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July 11, 2016

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Page 16 July 11, 2016 • law Times www.lawtimesnews.com LAW FOUNDATION WELCOMES NEW CHAIRWOMAN Lawyer Linda Rothstein is set to become the first chairwoman of the Law Foundation of On- tario's Board of Trustees. Rothstein is a partner at Blake Cassels & Graydon LLP, who does civil and administrative liti- gation and has expertise in public law.The board had never elected a woman as chairperson before. "It's a real honour to take on this role," Rothstein said. "I'm regularly moved and impressed by the projects we fund; from teaching youth about their human rights to training front-line work- ers to assist women who have experienced domestic violence. We have a real opportunity and responsibility at the foundation to fund work that is actually making a difference and addressing people's le- gal needs." Rothstein is also a past president of the Advocates' Society and formerly served as a bencher in the Law Society of Upper Canada from 2007 to 2015. She will replace Paul Schabas, who stepped away from the position of chairman after he was elected to be the next trea- surer of the law society in June. FIDLER RECEIVES AWARD OF EXCELLENCE Lawyer Jonathan Fidler is set to receive an award from the Ontario Bar Association for excellence in alternative dispute resolution. Called to the bar with hon- ours in 1975, Fidler is a certified specialist in civil litigation, who works as a mediator and arbitra- tor with Malach Fidler Sugar & Luxenberg LLP. In addition to personal in- jury, he has practised negligence and insurance litigation. The OBA award recognizes excellence in the practice of al- ternative dispute resolution as well as writing, teaching, and mentoring in the field. "Jonathan's nominator gave him the highest praise," said Kevin Johnson, the OBA alter- native dispute resolution section chairman. "He is an exceptional advo- cate of the ADR process, while serving to educate and promote the skills and techniques needed to advance ADR." Fidler will be given the award at a dinner Oct. 27. INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL LAW SYMPOSIUM The Centre for International Governance Innovation is set to hold a one-day symposium that will explore new ways to translate international environ- mental law into practice. Participants will hear from lawyers and judges that deal with environmental compliance is- sues. The symposium, which is free but requires registration, will take place July 20 at the CIGI Campus in Waterloo, Ont. For more information or to register, e-mail mtaws@cigionline.org. YES, I AGREE 48 % 52 % NO, I DO NOT AGREE LAW TIMES POLL Law Times reported recently that a Senate committee is inves- tigating how to help prisoners with mental health issues, in- cluding the use of solitary con- finement. Readers were asked if they thought solitary confinement should be banned. About 48 per cent said yes, solitary confinement should be banned and that it is a travesty that such an inhumane practice is still being used to "treat" men- tal health problems in a devel- oped nation such as Canada. The remaining 52 per cent said no, while solitary confinement may not always be appropriately used, it still has a valid use in cer- tain situations in order to amend prisoners' behaviour. LT u Bizarre Briefs By Viola James u The InsIde story "I know that nowadays non-lawyers are accepting carriage of certain family law matters, but the judge might draw the line at your pit bull." WILL THEY SUE? SAN ANTONIO, Texas — While some people might think listening to motivational speaker Tony Robbins is torturous enough, the suffer- ing wasn't over for dozens of people that attend- ed a recent event. As many as 40 people were injured after walking on hot coals as part of a self-help seminar hosted by Robbins in Dallas, fire officials said. Attendees of the "Unleash the Power Within" event reported burns to their feet and legs, Dal- las Fire and Rescue spokesman Jason Evans said. "A lot of the attendees were asked to walk across hot coals, and as a result, a lot of the peo- ple sustained burn injuries," Evans said. Of the 30 to 40 people injured, five were treated at a hospital burn unit, Evans said. The others were treated and released at the scene. It was unclear how many participated in the coal walk. The three-day seminar is intended to help people "break through any limit" and improve their quality of life, according to a description posted on Robbins' web site. Representatives for Robbins, who is a popu- lar motivational speaker, personal finance ad- viser, and bestselling author, were not immedi- ately available for comment. BAD IDEA #1 PINECREST, Fla. — Does social media inspire people to say and do stupid things? The verdict is out, but a burglar who posted a Facebook video bragging about a $500,000 jewelry haul has landed himself and one of his accomplices in jail. Officers from Pinecrest, Fla. said they ar- rested Raderius Glenn Collins, 18, after he up- loaded the video to Facebook. His friend, Mar- cus Terrell Parker, 27, was arrested after another burglary, police said. They are still searching for a third suspect, who is seen in the video in the passenger seat of the car f lashing $100 bills to the camera. The video, which runs more than seven minutes long and has more than 3,000 views, showed the men bragging about their illegal earnings, exclaiming: "We got a safe" and "Can someone