You’ve been charged with a criminal offence and the police release you, and they’ve given you a promise to appear, and for a first appearance, your appearance is maybe, I don’t know, three, four, five, six weeks down the road in court. So what’s the big deal about this first appearance? Is it important, well, not really, nothing much happens at a first appearance by the way. A first appearance takes about fifteen seconds, twenty seconds, thirty seconds, of time max. It’s just an opportunity to get you before the court, or your lawyer, if you retain a lawyer, if you don’t go, if you retain a lawyer, and indicate what’s going on, in other words, you know, Mr. or Ms. XYZ, he’s retained me and we haven’t received disclosure, your honour, going to go over for another 4 weeks, for example, so it’s not your trial, it’s not of that much importance, I’ve critiqued this in another video, about the critique about the remand system, to get rid of all of these appearances, and do it all electronically and it’s not that great a system but the fortunate thing is, one fortunate thing about COVID, which I talk about in another video is, first appearances have been going on over twelve weeks, which is helpful because we don’t have to keep coming back to court, and we can always move the matter forward, so the short answer to this is that we really caution the client, because they are all concerned and freaked out about this first appearance, some of them thinks it’s their trial but we say “don’t worry, nothing’s happened, it all happens behind the scenes, it doesn’t happen in court during these, remand appearances, so that’s the nitty gritty on the lack of importance on your first appearance, other than showing up in some manner.
Michael Kruse is a seasoned criminal defence lawyer with more than 36 years of experience in Ontario. A former Assistant Crown Attorney, Mike brings decades of courtroom and trial experience to the defence of serious criminal charges. He leads Kruse Law Firm with a strategic, practical approach focused on strong advocacy and achieving the best possible outcome for every client.
