Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan

This week on Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan: In Canada, murder can be either first or second degree. A conviction for either kind of murder results in a mandatory life sentence. With first-degree murder, however, a person must wait 25 years before they can even ask for parole. For second-degree, the judge can decide how long someone would need to wait before being allowed to ask for parole...

This week on Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan: The British Columbia Medicare Protection Act purports attempts to protect Medicare by prohibiting any doctor from charging any more than what Medicare pays for any service that it covers and effectively prohibiting people from purchasing private insurance for any of these services. These market interventions, combined with insufficient funding f...

This week on Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan: In August of 2018, two sisters were walking their dogs on Central Saanich Road in Saanich BC when a vehicle struck them. One of the women, and her dog, were killed. The other woman survived with devastating injuries. The woman who survived spent a year in the hospital. Her injuries included broken ribs, a spinal injury, and damage to an eye. Mos...

This week on Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan: Twenty-five years ago, a man and his family moved into a home they had built in the Highlands with only a temporary occupancy permit. A final occupancy permit was never obtained, and the lack of compliance was noted on title. As his wife passed away and his children had moved out, the homeowner decided it was time to sell the home. The homeowner...

This week on Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan: An appeal in a criminal case does not involve asking the judges hearing the appeal to retry the case. It’s a review of what took place at the original trial. The Court of Appeal can allow an appeal if the verdict at trial was unreasonable and not supported by the evidence, if there was a wrong decision made by a trial judge on a question of law,...

This week on Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan: Bill C-21 proposes various amendments to the Criminal Code and Firearms Act to restrict gun ownership. One part of the legislation is a proposal to freeze the sale or transfer of handguns. This has already had the unintended consequence of causing handgun sales to skyrocket in anticipation of the possibility of sales being stopped. As currently...

This week on Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan: When the divorced father of an adult child with learning disabilities was diagnosed with terminal cancer, he established a trust with $750,000 to provide for his son following his death. As he had been through an acrimonious divorce, the father was concerned that his ex-wife did not get access to the funds for her own purposes. To prevent this t...

The week on Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan: The Supreme Court of Canada has found that making people ineligible to even apply for parole for 150 years is cruel and unusual punishment. In 1967 Canada repealed the Criminal Code provisions that allowed people convicted of murder to be put to death by hanging, except in the case of on-duty police officers and prison guards. These last exceptio...

This week on Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan: Section 530 of the Criminal Code provides a right to a trial in either English or French. It also requires a judge or justice “before whom an accused first appears” to inform accused people of this right. If someone requests a trial in French or English no later than the time set for their trial, it is mandatory that this be provided. If a reque...

This week on Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan: Criminal offences require two things, often described with Latin names: actus reus and mens rea. Actus reus is an intentional physical act. Mens rea is a guilty mind. We don’t wish to convict people for physical acts that were not intentional: crashing your car when you have a heart attack or tripping and falling into someone else would not be c...

This week on Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan: The leaked draft decision on abortion from the US Supreme Court has raised questions concerning the law in Canada. For 100 years in Canada, from 1869 until 1969, having or performing an abortion was a criminal offence in Canada. In 1969 the Criminal Code was amended to permit abortions but only when a committee of doctors certified that a woman’...

There are a relatively small number of people who are responsible for a high volume of property crime and associated public disorder. There are a large number of police interactions with people committing offences such as shoplifting, mischief, possession of stolen property, possession of drugs, and breaching previous orders. This has resulted in frustration and a recent letter from BC Urban Mayor...

This week on Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan: An RCMP officer from Nanaimo is on trial for assault causing bodily harm after he is alleged to have punched a detainee in the eye causing a fractured orbital bone. The complaint in the case was arrested on her 19th birthday after her friends called the police for help because she was so drunk. The RCMP officer that attended was unable to find a...

This week on Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan: Section 8 of the Charter provides that everyone has the right to be free from unreasonable search or seizure. A search conducted by the police, without prior judicial authorization, is presumptively unreasonable. One of the exceptions to this principle is that police are permitted to conduct searches incidental to a lawful arrest. If a police of...

This week on Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan: Unlike criminal cases, where there is always a next appearance date scheduled in court until a case is completed, civil cases are generally moved along by the plaintiff. The case discussed on the show involved a civil claim resulting from an apparently defective drop-side crib. The issue was identified in 2009 and resulted in the crib manufactur...

This week on Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan: The Criminal Code permits judges to make orders for the forfeiture of the proceeds of crime. When the proceeds of crime are not readily accessible because they cannot be located, have been transferred to a third party, are outside of Canada, or for various other reasons, a judge can order a “fine in an amount equal to the value of the property”....

This week on Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan: British Columbia has a special provincial sales tax that applies to all legal bills. It is supposed to be dedicated to funding legal aid. The tax now collects more than twice the amount that is provided for legal aid. The extra, more than $100 million per year, is used for general government revenue and, as a result, the legal aid system in Brit...

This week on Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan: Equity is a body of law that was originally developed in the English Court of Chancery. It was distinct from the common law, prior to English reforms in the 1870s. Since then, in England, and other jurisdictions with an English legal tradition including Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, equity is the origin of legal principles including the la...

This week on Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan: Two men charged with criminal contempt for breaching an injunction prohibiting interference with the construction of the Trans Mountain Pipeline plead guilty and were sentenced. Neither man had a previous criminal record. The first man was a 69-yead old, retired university professor. He had climbed a tree and used a bicycle lock around his neck,...

This week on Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan: As a matter of public policy, courts will not recognize a benefit accruing to a criminal for his crime. As a result, a murderer cannot collect life insurance or a gift in a will from the person they murdered. A recent BC Supreme Court case considered how the estate of a mother, who was murdered by one of her two adult sons, should be divided. Th...

This week on Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan: More than 400 people are being prosecuted for criminal contempt arising from alleged breaches of an order from the BC Supreme Court that prohibits people from obstructing logging at Fair Creek.  This has resulted in some logistical issues with large numbers of accused people requiring legal advice prior to entering pleas and fixing dates for tri...

This week on Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan: The first case discussed on the show involved three First Nations Children who were brought to BC from Saskatchewan to live with their grandmother. The parents of the children were unable to care for them because of ongoing alcohol and substance abuse. Shortly after they arrived the grandmother found marijuana in the effects of one of the childr...

This week on Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan: The Provincial Court in British Columbia handles 95% of criminal cases, as well as many family law cases, youth, small claims, and ticket disputes. The 2020 / 2021 annual report from the court is discussed on the show. Significant changes during this time include that 77% of all appearances in Provincial Court were technology-enabled: at least o...

This week on Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan:  The BC Court of Appeal allowed an appeal by Teal Cedar extending an injection against people attempting to physically prevent the company from logging. The original interim injunction was not renewed by a judge because of concerns with respect to how the RCMP was enforcing the injunction and the fact that the conduct of the people attempting to...

This week on Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan: An appeal by a 13-year-old girl who was found to be not criminally responsible as a result of a mental disorder (NCRMD) provides insight into how criminal law deals with mental illness. The girl in question was described as having a childhood that was troubled: a history of neglect, a family history of substance use, mental health issues and sui...