say cheque, please?" The man in the driver's seat makes sure the traffic light is still red and proceeds to proudly reveal his bag of cash to the camera while the other two men cheer. The burglars stole a safe from a home with jewelry valued at more than $500,000. Police say Collins and Parker later burglarized a sec- ond home and stole jewelry valued at more than $10,000 and a screwdriver that would later tie one of the arrested men to the burglary. One of the arrested subjects told police that he and the other two subjects sold the stolen jewelry to a jewelry and watch shop and received $1,300 each in return. Michelle Hammontree, communications director for Pinecrest, said the Facebook video helped police establish a link between the burglary and the jewelry store, where the suspects pawned their ill-gotten goods. BAD IDEA #2 SAO PAULO, Brazil — A man has been arrested for trying to extinguish the Olympic torch by throwing a bucket of water over it as it passed through his farming town of Maracaju in cen- tral Brazil. The torch is on a 20,000-kilometre voyage through about 300 Brazilian cities before ar- riving in Rio de Janeiro for the Games' opening ceremony. A video, available on YouTube, showed a heavy spray of water thrown indiscriminately over the group around the torchbearer by some- one out of view. The Olympic f lame continued to burn, vid- eo footage showed. Police arrested a 27-year-old at the scene for damaging public property. LT Linda Rothstein will be the first chair- woman of the Law Foundation of Ontario's Board of Trustees. 40 issues a year covering Ontario's legal landscape FREE digital edition and unlimited online access to past issues FREE Canadian Legal Newswire, a weekly e-newsletter from the editors of Law Times and Canadian Lawyer Juror ruling prompts call to look at Criminal Code BY TALI FOLKINS Law Times ith the Ontario Court of Appeal having ruled on jurors' use of extrinsic informa- tion in a recent case, the president of the Criminal Lawyers' Association says it may be necessary to amend the Criminal Code in order to get a better handle on the issue. "You can't say if jurors are or are not doing this at any level that is ap- preciable because you only find out in the rare case where a juror hap- pens to mention something," says Anthony Moustacalis. "Maybe jurors really do obey the judge's instructions. In my experi- ence, it seems that they generally do. But do I really know? The an- swer is no. Maybe they're Googling stuff all the time." The only way to know for sure and assess the necessity of any changes to the jury system, accord- ing to Moustacalis, is to amend the Criminal Code to allow research- ers to interview jury members anonymously about their experi- ences. "The fact of the matter is that people are people and they might not always remember the limits of what they're allowed to do or they might stray," he says. The comments follow the ap- peal court's ruling in R. v. Farinacci, a case that demonstrated the ease with which jurors can now find information about the defendant outside of the evidence presented during the trial. In their ruling on June 3, a panel of three judges re- fused to overturn the convictions of two brothers for possession of the proceeds of crime and conspiracy to traffic in cocaine. The brothers, Lucas Farinacci and Leonard Fari- nacci Jr., had argued their right to a fair trial had been compromised because jurors in the case, with the help of Google and other sources, had come across information about them that hadn't come up in court. The appeal came about as a result of a chance event at a coffee shop. Prior to sentencing but after the brothers' conviction, someone at the coffee shop overheard one of the ju- rors, in a conversation with a friend, mention that another me mber of Zero-tolerance conundrum Lawyers say pendulum has swung too far against accused in domestic violence cases BY TALI FOLKINS Law Times he justice system has taken the idea of zero toler- ance in domestic assault to such an extreme that it's unfair to defendants and no longer works in the best interests of Ontario families, says a 40- year veteran of criminal law. It's an opinion, however, vociferously opposed by at least one lawyer who helps victims of domestic violence. Leo Adler, of Adler Bytensky Prutschi Shikhman, says the issue of domestic assault has become "political football" over the last 25 to 30 years with largely undesirable results. While Adler emphasizes he doesn't want to diminish the tragedy of family violence, he says the situation has now reached a point where police called to family violence situa- tions are unduly afraid to release the defendant even in cases that don't appear serious. "Nobody wants to be the person who says, 'O.K., I'm going to release you,' because you might be the one in a million or whatever the statistic is who might end up killing your spouse," says Adler. "In a lot of these cases, there's no sign of violence, there's no sign of anything having occurred. You simply have the word of the complainant. And the person gets arrested and I can tell you that again in the majority of cases, the police don't even bother to try to take a statement from the accused, usually the male. . . . They don't ask because it doesn't make a difference because they're going to arrest you no matter what." Bail hearings in domestic violence cases, he says, are "a l- ways run on the presumption of guilt" and, if the court does grant bail, it's generally under strict conditions with the de- fendant required to live with a surety. The result, according to Adler, is often a divided family with the added financial strain OBA LAUDED Association honoured for mental-health efforts P4 CAMPAIGN SPENDING Bencher candidate calls for expense limits P6 FOCUS ON Legal Innovation 'In a lot of these cases, there's no sign of violence, there's no sign of anything having occurred,' says Leo Adler. Photo: Robin Kuniski See Silence, page 2 See Bail, page 2 There's no way to know if jurors are doing their own research on cases, says Anthony Moustacalis. PM #40762529 & $#&!