I want to talk to you today about the typical court process for an impaired driving or DUI charge in Canada and specifically in Ontario. This is an issue which we go over very carefully with our clients, they need to understand the general steps in the file and the typical timelines. That’s a very important question that they need. So what happens you’re arrested for DUI today, the they’re gonna release you likely if you have no prior record, obviously, on a promise to appear or an officer in charge undertaking now, that court dates going to be about three to six weeks down the road. You hire us, what do we do? Well, first of all, we have you sign a designation, that’s a court document we file, which we’re your lawyers, and that we appear for you the first appearance. Immediately we order the police reports, the disclosure, that’s all of the documents, we need to analyze your matter, police statements, witnesses, video statements, you name it, your video of you at the police station, that once we get those documents that allows us to provide you with a legal opinion about your case, what are the odds of winning? Can we win this case? Can we get a deal with the crown withdraw? What are the issues? Usually, the crown of course strives to get to that to us before the first court appearance, they often dope. If they do great, we’ll review it carefully. That says several, quite a few our process by the way, by the time I analyze the police reports, which could be 60 8090 100 pages, sometimes video statements at the police station as well. We have video surveillance of you, these are all important documents received. We sit down with you we review that carefully. We receive your version events, that meaning can be taken up to a couple hours sometimes and provide you with a legal opinion. We’re going to provide you with legal opinion what your basic odds of winning are. Whether we think there’s any case here whether we think you should plead guilty. What can we do with your cases the bottom line, that’s the key. Once I have the disclosure once I’ve met with you and this may be several meetings, I also want a statement taken from you in detail. I’m in a position to meet with the crown attorney pursuant to your instructions. I meet with the crown attorney and I say look, this client’s heading to trial. Let’s talk about court management time. What deal Are you offering Are you offering with dry Will you offer careless driving we have a fulsome discussion about this is the crown options a deal we like that’s great, we grab it because we’ve got a pretty good decent chance of winning the crown offices of careless driving and away we go we avoid a criminal record or they withdraw the charge if there’s no reasonable prospect of conviction. So those meetings are called crown pre trials, they can take place at any time after I review the disclosure. And it’s just a meeting with me in the crowd discussing your case. So we go to this first appearance, it automatically goes over 12 weeks that first appearance is just reporting mechanism where I say the Justice piece look we’ve been retained. The matters automatically going for 12 weeks pursuant to the designation is which is just a piece of paper a document you’ve signed. And we’re expected to do the normal steps in the file in that 12 weeks to move the file along. There may be missing disclosure which we request in order the crown is expected to get that to us. There may be ongoing meetings with you, we report back to you what the crowd said grab a deal if it’s great or we’re heading to trial. Now, if we’re we’ve got to deal with that can be done, we can move the court date ahead and do it any time. So don’t worry that the case has gone on for 12 weeks, that’s meaningless, because the steps in the file can take place within that 12 weeks. We can also move the court data head to either plead guilty to careless driving, plead guilty, the impair for a deal if you’re going that route, or we’re heading to trial. If we’re heading to trial, after I’ve had all of my meetings with the crown to fully discuss all the trial issues, how long the trial is going to take etc all the legal issues all the charter applications that need to be brought and the crown saying they won’t give us a deal but we think we have a decent chance of winning. Well now the next step is to organize which called a judicial pre trial. That is simply a meeting with a judge the crown myself and a judge meet not the trial judge but an independent judge who’s won’t be doing the trial. We’ll be discussing all the trial management issues the witnesses that are gonna be called the legal issues the factual issues. The judge might give their opinion about the odds of winning the judge might prompt the crown possibly look what do you offer a deal here they got a great case or not every judge is different, some like to intervene a little bit and, and others just stay hands off. You got to know your judges by the way because it’s important to try To find the right judge for additional pre trial if you can. Now, once we’ve had that judicial practice pre trial, usually we only need one sometimes we need to, we’re now in a position to set a trial date to how long is that going to take before we’re in a position to set a trial date? Well, in Ontario, you’re probably looking in the three to five months range before you’re fully prepared to actually set the trial day, you’ve got to have meetings with the client to crown judicial pre trial one or more. Now we can set the trial date, we organize the trial date with the with the trial coordinator, and then we set that in court. What are the timelines for that? Well, it depends on the county, some counties are very busy and very tied up others are not smaller counties that are not that busy, you’re going to get a trial date. Depending on the county, the earliest possible and this is really pushing it might be six or seven months Rarity, up to about 15, some counties nine to 12. If you told me a county in Ontario, I could tell you when the trial would approximately be, of course, the trial is expected to complete within 18 months from the date of arrest, or there might be a delay application to stay the charges that’s covered in another video. And of course, that the trial says 12 months down the road, we’re going to vigorously get ready we’re going to prepare I’m going to prepare you to testify that’s going to take hours I need to prepare myself for the trial, which is an ongoing process takes many hours. And we’re there to when we try and go to trial and cross examine we may call you as a witness. And we try and win the case. So the other thing to keep in mind in Ontario is we have what’s called stream a ignition interlock, covered in another video. Of course, in Ontario, currently, pursuant to COVID protocols that were brought in, you have 282 days to plead guilty to qualify for stream a some people. So there’s a limitation period if you don’t plead in that 282 days, you don’t get stream a I really encouraged you to watch my other video about what streaming means. Many clients choose to take that if they don’t have a winning case, or they’re not offered a deal. Because for them, it might be a good solution stream ignition interlock. Normally the limitation periods 90 days, I’m not sure if they’re going to go back to that post COVID, 90 days, because it was always pressured to enter guilty plea before COVID because he only had 90 days to enter that streaming. So that’s all changed. And I’ll have an update on that in the future when we get to COVID. Maybe they’re going to keep the limitation period of 282 days to be actually good thing if they if they did. So that in a nutshell is what happens for a summary conviction. DUI where we’re taking the file rate from the start for the date of the rest rate through the end of the trial. And if you resolve it in between. One thing to keep in mind, if you decide to resolve your charge that is plead guilty or get a deal for careless or hopefully get charged with Tron. These court dates can always be moved forward to do that. So we can do that very early on in the process. For example, if we get the disclosure and figure out you don’t have a ghost of chance of winning, but let’s get the best deal we can with the crown. Well, that court date that went over 12 weeks can be moved forward to do your guilty plea. That in a nutshell is the typical court process for a summary conviction DUI in 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.
