Articles & Publications

Law Articles by Calgary Criminal Lawyer, David G. Chow

Action Before Awareness – Lessons from Joseph Conrad and Kenneth Parks on Voluntary Conduct argues that in some cases, participants in the criminal justice system should think differently about action and intentionality in the criminal law

Musings of an Irrational Fear Mongerer – Gangs, Greyhounds and Mother Nature attempts to communicate that public fears of unlikely events are oftentimes irrational. The article cautions against sacrificing fundamental freedoms in the unreasonable pursuit of safety and security.

Qualified Reciprocal Disclosure is a paper on the need to protect from dissemination to witnesses on grounds that it is a form of mandatory defence disclosure.

Who is George Gaschler, Q.C.? - The Judicial Appointment Process is a discussion of the judicial appointment process in Alberta. The article suggests that the process lacks transparency.

Do you feel lucky punk? Prosecuting Consequences argues that in the right set of unfortunate circumstances, citizens may be prosecuted due to consequences rather than actual conduct.

Lest We Forget reminds us that we should not forget the citizens who were persecuted, interned, convicted and incarcerated in Canada for having done absolutely nothing wrong.

Hostile Environment for Criminals – At What Cost criticizes Alberta’s Premier for failing to account for fundamental principles engrafted into our criminal justice system.

Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing – Advocates as Experts urges that the Inquiry into Pediatric Forensic Pathology in Ontario should not be considered as an isolated event attributable to a single rogue expert, Dr. Charles Smith. Rather, the practice of qualifying experts to supply opinion evidence should be approached with extreme caution, especially in situations where State agents are offered as experts. Such witness may be advocates. The Goudge inquiry is an example of how things were, how they are and how they will be if we do not reconsider our approach to qualifying experts. Court’s ought to assiduously adhere to their gatekeeper function by protecting the trial process from infiltration by the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing.

The Wrong Way of Worldmaking: One Lawyer’s Opinion About the Dziekanski Inquiry criticizes police for fabricating reports pertaining to their involvement in the taser death of Polish immigrant, Robert Dziekanski. But for videotape depicting otherwise, RCMP would have led the public to believe that the tasering of Robert Dziekanski occurred because he raised a stapler in an aggressive manner and continued to battle after the first taser deployment. When asked about his notes as compared to the video under oath at the inquiry, Constable Kwesi Millington consistently answered, "I was wrong about that". Aside from the tragic death of the polish immigrant and the use of tasers as non-lethal weapons, other questions remain. In particular, if police are prepared to collaborate and fabricate reports, what is the jeopardy to Canadians caught-up in the criminal justice system?

Making Bad: The Big Brother Relationship Between Regulating Behavior and the Infosphere discusses the symbiotic relationship between regulation and information. The thesis of the paper is that the more society is regulated, the more information the State is able to collect about its citizens; and the more information collected, the easier it is for the State to regulate its people. Since law enforcement officials can only act in the execution of their duty, the more laws empowering them to invade the private lives of citizens, the more pervasive State power becomes. At some point legislators must ask, how much law is too much?

"In Alberta, First They Came" reminds us that public ennui is a dangerous response to State intrusions on individual liberty. The thesis of the paper is that the Alberta government and other State agencies have fuelled the public's demand for legal reform by engaging in a dubious fear mongering campaign. Though fear is an effective tool for advancing an agenda, irrational responses to unreasonable fears may have the effect of directly compromising our civil liberties and indeed our very way of life.

Fiction

Madame Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin is a fictional and satirical news-story with an air of reality. The story was written in response to the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in R. v. Russell Stephen Patrick, [2009] S.C.J. No. 17, which ruled that since garbage located on the fringe of private property is effectively abandoned, citizens who take out the trash have done “everything they can” to abandon their interest in the information contained therein. The writer’s view is that the decision represents a dangerous abrogation of the right to privacy.