The Process of a Pre-Trial in Criminal Cases

What is the judicial pre-trial process in a criminal case? So, when you’re charged with a criminal charge, obviously, is this the first court appearance you hopefully retain a lawyer. That lawyer is going to order all of the evidence. Is called disclosure, and that lawyer is going to receive that disclosure and review it. There may be missing disclosure as well. But once he has initial, he or she has initial disclosure, they’re going to review it with you, get your version of events, figure out whether it’s heading to trial maybe, or you’re looking to resolve, or you’re on the fence for this. But once you have sufficient disclosure, then the crown is going to meet with the defense counsel. So, they’re going to talk about whether the case is resolving, they negotiated deals whether it’s heading trial. So, you have all these discussions back and forth, both getting instructions to your client, talking to the crown, and moving the case forward slowly, and you have various court appearances. Now, at some point, you’re going to have sufficient disclosure in your hands to and after meetings with the crown as well and your client to conduct what’s called a judicial pretrial. This is often required in many cases. Now, what is a judicial pre trial first of all ? Well, it’s a fancy word for a closed-door meeting with a judge who’s not at the trial judge, by the way, the Crown Attorney and defense counsel, and they’re discussing all aspects of the case. For example, they discuss a resolution deal. Let’s say the crown and defence are agreeing to a 90 day sentence. You’re seeking approval from the judge, you’re going to fulsomely discuss the accused background and why the plea deal is taking place. On the other hand, you’re also discussing trial issues. If the matter is tending to head to trial, you’re talking about management of trial time. What motions need to be brought pretrial motions or applications witnesses are going to be called, all of the legal issues. So it’s a very fulsome discussion, and we’re exploring avenues whether the case could be resolved, even dropped or withdrawn or heading to trial. So, you’re talking about both management of court time, management of court resources, and attempting to resolve the case if your client wants to go that way. And there’s all sorts of things that can be discussed at the judicial pretrial the judge is not the trial judge, so they can make a lot of you can openly discuss the case with them. In many instances, not necessarily revealing all your defences. But in some cases, if you’ve got a strong argument, you may want to reveal it, if the crown can’t fix the argument. And sometimes, pretrial judges will push the sides to mediation or push the crown to drop the charge on a particular case, but it’s all about managing court time resources, seeing if we can reach a resolution that’s approved by the judge, if your client wants to go that way. So it’s not a meeting that the client attends to. And though pre trials can take, you know, 10, 15, minutes up to I’ve been at them for an hour and a half. It just depends on the case and how complicated it is, but it’s a very helpful for both defence counsel and crown to assess their case, because you’re getting input from a third party. Sometimes the crown, the judge, will knock the Crown’s head a bit say, look, you’ve got a weak case, you should withdraw that. So, I often will have a judicial pre trials, even when it’s not required. When you’re heading to trial, it’s absolutely required. You have to have a judicial pre trial. And in the Ontario Court of Justice, that’s the lower court level. If it’s the case, you have an elected or serious case where you’ve elected by the Superior Court of Justice, sometimes paperwork is required to be filed, sometimes not. It depends on the case. It depends on the county. If you’re in the Superior Court of Justice, for example, on a more serious charge, and you’ve elected Superior Court, they have particular forms. They have a lengthy, 20, 30, page report that you’ve got to fill out all aspects of the case for the judge, the elections, the pretrial motions, what applications are taking place before the trial, all of the trial issues, witnesses are going to be called. Because it’s very important that we properly estimate whether a trial is going to take two days or two months. Every case is different, and those can be very complicated. Some cases are very complicated. And again, it’s the same procedure in SCJ, except there’s a more complicated form to fill out, I guess, and but all these things are with a view of as defence counsel, you’re trying to get the best result for your client. You’re hoping the judge might put some pressure in the crown, if they have a weak case to withdraw it. And you’re hoping the judge will give some input if the crown and you are disagreeing with evidentiary issues or background issues that, hey, you’re wrong about that crown, you should back up with that. And the crown doesn’t believe it or not, have to listen to the judge, if they disagree. But often there’s going to be pressure on the crown by certain people. So, there you have it. That’s a judicial pretrial. It’s a required step before you set a trial date. It’s often a step you want to take to get a deal proved. Let’s say you have a joint submission with for resolution your client wants to plead guilty. And as an example, let’s say it’s an assault bodily harm and it’s a six-month joint submission with jail. So you’re both agreeing that, but you want to get approval of the judge, because the reason the crown went low is they had a slightly weaker case where they might lose, but you wanted to settle it too, because you might lose and face five years, and the judge can approve it then, and you can go in for that judge and do the deal with full satisfaction that he’s going to approve it. There’s no fun if you don’t have a digital pretrial, and you wind up as some judge refines the deal is egregious and against the administration of justice, you’d agreed on a six-month sentence of the crown, and the judge has thrown your client jail for three years. So that’s another reason to have a pretrial. So it’s very important. It’s an important process. It’s a step before setting a trial date. It’s often a step you did you take to get a deal approved. It’s often a step you hope to get the right pretrial judge, maybe to bang your heads together a bit, especially the crown of your defence counsel, to convince them to take certain steps that they’re not currently agreeing to, and especially on weaker cases, because you will run into crowns, maybe they’re not experienced, maybe they’re very difficult crowns. They might be forcing a case or that you don’t think should be going forward. And I, I know some judges will sit there and say, look, you got a weak case, you really want to waste our time, our court resources, on a five-day trial with a weak case, and your client still has risk on a weak case, because you could lose. So it’s nice. I often have judicial pre trials when I even I don’t need to, but it’s definitely a required step. If you’re setting a date for trial. After the judicial pretrial is completed, by the way, sometimes there’s you require more than one, I’ve had 2,3, 4, judicial pre trials on complicated cases. But after the judicial pretrial process is completed, you’re now in a position to either a) set the court date for a guilty plea, or b), set the date for a trial. So that’s in a nutshell, a simple version of the judicial pretrial process in Canada. Thank you for watching our video. We are absolutely committed to bringing you the best possible criminal and DUI educational videos. If you found this video helpful, please like it and subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you’ve been charged with the criminal offense in Ontario and require our services, please click on the link in the description below.