Swarming
- Thread starter gerryh
- Start date
Yep, I got it. Thanks.
Down this way, assault or assault and battery is a "misdemeanor," defined as a crime carrying a maximum punishment of one year or less in prison. Aggravated assault generally involves a weapon, a group of attackers, deliberately maximizing damage (called "assault with intent to maim" in some states), or a particularly helpless victim, like a young child or a severely disabled person.
Whether these idiots stand in Provincial Court Summary conviction of 2yrs less a day or less in jail or Indictable Conviction in Court of Queens Bench for possible 2yrs+ in prison remains to be seen.
Of course. I'm going to assume until told otherwise that your Crown, like our prosecutors, have considerable discretion in what to charge.
Do you have plea bargaining? Where the Crown says "if you'll plead guilty to a lesser charge, we'll forgo hitting you with the greater charge"?
I ask because some systems, especially France, don't have it. The French lawyers I've spoken to considered it immoral and shocking.
Applicable law you quoted above. No mention of multiple perps as being a reason for the offence.
https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/page-57.html#docCont
Yes, we have plea bargaining, and yes, crown has sole discretion to lay charges or not. Police have no say. All they can do is recomend to crown when they supply crown with the evidence.
This appears to be the key language:
Aggravated assault
268 (1) Every one commits an aggravated assault who wounds, maims, disfigures or endangers the life of the complainant.
I see it as entirely possible you and petros are both right. I can very easily see a court ruling that multiple attackers, as a matter of law, "endangers the life" of the victim, even when, as here according to the report, no life-threatening injury was sustained.
Aggravated assault
268 (1) Every one commits an aggravated assault who wounds, maims, disfigures or endangers the life of the complainant.
I see it as entirely possible you and petros are both right. I can very easily see a court ruling that multiple attackers, as a matter of law, "endangers the life" of the victim, even when, as here according to the report, no life-threatening injury was sustained.
What dont you understand? The judge's ruling that set the standard? Or that Clayton's lawyer was bucking for Section 267 but got hit with 268 because he was part of the group that hemmed the victim in making it Aggravated or the judge declaring subsection 21.1 meaningless in this case?
Yes, I understood, and thanked you for that.
I'm just trying to point out that the pair of you are fighting over the subtle difference between zero and nothing.
I mean, if you're just measuring dicks, have at it. But gerryh is correct in the strict language of the statute, and you are correct that judges can, and do, interpret that language.
I'm not sure about the "as a matter of law" part in the case you cite. "As a matter of law" in this sense means "done and dusted," you don't need to prove that in THIS CASE, multiple attackers "endangered the life" of the victim, but rather that in all cases where there are multiple attackers, it is conclusively presumed in every case that they "endangered the life" of the victim.