in which case you may face jail time in addition to the driver’s licence restrictions that would come with the provincial penalty.

Where you fail to stop at the scene of an accident with another vehicle, bicycle, human or someone’s cattle and you do not attempt to give or leave your contact information, there is a presumption that you were trying to leave the scene without getting caught by the authorities.

You should stop, if you are driving and you believe that you have hit an object.

Bench Warrants

Posted on August 25, 2019     Leave a Comment

I often get a calls from people saying that the court ordered a bench warrant after they missed a court date. It’s often second-hand information, in that someone that they know was at the courthouse, heard their name called and then relayed the information about the bench warrant to them.

Essentially, there are two possibilities in terms of a bench warrant. One is a bench warrant where the police can arrest you at any time after they have actually received the information from the court and the second is a discretionary bench warrant which is often called a bench warrant with discretion where the court is asking you to come to your next court date because you missed the previous one. The warrant will not be executed until your next court date. They will subsequently rescind the warrant if you attend the next court date or fulfill the demand that they made of you at the previous court appearance. The next date is usually a week after your missed court date.

Either way you should call the courthouse to find out which one it was.

Peace Bonds, Discharges and Suspended Sentences

Posted on July 31, 2019     Leave a Comment

With a peace bond (s.810 or Common Law), there is no admission of guilt or wrongdoing. It is merely an agreement of certain facts relating to the incident and a promise to keep the peace with another party.

If a person is to plead ‘guilty’, a discharge is the most favourable sentence that one can get. Discharges are not permanent records in that they are supposed to be expunged after a certain amount of time. This can range from anywhere between 6 months to three years.

The main difference between a conditional discharge and an absolute discharge is the fact that a conditional discharge comes with ‘conditions’ that you have to follow (probation etc.) for a set period of time. An absolute discharge on the other hand has no conditions attached to it.

While neither is a conviction, they are both a finding of guilt. Practically speaking, with a discharge you can honestly say that you’ve never been convicted of the offence, but you can’t say that you’ve never been found guilty of an offence.

Like a conditional discharge, a suspended sentence involves following conditions in a probation period for a period of one to three years.

The real difference between a conditional discharge and a suspended sentence is that a conviction is registered against you. This means you’ll have a criminal record and will have to apply for a pardon to have the conviction removed from your record.