Vaguely Misquoted, but still: point made!

The Province printed what I wrote yesterday - albeit misquotedly. The writer, Mr. Bopp, was completely sarcastic when he said "what's next?"

Oh, well. Misquotes are always happening. I'm always surprised when I'm in a courtroom and what's printed matches what happened.

The only person I've never been misquoted by is Susan Lazaruk of the Province. She wrote about me the day that Mr. Mercer was acquitted of first degree murder after spending five years in jail. I was justifiably proud that day.

How Time Passes!

So much has happened since May, I can hardly explain it all.

I had my first vacation in years, heading to Portugal, Greece and London. Friends had babies, my brother got engaged, and my fabulous assistant Melina became permanent and full time. I lost my beloved granddad but when I look out the window to Woodward's, I see, rising from the ashes, the place that my grandparents worked for 50+ years. Bittersweet, how this city is changing!

Lots of changes around the office have resulted in a lot of time out of the office and in court. We've won a ton of cases! If you've seen me in the news, you'll know that we've had a lot of success with murder, fraud, and sexual assault cases, and we won a landmark case on prisoner's rights in custody at the BC Court of Appeal. As always, our success rate in Impaired Driving and Driving Prohibitions remains very high.

As time marches on, I learn a lot every day. I'm lucky for the friends and colleagues (and friend-collegues!) who keep me going.

Posts will be more frequent, I promise!

Right to Silence - an update!

As an aside, I am very excited to be pursuing this issue at the Supreme Court of Canada on May 12, 2009 in a case called R v. Sinclair. In Sinclair, the issue will be whether an accused should have the right to a second access to counsel if they request it or whether they can have a lawyer present with them at the time of an interrogation. The law in Canada, unlike in the United States, is that an accused is permitted one access to counsel and counsel are not permitted in the interrogation room with an accused.

We want to be more like the United States in the ability to protect a client's rights and their access to counsel.

How crazy is that?? :-)

I'll keep you... posted!