CRM 200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Indictable Offence, Regulatory Offence, White-Collar Crime
3 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Lecture 10 - Penalties and Punishment
Overview
• Accused to be sentenced only in event of finding of guilt
• Sentencing process also has rules of evidence, procedural protections
o Parties allowed to call evidence, make submissions on sentence
o Crown may allege aggravating factors to increase sentence, eg., previous record,
motivation of greed
o Defence may argue mitigating factors to decrease sentence, eg., plea of guilty,
remorse
o Defendant may personally address court prior to sentence being imposed
• Sentencing will only occur if the person is found guilt.
• The accused have the right to appeal
• Defense will filed character letters
• Employees
• Sentencing can be routine (a few mins) – traffic tickets etc
• But more complex cases = can change the sentence routine to above
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------
• Mitigating factors in favor of defendant
• Aggravating factors to increase, not in favor
• ---
• VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENT | Aggravating Factor – Crown
• If you’ve been convicted for careless driving and you’ve been tagged before
for it!!!! – Aggravating
• ---
• Character Letters, Community Leaders, to testify for otherwise good
behaviour | Mitigating Factor – Defence
• ---
• ”Before I impose sentence, is there anything you wanna say, you’re not
obliged to”
• Judge may have range of possible penalties to choose from, such as jail, fine, probation,
community service
o They have discretion
o Judge has individual sentencing
• Judge may be assisted by pre-sentence report about defendant, views of victims, good
character letters
• Matter of sentence is determined by judge only
• Parties have right to appeal conviction and or sentence
o Whether or not if there is a judge jury or judge trial, the matter of sentence is always
the matter of the judge regardless if there is a jury or not (judge is master of law)
o Only judge can legally determine what the sentence should be
o Unless there is a mandatory minimum, judges have a very broad range of sentencing
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
o Robbery can be sentenced of life in prison or nothing at all or even community
service
Fraud
Fraud is Criminal
Code offence,
s.380(1)
• White collar crime is form of fraud involving business, stealing or
placing at risk companies, investors, business interests – treated
as one kind of fraud
Punishment for fraud:
• Where subject matter of offence exceeds (over) $5000, indictable
offence, liable to imprisonment of up to 14 years
• Where subject matter of offence less than $5,000, indictable
offence, liable to imprisonment of up to 2 years, or if summary
conviction offence, then punishment for all summary conviction
offences which is fine up to $5000 and/or 6 months’
imprisonment
• Where person convicted on indictment and subject matter of
offence over $1 million dollars, mandatory minimum
punishment of 2 years: s.380(1.1)
• If fine is under 5000$ = only 2 year in jail
• If over 5000$ = is more serious
• If over $1m = mandatory minimum punishment of 2 years
– If the amount of the fraud is under 5000 and crown proceeds
with indictment, the maximum is 2 years in prison instead of
14
Criminal Code Sentencing Purposes
Fundamental purpose
of sentencing,
• Code s.718, is to contribute, along with crime prevention
initiatives, to respect for law, maintenance of just, peaceful and
safe society by imposing “just sanctions” that have one or more of
following objectives:
o (a) to denounce unlawful conduct
o (b) to deter the offender and other persons from
committing offences
o (c) to separate offenders from society, where necessary
o (d) to assist in rehabilitating offenders
o (e) to provide reparations for harm done to victims or to
the community, and
o (f) to promote a sense of responsibility in offenders and
acknowledgment of the harm done to victims and to the
community
• Specific Deterrence, incentive to specific individual to not commit
it again
• General Deterrence – preventing others to stop committing
offences as well
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Criminal Code
Sentencing Principles
s.718:
• Fundamental Principle, s.718:
o a sentence must be proportionate to the gravity of the
offence and the degree of responsibility of the offender
• Proportionality principle requires that court imposing sentence
consider gravity of the offence and the moral blameworthiness of
the offender: R v C.A.M., [1996]1 S.C.R. 500
o Regulatory , there is no equivalent state for sentence, if
someone is charged under the competition act or income
act has no equivalent to the criminal punishment.
o Sentencing and factors of sentencing are only available to
the criminal code
• Other sentencing principles, s.718.2(a)
o (a) sentence should be increased or decreased to account
for any relevant aggravating or mitigating circumstance
relating to the offence or the offender
o Look at the aggravating or mitigating factors for the
offence
o List of aggravating factors set out in s.718.2(a), include:
• evidence that the offence was motivated by
bias, prejudice, or hate based on race, national
or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex,
age, mental or physical disability, sexual
orientation or any other similar offender;
• evidence that the offender, in committing the
offence, abused a person under the age of 18
years;
• evidence that the offender, in committing the
offence abused a position of trust or authority
in relation to the victim
• Pervious conviction
• Did something while on probation
• Etc
• If any of them apply = not good for the accused
o No list of mitigating factors set out in Code – helps
reduce
• You plead guilt instead of being found guilt
o Not an exhaustive list but if identified is seriously bad
o No mitigating factors but pleading guilty is an obvious one
• Other sentencing principles in s.718(2):
o (b) a sentence should be similar to sentences imposed on
similar offenders for similar offences committed in similar
circumstances
o (c) where consecutive sentences are imposed, the
combined sentence should not be unduly long or harsh
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
If you"ve been convicted for careless driving and you"ve been tagged before for it!!!! Aggravating: character letters, community leaders, to testify for otherwise good behaviour | mitigating factor defence, before i impose sentence, is there anything you wanna say, you"re not obliged to . Judge may have range of possible penalties to choose from, such as jail, fine, probation, community service: they have discretion, judge has individual sentencing. If fine is under 5000$ = only 2 year in jail. If over m = mandatory minimum punishment of 2 years. If the amount of the fraud is under 5000 and crown proceeds with indictment, the maximum is 2 years in prison instead of. Criminal code lists aggravating factors but not mitigating factors: remorse people feel that they didn"t do anything wrong and if they"re found guilty afterwards, you can still feel remorse | deep.
