Heat wave!

Hey everyone,

Am home at a decent hour tonight (8pm!) and figured that I'm almost overdue for an entry. I'm very thankful for the miracle of A/C right about now, as Toronto broke a 1944 record today for the hottest May 26th ever! While I've survived a few summers in Ottawa and am no stranger to central Canadian heat, even this is a bit excessive, especially for "spring."

A few major highlights over the past couple weeks. First, frequent readers are probably wondering how my trial went, and the answer is that it ended up being a bit anticlimactic. On the Friday before, my client (wisely, in my view) decided to accept an offer from the Crown, and entered a guilty plea. I know it wasn't easy for him, because it's very scary to essentially turn your fate over to a judge, but in the end he saved himself the ordeal of a  trial that he probably would have lost (we had canvassed the facts for defences over and over, but there just wasn't a whole lot we could do) and by entering the plea and accepting responsibility, the judge ended up seeing him in a fairly positive light and he got a very reasonable outcome (including no permanent record, which was very important to him). One of the interesting things I learned from the day was that in criminal practice, much of your prep work is often never used, but it's always important to have it there because you never quite know what will happen or what clients will do. Law is, after all, a business about people, who can be unpredictable in the best of times.

Since then, I've had quite a few ups and downs. The most satisfying moment of the past couple weeks was on Friday, when I was doing a sentencing submission in front of a judge. My client was a 19-year old kid whose family had only recently arrived in Canada from the Philippines. He also had some very significant mental and physical health conditions that had been untreated for a long time, and when he had a bad patch last year, he ran away from home and broke into a Tim Horton's at night and stole some money out of the registers. He had no prior record and seemed to be a good kid who just made a significant mistake. Unfortunately, the Crown had taken a fairly tough position (because the TH where he stole from used to be his employer, an aggravating factor) and were seeking a conditional sentence, which is basically a house arrest which if violated, automatically results in jail-time. We don't usually handle cases like these at the clinic, but because the Crown's position was initially unclear, we took it on, and the file got passed to me for the sentencing.

Before the hearing, I did a lot of research about his health issues and the steps he's taken since his arrest to get back on track. I was well-prepared and told his story in front of the judge, who accepted my submissions and instead ordered a suspended sentence, which is more akin to probation and has less draconian terms than a conditional sentence. The client's mother was present, and after the court let out she teared up in relief and gave me a hug, thanking me for ensuring her son avoided jail, which would have been awful for him.

This was by far the most rewarding moment of my year here in Toronto, and helped me realize how fortunate I am to have access to the legal profession, which still has so much power and capacity to help people. I'm really not sure if criminal practice is where my future lies, but I'm at least more aware that even on the defence side, which is often demonized, there are real opportunities to do something positive and find some good in what usually starts off as a bad situation.

On the horizon, I've got another matter likely to go to trial on June 3rd that I'm working away at. I've also started to settle into my role as the "Tech" exec at the clinic, and over the long weekend I managed to implement a server fix which seems to have fixed a huge error that was causing tons of trouble over the past six months! I even had to teach myself a significant amount of Linux to get the job done - so I guess I really am learning something new everyday.

That's about all the news on the legal front- on a more personal level, I've had some mixed news. On a bit of a down note, my little brother has decided to head back to NS for next year. He had a tough year with his classes here, and wants to finish his Masters at Dal, where he is on much better terms with his old supervisor. So he'll be heading back home soon, and I will miss his company, even though I know it's for the best - it's been fun living with a family member for the first time in 8 years! Fortunately, I've already found a new place for next year, and am excited to move a little bit closer to campus in August - I'll be in the St Clair/Christie area very close to the Wytchwood Barns, which is this really cool reclaimed space in the City that's used for conferences, art exhibitions, and even a farmer's market in the summer. It's also 10 mins on the subway to school, which will definitely be handy! Finally, I'm very much looking forward to a very brief weekend trip to Ottawa for the June 5-6 weekend coming up very soon - it'll be our 1-year canada@150 reunion, and seeing some friendly & familiar faces from the public service is just what the doctor ordered for a slightly burned-out law student :)

Take care everyone!

Jay