Our firm represents many clients with charges as domestic assault, criminal harassment, assault, sexual assault, and a very common question that’s ask is “If I do some upfront counseling, will that assist in all in getting my charges dropped? Is there any way, upfront counseling will assist? In this particular situation, in very rare circumstances, it might. It has to be a situation where the crown really perceives that they have an inordinately week case, really, doesn’t meet their test, there test by the way is “is there any reasonable prospect of conviction?”. So let’s take a situation where, a domestic assault, occurs, the crown looks at their case, it’s just so weak, that they want to offer a peace bond, but they want something for that. And one of the things to do in this situation, if we can negotiate, is to do some upfront counseling, convince the crown you have taken all the steps, to rehabilitate yourself, but it has to be situation with the crown just doesn’t feel they are going to win though, there’s no question about that, so you might, then plead guilty to a peace bond that is a recognizance, to not associate or communicate with the victim and then the charges could get dropped. But I want to caution you, this rarely happens, there are some narrow situations where it could be helpful though. In another video, I discussed this situation where a counsellor could help you resolve the case to get the lightest deal possible to wear you do plead guilty. But again, I caution you, very narrow, but I have had many cases in my career where the crown felt they had a weak case, we did some upfront counseling, and negotiated a peace bond to withdraw the criminal charges.
