Tyler MacDonald - Criminal Defence Lawyer

11/29/2019

Trusting the Attorney General to just do the right thing, as he suggests, is no safeguard against partisan judicial appointments. Trusting the government to be fair has never worked as a safeguard against anything.

TORONTO — Ontario Premier Doug Ford confirmed on Thursday that his government will be “modernizing and updating” the way it appoints judges and justices of the peace. “I truly believe that (system) needs to be modernized, and that’s what we’re going to do,” Ford told reporters outside ...

11/06/2019

https://www.boston.com/cars/national-news/2019/11/04/alcohol-breath-tests-new-york-times

Alcohol breath tests, a linchpin of the criminal justice system, are often unreliable, a New York Times investigation found.

10/18/2019

https://www.macdonaldcriminaldefence.com/first-degree-murder-charge-withdrawn

Tyler MacDonald’s client faced a single charge, but it was the most serious: first degree murder. The charge stemmed from allegations that the client was the perpetrator in an ambush-style shooting in downtown Toronto that left one man dead. Identification of the shooter was the key issue which wo...

04/27/2019

https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/b-c-woman-76-launches-charter-challenge-of-mandatory-alcohol-screening-after-police-stake-out-liquor-store

This appears to confirm fears police would use the new powers to arbitrarily target drivers, ignoring the requirement to have a legitimate reason to pull someone over

03/25/2019

It's incredible -- the lengths we have to go to just to have a chance to test these breath machines ourselves. The government, and the companies that make millions from the sale of these machines, should not be allowed to simply block access and say "trust us".

Criminal lawyers imported 150 breath-testing instruments from Illinois to examine for flaws

03/21/2019

6 years ago I brought a motion to halt the prosecution against my 12-year-old client for serious gun charges on the basis that the police illegally strip-searched him. The judge allowed the motion and stayed the charges, in part because it had been over 10 years since the Supreme Court had set out the rules for conducting strip searches, and police services were still repeatedly violating those rules. The judge's decision was widely reported in the news media. I thought it would change things, and from my own anecdotal experience I thought that it had. I was wrong. Hopefully this report with have a greater impact.

The report from the director of the OIPRD calls the number of police strip searches “alarming,” made worse by how often judges noted officers “treated strip searching as a matter of routine.”

03/04/2019

The Hub model? Instead, try calling it Holistic Surveillance, or Salvation Social Control -- "We need to know everything about you...so that we can help you." It's no coincidence that the first people subjected to this project are the ones with the least available resources to launch any kind of legal challenge. I wonder if a prosecutor determined to get a conviction could get their hands on this info.

The database includes detailed, but “de-identified,” information about people’s lives culled from conversations between police, social services, health workers, and more.

02/21/2019

Shouldn't "Law and Order" include investigating and holding to account the police if they've committed crimes?

Calling the existing law a “disaster,” Sylvia Jones, Ontario’s minister of community safety and correctional services, on Tuesday announced a series of changes to police oversight.

02/13/2019

Under Wilson-Raybould as Justice Minister, the Liberals used the death of Colten Boushie and the failure to prove a murder charge as an excuse to introduce a bill that will rob all accused people (white, indigenous, visible minorities) of the only real tool they have to try to make sure that the jury determining their fate contains at least one person of a similar cultural or ethnic background. Reflecting the fact that the biggest injustice that the government cares about is when it loses a case, the bill was introduced with lightning speed after the Boushie verdict (compared to the years or decades it takes to free a single wrongfully convicted person, or to pass legislation that offers critical protection against unfair trials for accused persons). Wilson-Raybould was part of this. She either thought it up herself, or willingly championed it, or secretly opposed it but decided to let it happen anyway. I know that promising politicians like Ms. Wilson-Raybould are very important to our indigenous communities and I think I understand why so many are distraught by her recent fall from power, but we must remember that she played a central role in advancing a piece of legislation that cynically masquerades as justice for indigenous people while making it markedly harder for indigenous accused (or any accused) to ensure that someone on their jury has experienced life from their perspective. Then again maybe the revelations over the coming weeks will show that she fought tooth-and-nail in the backrooms against this bill...

01/31/2019

"How can you defend someone who might be guilty?" How is it that I've been asked that by so many people at parties and dinners, without ever hearing of a Crown lawyer being asked "How can you prosecute someone who might be innocent?"

01/25/2019

There must be no accusation, no alleged crime, which overrides the right to a fair trial. If such an accusation were allowed to exist, then simply uttering it against a person is all that would be needed to destroy them. A weapon like this, available to anyone with a mouth, would quickly eviscerate a free society. Fairness always, even to those accused of being unfair.

01/21/2019

‪“Just don’t drink and drive!” Heard this I few times in response to what I and other lawyers have written about the new impaired driving laws. Here’s the thing: the new laws affect people who drive without drinking, and people who drink but then don’t drive.‬ So even people who wisely “just don’t drink and drive” need to know about this.

Mr. MacDonald will stand between you and the government as your advocate, and push your defence as far as necessary.