Charles
New Member
I am a Canadian who was charged with what you Brits call "drink driving." Rather than plead guilty, I hired a Calgary, Alberta lawyer who advertises himself as being one of the best with nothing but 5-star ratings on Facebook (I later surmised that he apparently deletes any negative ratings).
Anyway, my lawyer told me I had a reasonably strong case and so I went to trial before a judge (in Canada, we can only get a jury trial if the charges are extremely serious).
I was found guilty and given a somewhat higher fine than if I had admitted my guilt and not insisted on a trial. I guess that's fair enough as I had decided to roll the dice (although, strictly speaking, in Canada, defendants are not supposed to get a tougher penalty for insisting on a trial). There is no “trial tax,” in theory.
Unfortunately, my lawyer told me DURING THE TRIAL that the judge was writing out his decision BEFORE the defence had presented ANY evidence (he told me he had seen this particular judge do this before). In other words, the judge was hell-bent on convicting me before he had even heard from the defence.
I never stood a chance!
In a previous non-alcohol driving case, another lawyer had explained to me how he could often get a trial deferred to get a better judge, on a later date, if a particularly bad judge came up. That lawyer got my previous charge dropped down to a non-criminal traffic ticket (the judge who came up for that trial happened to be a middle-of-the-road, fair arbiter of justice).
The lawyer, in my second case, went through the motions, but he certainly didn't seem to care that much if I won or lost. Though he charged a lot, the bald-headed, bespectacled fellow looked down his nose at me (obviously, regardly me as a lowly criminal). For the record, while nothing to be proud of, my case did not involve any harm to person or property.
In any case, I can't identify the convict-'em-all, don’t-bother-me-with-any-evidence-from-the-defence judge in my second case. I can only say that he regularly appears in provincial court in Airdrie and Canmore, Alberta, Canada.
In summary, the only conclusions I can draw from this experience are: never commit a crime; beware that defence lawyers will tell you that you have a good chance of winning at trial even if you may not; and, an experienced defence attorney and facts on your side will not matter one little bit if you get the wrong judge.
Anyway, my lawyer told me I had a reasonably strong case and so I went to trial before a judge (in Canada, we can only get a jury trial if the charges are extremely serious).
I was found guilty and given a somewhat higher fine than if I had admitted my guilt and not insisted on a trial. I guess that's fair enough as I had decided to roll the dice (although, strictly speaking, in Canada, defendants are not supposed to get a tougher penalty for insisting on a trial). There is no “trial tax,” in theory.
Unfortunately, my lawyer told me DURING THE TRIAL that the judge was writing out his decision BEFORE the defence had presented ANY evidence (he told me he had seen this particular judge do this before). In other words, the judge was hell-bent on convicting me before he had even heard from the defence.
I never stood a chance!
In a previous non-alcohol driving case, another lawyer had explained to me how he could often get a trial deferred to get a better judge, on a later date, if a particularly bad judge came up. That lawyer got my previous charge dropped down to a non-criminal traffic ticket (the judge who came up for that trial happened to be a middle-of-the-road, fair arbiter of justice).
The lawyer, in my second case, went through the motions, but he certainly didn't seem to care that much if I won or lost. Though he charged a lot, the bald-headed, bespectacled fellow looked down his nose at me (obviously, regardly me as a lowly criminal). For the record, while nothing to be proud of, my case did not involve any harm to person or property.
In any case, I can't identify the convict-'em-all, don’t-bother-me-with-any-evidence-from-the-defence judge in my second case. I can only say that he regularly appears in provincial court in Airdrie and Canmore, Alberta, Canada.
In summary, the only conclusions I can draw from this experience are: never commit a crime; beware that defence lawyers will tell you that you have a good chance of winning at trial even if you may not; and, an experienced defence attorney and facts on your side will not matter one little bit if you get the wrong judge.