& t7PM/P Follow LAW TIMES on www.twitter.com/lawtimes L AW TIMES T W Juror ruling prompts call to look at Criminal Code BY TALI FOLKINS Law Times ith the Ontario Court of Appeal having ruled on jurors' use of extrinsic informa- tion in a recent case, the president of the Criminal Lawyers' Association says it may be necessary to amend the Criminal Code in order to get a better handle on the issue. "You can't say if jurors are or are not doing this at any level that is ap- preciable because you only find out in the rare case where a juror hap- pens to mention something," says Anthony Moustacalis. "Maybe jurors really do obey the judge's instructions. In my experi- ence, it seems that they generally do. But do I really know? The an- swer is no. Maybe they're Googling stuff all the time." The only way to know for sure and assess the necessity of any changes to the jury system, accord- ing to Moustacalis, is to amend the Criminal Code to allow research- ers to interview jury members anonymously about their experi- ences. "The fact of the matter is that people are people and they might not always remember the limits of what they're allowed to do or they might stray," he says. The comments follow the ap- peal court's ruling in R. v. Farinacci, a case that demonstrated the ease with which jurors can now find information about the defendant outside of the evidence presented during the trial. In their ruling on June 3, a panel of three judges re- fused to overturn the convictions of two brothers for possession of the proceeds of crime and conspiracy to traffic in cocaine. The brothers, Lucas Farinacci and Leonard Fari- nacci Jr., had argued their right to a fair trial had been compromised because jurors in the case, with the help of Google and other sources, had come across information about them that hadn't come up in court. The appeal came about as a result of a chance event at a coffee shop. Prior to sentencing but after the brothers' conviction, someone at the coffee shop overheard one of the ju- rors, in a conversation with a friend, mention that another me mber of Zero-tolerance conundrum Lawyers say pendulum has swung too far against accused in domestic violence cases BY TALI FOLKINS Law Times he justice system has taken the idea of zero toler- ance in domestic assault to such an extreme that it's unfair to defendants and no longer works in the best interests of Ontario families, says a 40- year veteran of criminal law. It's an opinion, however, vociferously opposed by at least one lawyer who helps victims of domestic violence. Leo Adler, of Adler Bytensky Prutschi Shikhman, says the issue of domestic assault has become "political football" over the last 25 to 30 years with largely undesirable results. While Adler emphasizes he doesn't want to diminish the tragedy of family violence, he says the situation has now reached a point where police called to family violence situa- tions are unduly afraid to release the defendant even in cases that don't appear serious. "Nobody wants to be the person who says, 'O.K., I'm going to release you,' because you might be the one in a million or whatever the statistic is who might end up killing your spouse," says Adler. "In a lot of these cases, there's no sign of violence, there's no sign of anything having occurred. You simply have the word of the complainant. And the person gets arrested and I can tell you that again in the majority of cases, the police don't even bother to try to take a statement from the accused, usually the male. . . . They don't ask because it doesn't make a difference because they're going to arrest you no matter what." Bail hearings in domestic violence cases, he says, are "a l- ways run on the presumption of guilt" and, if the court does grant bail, it's generally under strict conditions with the de- fendant required to live with a surety. The result, according to Adler, is often a divided family with the added financial strain OBA LAUDED Association honoured for mental-health efforts P4 CAMPAIGN SPENDING Bencher candidate calls for expense limits P6 FOCUS ON Legal Innovation P8 'In a lot of these cases, there's no sign of violence, there's no sign of anything having occurred,' says Leo Adler. Photo: Robin Kuniski See Silence, page 2 See Bail, page 2 There's no way to know if jurors are doing their own research on cases, says Anthony Moustacalis. PM #40762529 & $#&!&jmmm$cYa[bbWh$Yec t7PM/P +VOF Follow LAW TIMES on www.twitter.com/lawtimes L AW TIMES T W Subscribe to Law Times today for $199* and receive: Canlawyer.lawtimes@thomsonreuters.com | 416.609.3800 | 1.800.387.5164 Access a free preview at: bitly.com/LawTimes-FreePreview Order online at: www.lawtimesnews.com/subscribe *Plus applicable taxes How the legal community in Ontario gets its news @lawtimes Untitled-5 1 2016-07-06 10:08 AM

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