Our law firm represents a lot of people who are charged with drug charges, whether it’s possession, or trafficking in narcotics. And, you know, the first thing clients won’t understand and that we explained to him as to how the court system works, the typical court process the timelines, what are the steps? Whether if we’re going to resolve your case, for example, by pleading guilty, or hopefully getting the charger would try to actually rate up to whether we’re heading to trial. Okay. So let me start, first of all with with some reconviction charges, the court process, this kind of lesser drug charges before right put put it that way. So what happens your let’s take it hypothetical, I always like to start with hypothetical so you’re charged today the police charge you they arrest you. And let’s say the release you on bail Officer in Charge undertaking or promise to appear, and they’re typically you know, give or take, they’re gonna give you a court date, like both three to six weeks down the road, maybe rarely sooner, but sometimes a little after that. So you hire our law firm, and what are the steps what’s going to happen? So aside from giving initial legal advice and meetings with you, the first thing we’re going to do is we’re going to order the disclosure. That’s all of the evidence, the police reports, witness statements, video statements, you name it, the crown attorney has to provide that to us. Now, the crown attorneys in the province, they are always striving to provide disclosure before the first court appearance, sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. So don’t worry about that, obviously, we we hope to receive that early on. But sometimes particularly more complex cases, it doesn’t arrive till well after even the first court appearance. So we’re going to appear for the first court appearance for you, we’re going to you’re going to sign a document called a designation and enhanced designations were called. And what that means is we’re your lawyers, effectively, we file that with the court, we show up to the first court appearance for you, you don’t have to even attend. And we just report the Justice piece that we’re acting for you and the matter automatically goes over for 12 weeks. That’s what happens. They brought that injuring COVID. I think they’re gonna keep it after COVID. But because it’s working well. Now, what are we expected to do in that 12 weeks, we’re we’re expected to complete as many steps on the file as possible to move your file along whether you’re pleading guilty, whether you’re heading to trial, or some other resolution where we’re hopefully the crowds withdrawing your charge if it’s a weak case. So we get let’s say we get the disclosure after the first court appearance, and that that’s often happens that way, we’re going to review all of that, we’re going to analyze it in the office that could take hours or days depending on the complexity of the case. Sometimes you get 1000s of pages of disclosure and wiretap cases or, or it could be a simple drug, marijuana drug possession. That’s illegal now. But other types of drugs that are still legal, by the way marijuana is trafficking is still illegal. So we’re going to analyze it, we’re going to look at the viability of whether it’s defendable. What do we think the Crown’s going to offer? What do you think we can negotiate, I’m going to give you legal advice, there’s going to be one or more meetings, you’re going to review the disclosure on your own as well provide a statement. And ultimately, I’m providing you with a fulsome legal opinion about what your options are, and what I think can be done with this file, I’m going to give you your odds of winning within a range, maybe they’re very good, maybe they’re pretty good. Maybe they’re 5050. Or, look, it’s a very strong key crown case. And we think you should resolve this. So with that in mind, and as per your instructions, I’m going to then meet with the crown. It’s called a crown pre trial. That, again, is a fulsome discussion about all aspects of the file. I’m going to find out from the crowd what they’re looking for in the case, and in a perfect world. They’re looking to try to charge or can it be diverted? Because it’s a minor charge and avoid a record? Are they looking for conditional discharge? Those are pretty good offers, if they got a good case against you. Because we’re avoiding criminal records? Or are we heading to trial because the crowds not playing ball, they’re asking for too long a sentence. And we’ve got a decent chance to win. If it’s a trial, the crown and I are to discuss all aspects of managing court time what the legal issues are, what applications are being brought by defense counsel or by the crown, how long court time is going to take witnesses are going to be called you name it, every aspect of what’s gonna happen in the trials being discussed. So we can effectively manage court time that that’s very important in our province to preserve court time and the courts expect us to give proper estimates. So I take that Back to you. I mean, I get the crowd’s position, I take it back to you. And hopefully I say there would drive the charge great deal we can we can bring the matter for the 12 weeks and get it withdrawn, or they’re offering conditional discharge, you know, it’s a strong case against your wedding records. Great, let’s do that. I might need a judicial pretrial to get approval from that I depending on the case, I might not. So don’t worry about the 12 week timeline matters can always be dealt with brought forward the real steps in these criminal files in a drug file, any criminal file takes place between the court appearances, the court appearances and I give a critique of this, it’s really useless court appearances, to be honest with you. It’s just a reporting mechanism, we’re just showing up in court the credit I telling the jaypee, what’s going on the Justice piece, what’s going on in the file, and it’s put over for another court date, to complete those steps. And all the real steps the meanings with the crowd means what judges means with you, my work in the file takes place doesn’t take place in court, it takes place out of court. So if you’re resolving it, we can do that fairly early on. timelines for that may be you know, even shortly after the first appearance, we may be able to plead guilty if you want to take that route. Back to take place in the one to five months range after the first appearance. On the other hand, you may decide to go to