Criminal Law Notebook:About

The Canadian Criminal Law Notebook is a legal reference covering the principles and rules set out by the Criminal Code and case law. The Canadian Criminal Code and the years of accompanying case law have created a dense field of law full of rules and exceptions that are not always readily known to most people including practitioners. This resource, in a modest way, attempts to overcome some of the limitations of paper resources by providing an accessible, easy to use, and comprehensive reference to Canadian criminal law. It does not attempt to provide any analysis or discussion on the interpretation of the case law. It provides only a starting point for deeper examination of legal topics.

These materials attempt to cover all aspects of Canadian criminal law. It is divided into five essential areas, substantive criminal law, criminal procedure, search and seizure, evidence and sentencing.

Work-in-Progress

Many articles are still a work in progress. However, improvement continues to happen daily where old articles are cleaned up and new articles are created. Unlike conventional legal publishing, there is no fixed and official version of this text and it will constantly be reviewed and updated without notice to the reader.

Written From Public Sources Only

All articles are sourced directly from the legislation and case law. No commercial texts were used in the writing of this text.

Feedback

Please feel free to contact the author, Peter Dostal, at [email protected] with any comments. You can also make requests for what you would like to see covered in more detail by posting anonymously on the feedback page, but please, no posting about the circumstances of your active cases.

Donations to Keep the Website Running

In order to keep this website up and free to everyone, please consider showing your appreciation by making a donation to help cover the website hosting costs. You may notice that the pages may not load all that fast. To keep the costs down I am using a shared server which means that the performance of the website will change. Also, as this website gets more and more popular, the performance will also go down. Contributions will increase the chances that one day the website could be migrated to a dedicated server with better performance. I hope you'll consider helping out.

The Author

I am a practicing lawyer based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. My career has been exclusively in the field of criminal law. I started working in criminal defence with the Nova Scotia Legal Aid program and joined the Nova Scotia Public Prosecution in 2011. I do some teaching at the Canadian Police College in Ottawa and Dalhousie Schulich School of Law. I am invited from time-to-time to do presentations on criminal law topics for general and professional audiences.

-- Peter Dostal, LLB ([email protected])

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