Thank you for joining me today a lot of our clients are charged with simple assault, a summary conviction minor assault, and I’m not talking about domestic assault, I cover this topic in a different domestic assault in different video but simple assault might be a firefight, it might be a fight with a friend, stranger, etc. And obviously, you know, most of them have no criminal records most of our clients and they want the charges dropped and how do I get these charges dropped? Mike, what do I do and it’s a little bit different context and domestic assault charges, game and drop but the same type of principles. But I decided to do a separate video for this because it is subtly different than you’ll see when I watched my domestic assault video What I mean by this so in a simple assault matter between strangers or friends and not domestics, here’s how to get it drunk. I’m going to order you hire me, your higher law firm. I’m going to order all of the disclosure, the police reports, the witness statements, the video statement, the complainant, every scrap of evidence the police have they give to the crown, and then they’re going to provide it to us and that’s a law in Canada, Stinchcomb Supreme Court of Canada requires that now I have all the documents and evidence I need to figure out your case and provide you with a legal opinion about what you should do with your case the strengths and merits of the Crown’s case, whether we can win, what are the odds of winning? What deal do I think I can get you I think get the charges dropped diversion, can I get a conditional discharge, the answers to all that is going to be in the disclosure, I’m going to have a good idea. Once I get that of what’s going on in your case. And then going after that process, which might take many hours depends on the case or surveillance video, there’s video complainants. I’m gonna have a pretty good idea about your case, but but I want to meet with you for various reasons. Number one, provide your legal opinion. But I need your input, I need your version of events. So then I can finalize my legal opinion. So once I have your version events in the context of reviewing them against the Crown’s version of events, now I can finalize my opinion and give you all those pointers about what we should do with your case what I think of it, and where we can go from here. So you then at the end of that process, and that might take multiple meetings, because number one, I like the client to provide a full written statement, I like them. I like to initially review the disclosure with them. And then I like them to review it on their own, which can take a day or more depending on the length of the case complexities and provide notes and statement about what happened. And once that point is achieved, I’m really in a position to hone in about what we should do and give you advice. Then you give instructions to me, even though it’s my advice, you’re the client, you make the decisions. Obviously I hope clients follow my legal advice. Some clients want to go to trial on weak cases, though, or, and they don’t follow the advice. And sometimes we win those weak cases, by the way. But I’m always hold for the client. It’s always in the best interest, I think for the client to follow advice, but it’s your decision. Everything your decision, it’s not mine. So the client says to me, well, Mike, you’ve told me we’ve got a pretty good case here. Let’s see what the crowd offers. It makes it Yeah, I got to see if I can get them to drop this charge. Because we’re, we’re looking pretty good. I think you got a pretty good chance of winning this. So I need to get your background now I like I need all about you. I need to spend an hour with you, at least sometimes to learn in your whole life history. What mitigating factors, lessening factors, can I show the crown that this case should be dropped? Because you’re a good person? It’s a weak case, or it’s a minor case. You know, there’s no injuries. It’s a one time thing. So with that in mind, I meet with the crown. And I’ve have several strategies during that meeting. First of all, I want to present all of your background. I want to point out to the crown weaknesses in the case. Is there any reasonable prospecting mission? If there’s not, I’m going to point that out. I look, you’ve got no case here, you got this witnesses all over the map. I’ve got witnesses who can beat this. I’ve got three of my his friends in the crowd. The crowd agrees with me, they should withdraw it. That’s the test to determine. Is there a reasonable prospect IE conviction? And is it in the public interest to continue with this prosecution? The answer to that is often not frankly, they’d have some weak cases. And it takes a courageous crowd to do that. Some of them just want to run cases, frankly, if they’re inexperienced or, or perhaps more conservative, it’s easier for them just run with a case well, we’ll go to just head to trial to win then I don’t like doing that in the sense it’s costing the client legal fees. So I do everything in my power to try and get this charge withdrawn early on. So if that happens, that’s great. Now the next step, they might say, well, we’re not willing to withdraw it. I think we got case here, but you know what, there’s no injuries, it’s a more minor case your clients, a good person will agreed early intervention, alternative measures, diversion, whatever you call it, there’s different names for these programs in Ontario, each county, you know, heard it, called Paul, those names, depending on the county will do some upfront counseling, get a report that you’re not a danger, everything’s going good in your life, you know, great person, Okay, wonderful letter of apology, maybe enter into a peace bond at the