trial because the crowds not offering any deal and we got a decent shot chance of winning. After I have the crown pre trials. The next step I have to do is have a judicial pre trial one or more of those, usually we do it with one if it’s a minor charge lesser charge. Again, it’s a fulsome discussion between the crown myself and a judge about trial management issues. We’re trying to estimate court time I get to know the witnesses you’re being called, How many witnesses am I calling? am I bringing applications all with a view to each person, the crowd and I and the judge understanding what’s going to happen to the trial? And what’s the proper estimate of trial time. So assuming we’re able to keep that in one judicial pretrial, it may take two it might take three depending on the case. Now we’re in a position to set a trial date for you. So how many weeks are we in? Well, it’s probably unlikely that we’ve completed the judicial pre trial before the 12 weeks up as on your second appearance is probably gonna take place after that, that 12 weeks may even have to go but we’ll have to go over. But hopefully we’re in a position to set a trial date by your second or third court appearance. And for a minor case, how many months in are we right now? Well, we might be up to five months in we might be four, in some cases, even six depending the case. By the way, sometimes there’s missing disclosure, which we’re trying to get. And we can’t set a trial date till we get that there’s often missing disclosure, which I have to write the crown about. They haven’t provided certain evidence that they should, because they haven’t received it for the police’s yet. So when is the trial date going to be set? That’s always a vexing issue. It really depends on the county, every county in the province is different. Some are very business busy, you take Toronto, you take Brampton, they’ve got a lot of delays in their court system and trials get set way down the road. I mean, all the courts are booked every day. So you might not get a trial date. In those types of counties in busy counties for Oh, up to 15 months, even after your first court appearance or your date of arrest, and sometimes even 18. By the way, if it’s pushing passie teen, you might have a delay application under Section 11 b which are covered in another video, but usually they get set in lesser time. In less busy County, smaller counties, you know own sound walkerton little counties like this. St. Thomas, you might get a trial date. I guess real ambitious would be to say six to seven months after the first appearance. But in a perfect world, yes. But more likely maybe nine I suppose. What’s the average in the province I would say in the 12 to 15 range from the first court date. It’s hard to get quicker than that unless you’re in a smaller County, but it does happen sometimes trial courts open up. So that’s the trial and I cover trials in another video you can look at the trial process. You can look at how lawyers prepare for trial, how we prepare you there’s all these topics are covered. By the way, all of these little sub topics are covered judicial patrols, crown pre trials, first appearances designations, I cover these in all other videos in detail. And I encourage you to watch those. And again, in terms of your matter resolving that can be done fairly early. It may or may not require a judicial pre trial to have a judge approve the deal. Sometimes we don’t need approval sometimes in my discretion. I want you on a tricky case where it’s a real good choice submission that we Want to make sure that judges on board, so that can be done fairly early. So that that’s kind of the trial process for and resolution process for a more minor charge where it’s being tried the entire Court of Justice. But what happens with an indictable charge, like trafficking where the maximum sentence unfortunately, life in prison, this affords you more rights in terms of your election, you can elect a chair in court, a justice judge alone trial, you could elect a trial, a jury trial in the higher court, the Superior Court of Justice, or a judge alone trial is pretty Court of Justice. And also you’re entitled to a preliminary hearing, because it’s an over 14 year sentence. So if there’s a preliminary hearing, electrode me hearing you elect Superior Court with a preliminary hearing, that preliminary hearing takes place in the Ontario Court of Justice, that’s going to be the same timeline, I just told you, you know, the six to 18 months depending on the county, six to 15 months type thing, and depending on the county. That’s an evidentiary hearing. Again, I cover that another video, I encourage you to watch it. After the preliminary hearing, assuming you’re committed to trial, there was enough evidence to go to trial, your case then moves to Superior Court of Justice. Well, we’re already you know, nine to 15 to 18 months in, we’re in the Superior Court of Justice. That Matters going to get we have to have another judicial pre trial there. That’s an assignment court it’s it’s it’s called assignment court, it’s similar to cherry cut justice, remand court or case management court. Again, there might be a series of few remands, we have a judicial pre trial, your Madigan said trout would all said and done particularly on a jury trial, it might be close to 36 months. So we have your trial, maybe less, you know a bit again, the time, the time limitation for superior court is supposed to be 636 months. If it goes beyond that, you might have a delay application. But the time takes much longer for superior court. But in many cases, it’s beneficial to have a preliminary hearing in some cases, not in every case is different. So those are kind of the basic timelines for a less complicated drug case and a more complicated drug case. But the message I want to give you, you know, timelines really depend on the individual counties as well. Some are less busy than others. But we can manage your time we can bring matters for to deal with, so don’t worry that it’s taking long and the remand system if you want to plead guilty, though some people are in a rush to plead guilty by the way, because or withdraw could be brought forward so that the fact that it goes over a 12 week increment and then goes over another two months. Don’t worry about that if you actually want to resolve your charge, so that that’s a typical process and timelines for a drug charge in our interior court system. 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