What happens at a domestic assault sentencing hearing? You've been convicted of domestic assault or you pled guilty. And it's a little more higher level, I mean, it’s not a minor domestic assault, let's say something like a punch involving a black eye or maybe even a broken nose, that sort of thing. So you know half serious domestic assault or any domestic assault serious, but this is beyond the scale, the mere push obviously.
So what's going to happen so the judge might order a pre-sentence report. That's a background report, you may meet with the probation officer then it goes through all your background friends, family is all going to be written out report for the judge. Hopefully, that comes out good for you because the better your background, your criminal record, all that sort of thing, good job, good history, mature and responsible. He just screwed up on this one occasion. Hopefully, I get a copy of that report. A couple of days before the sentencing hearing, make sure there's no mistakes in it and if there are, I will point them out to the judge at the hearing. I then prepare my submissions based on your positive hopefully, hopefully positive background. All your positive antecedes, no prior criminal record. We review that with the Judge. My submissions on a basic case, like that probably fairly short, you know, 20, 30 minutes. I'm asking for no jail. It's a type of case that's on the edge. The Crown might advocate for short jail term in that situation and say it's a black eye, couple black eyes. It's a gray area that that type of case, so we're going to stress you're mitigating circumstances, but your background, I am going to deal with the aggravating features of the case head on. And I may present a case or two to the judge. Well, depending on the case of case law about sentencing the crown might to and I make my submissions the crown then makes their submissions, and I may get a chance to reply, if there's any new issues brought up. And then ultimately the judge makes a decision about what's the appropriate sentence is fine and probation appropriate for example, is a conditional discharge involving no record or is 30-day jail term appropriate for the two black eyes. Every case is different. And there's no science in sentencing and it’s an art form. And the cases are a little bit all over the map although there are ranges of sentence that we can apply and kind of give you a loose range for that type of level of a fairly half serious domestic assault involving You know, black eyes, certainly if there's a broken nose. That would be hard probably. Well, you might avoid jail on that you would have a difficult time avoiding a criminal record. But that's certainly potentially jailable offence, black eyes. You might go to jail there too. He might deserve it too. So that, in a nutshell, is what happens at a sentencing hearing and it's an art form that that we as lawyers are very versed in and it has to be approached as carefully as doing a trial. Frankly, it's a real because it's important to get the appropriate sentence for your client.
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