end of that process and the charge goes away, you just have to stay away from the victim for 12 months. So that’s all that’s often a great result. It’s not advisable for every situation, but in many situations, it is obviously if you’re guilty, and you’re going to lose, that’s a great result. We’d have to sit down and talk with you if you’re maintaining your innocence, that we’ve got a good chance of winning. And if the complainant, why the problem is they might lie again during the peace bond and get you arrested. So you have to be careful with that. But it’s usually often a great result. The third tear of a decent result if you’re in fact guilty is what’s called a conditional discharge where the crown I get the crown to agree to a joint submission that you plead guilty. Based on a conditional discharge, what that means is you would plead guilty in court. But because you’re good background, it’s more minor case the Crown’s agreeable, and because it’s in your best interest and not contrary to the public interest, the judge will discharge you on conditions meaning put you on probation for a period of one year, two year, three years, hopefully one year, obviously 12 months and keep the peace of good behavior, perhaps continue counseling not to see the not to associate me with the victim, maybe a weapons prohibition and that sort of thing. There can be a standalone weapon prohibition of five years for that as well, which is not a criminal record. It’s just not to have any weapons, and a weapons forfeiture order and my dad might might be in there if you possess weapons. So that’s often a good result. If you’re in fact guilty, and we don’t. And it’s you know, it’s a it’s a 5050 chance of winning the trolley, even some people who are guilty. And unfortunately, they don’t want the risk of going to trial. So the I’ve seen clients take that deal. Ultimately they sign instructions that they’re guilty that I have to know that they’re guilty, they have to sign those instructions. But you know, early on, they told me they’re not guilty, they changed their mind. I don’t know what’s in their mind. At that point. I just know that they said they’re guilty. Ultimately, I have my suspicions that some of them might just want to weigh the risk of trial. Clearly, if you’re not guilty, you might accept a version because that avoids everything and avoids the risk of trial. Or on the other hand at the crowds not offering a deals and we got a pretty good chance of winning off to trial we go now it is helpful. It is helpful in this situation. If the victim doesn’t want to proceed, say someone was in a firefight and they they wanted to charge this procedure that night. But reality they just got they consented to a fistfight and now they’re, you know, bearish they’re continuing some people some guys will say Look, I don’t want to go ahead just to do a peace bond. That’s helpful. It’s not up to the alleged victim or the victim but but it’s it’s helpful if they’re on board that way. But even if they’re not on board, many crowds who have the courage just to kind of deal is not up to the victim, the crowd will approach them and tell them and sometimes victims get mad at crowds decisions, but it’s often the appropriate with with no injuries. A minor assault, one time good person, it’s often appropriate result just to agree to a piece by to give the person a break. It’s often appropriate and slightly more serious charge to do a conditional discharge. But these depending on the fact situation, these are great results. The best rate to invest resulted courses note withdraw for all three of those results, withdraw peace bonds withdrawal as well. And conditional discharge, ultimately your fingerprints and photographs and file is going to be destroyed for withdrawal is never going to be on any type of criminal record check for a peace bond is going to come up on a level two and three check for a short period of time and then as you come off, not at a level one check which is just a basic criminal record check. And, you know, for conditional discharge, unfortunately, it’s going to come up on a level two that is a criminal records and judicial matters check for about three years I think it shouldn’t come up on a criminal record check but it’s that should be wiped off your record. And I don’t agree it should come up on anything by the way because it’s not, you can truthfully say you don’t have a criminal record. So we have some great results on assault matters, getting great deals and you know, more minor matters. When it’s more serious, it’s trickier. We often will head to trial if the clients innocent or will often negotiate to simply avoid a jail term, but you might wind up with a criminal record. I mean, it’s There’s injuries or you got a prior criminal record obviously you’re not going to get a matter diverted usually. But that anyway that’s how to, to get charges dropped and assault that I can tell you this comparing it to domestic assault, it’s a little bit easier to get assault charges dropped in. Domestic assaults are a bit political in the province. But as you when you watch my video in that you’ll see we’ve had good success in that realm as well, even though it’s trickier than the friend assaulter a stranger assault. So that’s that’s what happens. That’s how we negotiate and strategize to try and get assault charges dropped for our clients and Ontario. Thank you for watching our video, we are absolutely committed to bringing you the best possible criminal and DUI educational videos. If you found this video helpful, please like it and subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you’ve been charged with a criminal offence in Ontario and require our services, please click on the link in the description below.
