Welcome to Cases That Should Have Gone to the Supreme Court of Canada, But Didn’t! This week, lawyer Kyla Lee discusses the defence counsel’s duty to investigate.
Acumen Law Corporation lawyer Kyla Lee gives her take on a made-in-Canada court case each week and discusses why these cases should have been heard by Canada’s highest court: the Supreme Court of Canada.
Michael Horswill had an appeal filed of his criminal conviction. In his appeal, he argued that his defence lawyer was not very effective in investigating circumstances relating to his case and sought to introduce fresh evidence about something the defence lawyer didn’t investigate.
This case raises very important questions about what ethical duties defence counsel have to investigate information in favour of their client as opposed to simply making a request of Crown to investigate who do have a positive duty to investigate whether or not the charge approval standard continues to be met.
Unfortunately, the Supreme Court of Canada denied leave to hear the case and we’re left with a lack of clarity for how far defence counsel have to go to follow through on investigating instructions from their clients.
Watch the video for more.
