Canadian Court Rules You Have the Right To Google a Lawyer 105
An anonymous reader writes "Hollywood crime dramas are infamous for the scene when an
accused is taken to a local police station and permitted a single phone call to
contact a relative or lawyer. While the storyline is myth — there is no limit on the number of phone calls available to an accused or detainee — Michael Geist reports
on a recent Canadian
case establishing a new, real requirement for law enforcement. After a 19-year
old struggled to find a lawyer using the telephone, the court ruled that police
must provide an accused with Internet access in order to exercise their right
to counsel."
Google is the new phone book (Score:5, Interesting)
It seems to me obvious that this should be the case; Google has for most people replaced those annoying phone books.
The only caveat is that they should make sure they lock down the machine well...
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Locking down a machine isn't that hard, and setting the homepage to default to an appropriate search is also fairly trivial. You don't need the latest, greatest, most powerful computer, either. This could be done at relatively low cost with relatively few resources.
ObFanboi (Score:2)
You could use an iPad!
Re:ObFanboi (Score:5, Funny)
As an added bonus, it would provide the lockdown too!
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Ultimately you have to think that some detainees are going to literally throw the thing on the ground to piss off t
Re:Google is the new phone book (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not seeing any particular reason that the time spent searching could not be supervised; no privileged information is going to be shared with the attorney before contacting them. Electronic supervision would be the obvious choice, but frankly I would rather see an officer putting physical eyes on suspects: it gives a more immediate means of challenging questionable use and it avoids any illusion on the suspect's part that they are not being watched.
That said, the access itself should probably be fairly open. The detained would be well-advised to do at least minimal research on whoever will potentially represent them in court, and an overly broad block on access might restrict them from pertinent information.
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"I'm not seeing any particular reason that the time spent searching could not be supervised; no privileged information is going to be shared with the attorney before contacting them."
Besides, everybody knows the address in the US.:
http://www.bettercallsaul.com/ [bettercallsaul.com]
Re:Google is the new phone book (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not seeing any particular reason that the time spent searching could not be supervised
I'm not seeing any particular reason it would need to be supervised. The phone calls aren't. The last time I was arrested, I spent about four hours in a holding cell, and there was a row of phones along the wall. There were no restrictions on who we could call, or how long we could talk. There was no indication that the phone calls were being monitored, and it is illegal to record calls without notification.
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"Some places" includes Canada. Solicitor-client privilege is all but absolute.
To quote Bacon v. Surrey Pretrial Services Centre
This Court declares the respondent is obliged to provide the petitioner with a telephone system for solicitor-client telephone calls that is not vulnerable to breaches of solicitor-client privilege, intentional or accidental.
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Well, the t
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Monitoring is necessary just to ensure that it's being used to lookup counsel and not just to hang out on Facebook.
Why is this "necessary"? There is nothing illegal about "hanging out on facebook." If that is what a detainee wants to do with his time, so what?
When I was in the holding cell, there were no restrictions whatsoever on who I could call, or what I could say. I was there for four hours, but other than that there were no limits on how long I could talk. Most guys were using the phones to call their GFs and apologizing for getting drunk and beating them up. How would it be any different if they did that on
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I'm not seeing any particular reason that the time spent searching could not be supervised
I'm not seeing any particular reason it would need to be supervised. The phone calls aren't. The last time I was arrested, I spent about four hours in a holding cell, and there was a row of phones along the wall. There were no restrictions on who we could call, or how long we could talk. There was no indication that the phone calls were being monitored, and it is illegal to record calls without notification.
Having been arrest too many times, I can attest that the local jail is(was) set up like that. First room you have a bunch of free phones. Unfortunately, I have never been in that room longer then 10 mins. And I'm talking at least 20 visits to the room (I used to be a bad boy). After that room, you get put into rooms where you have to call collect to make phone calls. And you can spend 8 hours in that room.
I haven't been to jail for about a decade (good boy now), so I don't know how they have changed
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They might not want to lock down the search though. Reason: top hit might get all the business so they would be preconditioning the market share of local lawyers. Better to let the suspect pick the search engine and search query so there is at least some amount of spread in the business.
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Re:Internet access is not necessary (Score:5, Insightful)
The right to freely choose a lawyer might be affected by such a pre-selection by the police.
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And that can't be done by blocking internet access to certain lawyers as well?
Technically it can, legally it can't of course. In Canada we have a standard called Bringing the Justice system into Disrepute. That would be one of those instance, it's actually pretty serious. It's one of the very few charges that when laid will not only see you stripped of service, but can have you disbarred, or removed from the bench with remand to custody.
Never minding that up here it would also be a charter violation(the equivalent to a constitutional violation). There's a lot of case law covering
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Technically it can, legally it can't of course. In Canada we have a standard called Bringing the Justice system into Disrepute. That would be one of those instance, it's actually pretty serious. It's one of the very few charges that when laid will not only see you stripped of service, but can have you disbarred, or removed from the bench with remand to custody.
We need such rules to be better enforced in the US. The actions of police and prosecutors once they believe you are guilty are often disgraceful, but are rarely punished.
But no, such a list would be too long to be useful. Really, a better quality of court-appointed representation (and enough funding for same) would be another potential solution which would help solve both this and many other problems with the justice system.
