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TitlePLUS title insurance and you, together we have all the tools TitlePLUS title insurance and you, together we have all the tools. McKELLAR STRUCTURED SETTLEMENTS INC. www.mckellar.com 1-800-265-8381 www.mckellar.com ckellar_LT_Jan14_08.indd 1 $3.55 • Vol. 20, No. 231/8/08 3:03:02 PM Inside This Issue 3 The LSUC Honours 6 Social Justice 9 Focus On Legal Specialists & Boutiques Quote of the week "As was the case with brownfi elds, lawyers will take a while to understand that it's not just a matter of throwing a few words into an agreement — environmental concerns have become way more complex." — John Willms, senior partner, Willms & Shier Environmental Lawyers LLP See New, page 10 A Covering Ontario's Legal Scene titleplus.ca tlePlus_LT_Jan26_09.indd 1 Did cops assault Crown? Lawyer says strip search unnecessary BY ROBERT TODD Law Times Crown lawyer is seeking sexual as- sault charges against a pair of To- ronto police offi cers, saying they subjected him to an unnecessary strip search beyond their authority. Roger Shallow, 37, last year took the claim to Justice of the Peace David Hunt, who denied the request for the laying of charges. Shallow was back in court at 361 University Ave. last week, with his lawyer Donald McLeod, requesting that Superior Court Justice Ian Nordheimer return the matter to provincial court based on al- legations that Hunt — a former lawyer who released 77 pages of reasons for his decision — made errors. Hunt heard the matter during a three- day pre-enquête. Shallow is now seeking an order granting mandamus with respect to that hearing. Th e allegations stem from Shallow's October 2007 arrest in Toronto's club dis- trict for causing a disturbance and assault to resist arrest. McLeod said after the ar- rest the black Crown lawyer was unlawfully subjected to a strip search in which he was forced to "manipulate his sexual organs." Shallow previously had assault charges laid Donald McLeod, above, says police acted beyond their legal authority with his client Roger Shallow who is a Toronto Crown attorney. McLeod claimed the circumstances sur- against the offi cers who arrested him during the incident. Th ose charges were dropped earlier this year as requested by British Columbia law- yer Richard Peck, who took over the case for the Crown as special prosecutor. Peck said there was no reasonable prospect for conviction. Th e charges against Shallow have also been dropped. rounding the strip search do not amount to a "traditional" sexual assault. He argued that the "level three" search was not necessary and that the offi cers had acted beyond their lawful authority in conducting it, raising the matter to the level of sexual assault. While taking such a complaint to the Police Services Board is an option, McLeod said the public has the right to seek criminal charges also. He argued that when police act outside of their legal authority, they must be "treated as laypersons." He suggested that the idea of keeping com- plaints against police within the PSB process is akin to remedying an incident of sexual as- sault via a family meeting. McLeod argued that police had already searched Shallow, and that it was clear he See 'High hurdle', page 2 AG joins probe into juror background checks BY TIM NAUMETZ For Law Times OTTAWA — Ontario Attorney General Chris Bentley has joined an inquiry into the extent Crown pros- ecutors have improperly — and pos- sibly illegally — used police sources to screen prospective jurors. Th e letter went out in mid-June, just two weeks after Bentley said only that his ministry was "calling around" to Crown attorney offi ces and that the inquiries showed the practice of jury vetting did not seem widespread, according to media cov- erage of his comments at the time. Cavoukian's offi ce issued an up- general was taking part in the inquiry. Th e move could mean a shift in focus from privacy rights of jurors and the Crown's failure to share information with defence counsel to the legal consequences of prosecutors using information from police computer databases to select jurors they might believe These are public servants; how come they're not telling us what they're doing? If their people have engaged in misconduct, you don't think the public has the right to know what misconduct they've engaged in. Bentley jointly wrote a letter with Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian containing detailed questionnaires to all 54 Crown prosecution offi ces in the province "to determine the nature and extent of this practice," a spokesman for Bentley confi rms to Law Times. date on her investigation into jury vetting on June 15, mentioning Bentley's assistance in the state- ment's second paragraph. But there is no record of Bent- ley's offi ce issuing an announcement of his role, and defence lawyers were unaware last week that the attorney would be more likely to convict. "Th e priorities in all cases are a fair trial process and the protec- tion of privacy," Brendan Crawley, a spokesman for Bentley, tells Law Times. "We take the privacy interest of jurors seriously and will be work- ing with the privacy commissioner to ensure respect for privacy protections in the context of fair trial rights." Th e failure of Crown attorneys to disclose the information to defence counsel in at least two instances — one that resulted in a mistrial for a murder case in Windsor — has been central to a windstorm of de- fence counsel objections. Law Times has learned the Criminal Lawyers' Association re- cently wrote to John Ayre, Bent- ley's assistant deputy attorney general in the ministry's criminal law division, to make an unprec- edented demand that could have sweeping implications for past convictions across the province. Th e association is seeking a written record of all the relevant information available from police and Crown attorneys. See Like, page 2 WHICH DIRECTION IS BEST FOR YOU? summer special.indd 1 RainMaker Group 110 Yonge Street, Suite 1101 Toronto, Ontario M5C 1T4 Untitled-7 1 Tel: 416-863-9543 Fax: 416-863-9757 www.rainmakergroup.ca www.lawtimesnews.com 5/29/08 1:05:49 PM 7/10/09 11:29:59 AM July 13/20, 2009 1/20/09 12:14:52 PM Summer Subscription Special 35% Save See page 18 Photo: Robert Todd