Dangerous offender Lawyers in Canada

Section 752 defines a serious personal injury offence in two parts. The first is an indictable offence, other than high treason, treason, and first degree or second degree murder, for which the offender may be sentenced to imprisonment for 10 years or more. It must also involve, in respect of another person, the use or attempted use of violence, or conduct endangering or likely to endanger life or safety, or conduct inflicting or likely to inflict severe psychological damage. The second part names certain sexual offences.

Section 753(1) says what the court must be satisfied of before it shall find the offender to be a dangerous offender. For the first kind of offence, the court must be satisfied that the offender constitutes a threat to the life, safety or physical or mental well-being of other persons, on evidence establishing one of three things. The first is a pattern of repetitive behaviour, of which the offence forms a part, showing a failure to restrain behaviour and a likelihood of causing death or injury. The second is a pattern of persistent aggressive behaviour showing a substantial degree of indifference to the reasonably foreseeable consequences to other persons. The third is behaviour associated with the offence that is of such a brutal nature as to compel the conclusion that future behaviour is unlikely to be inhibited by normal standards of behavioural restraint.

For the second kind of offence, section 753(1) asks a different question. It asks whether the offender, by conduct in any sexual matter, has shown a failure to control sexual impulses and a likelihood of causing injury, pain or other evil to other persons through failure in the future to control them.

Section 752.1 deals with the assessment. On the prosecutor's application, if the court is of the opinion that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the offender might be found to be a dangerous offender or a long-term offender, the court shall, by order in writing and before sentence is imposed, remand the offender for a period not exceeding 60 days. The offender is remanded to the custody of a person designated by the court who can perform an assessment or have one performed.

The report must be filed with the court not later than 30 days after the end of the assessment period, and copies go to the prosecutor and counsel for the offender.

Section 754 sets conditions for the hearing itself. Apart from an application for remand for assessment, the court may not hear an application unless the Attorney General of the province in which the offender was tried has consented, the prosecutor has given the offender at least seven days notice outlining the basis of the application, and a copy of the notice has been filed. The court hears and decides the application without a jury.

If the court finds an offender to be a dangerous offender, section 753(4) says it shall do one of three things. It can impose a sentence of detention in a penitentiary for an indeterminate period. It can impose a sentence for the offence, which must be a minimum punishment of imprisonment for a term of two years, and order that the offender be subject to long-term supervision for a period that does not exceed 10 years. Or it can impose a sentence for the offence.

Section 753 then says the court shall impose the indeterminate sentence unless it is satisfied by the evidence at the hearing that there is a reasonable expectation that a lesser measure will adequately protect the public against the commission by the offender of murder or a serious personal injury offence. The lesser measures are the second and third options above.

If the court does not find the offender to be a dangerous offender, section 753 lets it treat the application as an application to find the offender to be a long-term offender, or impose sentence for the offence.

A long-term offender finding is a separate finding under section 753.1. The court may make it if it is satisfied that a sentence of imprisonment of two years or more would be appropriate for the offence, that there is a substantial risk that the offender will reoffend, and that there is a reasonable possibility of eventual control of the risk in the community.

Under section 761, where a person is in custody under a sentence of detention in a penitentiary for an indeterminate period, the Parole Board of Canada shall, as soon as possible after the expiration of seven years from the day the person was taken into custody, and not later than every two years after the previous review, review the person's condition, history and circumstances. The review decides whether the person should be granted parole and, if so, on what conditions.

Section 759 deals with appeals. An offender who is found to be a dangerous offender or a long-term offender may appeal to the court of appeal on any ground of law or fact or mixed law and fact. The Attorney General may appeal to the court of appeal on any ground of law. The court of appeal may allow the appeal and make a finding or a sentence the trial court could have made, order a new hearing, or dismiss the appeal.

In Ontario, every charge under the Criminal Code starts in the Ontario Court of Justice, and about 95% of charges are completed there. A dangerous offender application is not a new charge. It follows a conviction. Section 752 defines the court for these applications as the court by which the offender was convicted, or a superior court of criminal jurisdiction.

The Superior Court of Justice can try any indictable offence but generally tries only the most serious ones, such as murder, manslaughter and serious violent offences. An application under section 754 is different: the court hears and decides it without a jury. Section 10 of the Charter gives everyone on arrest or detention the right to retain and instruct counsel without delay and to be informed of that right.

Legal Aid Ontario may pay for a lawyer if the person qualifies and is charged with a crime that could mean jail on conviction, or is 12 to 17 and charged under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. Duty counsel is a lawyer at the courthouse for that day. Duty counsel can advise on rights, ask to delay a court date, act at a bail hearing, help with a guilty plea, speak at sentencing, and meet the Crown, for people who qualify and have no lawyer.

A legal aid certificate pays a roster lawyer, one approved to take legal aid clients, for the length of the criminal case. Applications are online or by phone at 1-800-668-8258.

The Law Society of Ontario keeps a public Lawyer and Paralegal Directory, where a lawyer's licence can be looked up. The Ontario lawyers on this site are listed by city. Nothing on this page ranks or recommends any of them.