Re:Internet access is not necessary (Score:5, Informative)
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And then the police will love it when your conviction get overturned for ineffective council, as they denied your access to effective council...
Just like the pesky advising you of your rights thing.
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A simple list is useless, you need to be able to research to find a good lawyer.
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Good point. There's going to be a lot of attorneys with big boobs visiting police stations now.
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Good point. There's going to be a lot of attorneys with big boobs visiting police stations now.
Honestly, I've met a few hefty attorneys in my day, but there's no need to call the men out like that.
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The only caveat is that they should make sure they lock down the machine well...
Is that necessary though? If I was in custody my first priority wouldn't be to check in on Facebook and idly browse porn.
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Yah, it should be twitter #busted #needalawyerandcheetos
why not? (Score:2, Funny)
What makes you think that you'd be any better off using google than posting a request for your facebook friends. And if you're indigent (if you cannot afford one, an attorney will be appointed for you), you might as well use your computer time to do something you enjoy.
My experience has been that there's more demand for bail bondsmen than attorneys at the local lockup. Most people would rather be released on bond and THEN find an attorney. Of course, if you're being interrogated, your strategy is "say not
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Yes, it's necessary. Partly so the suspect can't do complex operations like transferring money to the Bahamas, partly so they can't collate and fire off complex sets of instructions to people who are *not* their lawyers, partly so they can't threaten witnesses, and primarily to prevent the police using keystroke loggers to sniff the suspect's email addresses and passwords.
I'd be very curious to see how one could best lock down such an appliance.
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Well, if my own experience means anything, just redirect all web queries to Bing. They won't be able to find (or do) anything relevant.
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I would imagine that the police are concerned about such things as suspects having access to relay/transmit information that would jeopardize their case or witness safety. It does present a significant technological challenge for the police department. I do support the courts decision however.
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How much access and monitoring? (Score:1)
For police, the decision may have resource implications, since providing Internet access will be more costly and cumbersome than pointing to a nearby telephone.
The other problem is how much access are you going to give the suspect? Would the police be allowed to monitor everything in case the suspect tries to tamper with evidence or influence people?
Re:How much access and monitoring? (Score:4, Insightful)
The other problem is how much access are you going to give the suspect? Would the police be allowed to monitor everything in case the suspect tries to tamper with evidence or influence people?
The question is an interesting one - police are (in most countries, at least, including Canada afaik) not allowed to monitor communications between a lawyer and their client, with that "no monitoring" also extending to their initial attempts to locate/contact their lawyer. Presumably if the police allow the accused to log into their gmail account to email a lawyer, they would not be allowed to retain those login details for future evidence searches. Of course, if the internet access is used purely to find a directory of lawyers and go down them one by one to find one willing/able to represent the accused, that is another thing. But if a police officer offered me a PC and said "just login to your email account here, find a lawyer and send them an email asking for help", I am not sure if I would laugh or cry at such a bad attempt at password phishing.
Re:How much access and monitoring? (Score:5, Insightful)
According to Iowa Code 804.20, the police "shall" monitor any phone calls made. The exact text is:
Such person shall be permitted to make a reasonable number of telephone calls as may be required to secure an attorney. If a call is made, it shall be made in the presence of the person having custody of the one arrested or restrained. (Source: https://coolice.legis.iowa.gov/Cool-ICE/default.asp?category=billinfo&service=IowaCode&ga=83&input=804.20 [iowa.gov])
I can't speak to legislative intent, but I wouldn't be surprised if harassment of victims or witness tampering were at least part of that conversation. If your attorney comes down to the police station, then you can chat as privately as your attorney wants. In practice, the police monitor and log all calls made such that they can later prove that they gave the suspect a reasonable opportunity to contact someone. (Failure to do so can have pretty severe legal ramifications including excluding evidence.)
Idea for a new ASK SLASHDOT: (Score:5, Interesting)
If you were allowed to call your lawyer, would you know who to call?
Re:Idea for a new ASK SLASHDOT: (Score:4, Funny)
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You are NOT allowed to call MY lawyer.
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If you were allowed to call your lawyer, would you know who to call?
Hmm. Now I have an actual reason to consider a tattoo, since a "legal alert" bracelet -- if they existed -- could be taken away.
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So far, I've managed to avoid any legal entanglements.
But I'm telling you... (Score:5, Funny)
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90 these days. And gearing up from heroic instances is enough to get you into Mogu'shan Vaults LFR, although being flung in with 24 other random people can be a bit of a trying experience.
Anyway, you wouldn't need to be in the same raid, any toon on the same realm could whisper the raiding lawyer (or any realm if said lawyer had responded to your RealID request).
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90 these days. And gearing up from heroic instances is enough to get you into Mogu'shan Vaults LFR, although being flung in with 24 other random people can be a bit of a trying experience.
Mogu'shan is weaksauce in LFR. Heart of Fear will still faceroll an incompetent group just because the fight mechanics are hardcore and twitchy. Oddly, once you finish that up Terrace of Endless Spring is back to easymode. Go figure.
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Mogu'shan is weaksauce in LFR. Heart of Fear will still faceroll an incompetent group just because the fight mechanics are hardcore and twitchy. Oddly, once you finish that up Terrace of Endless Spring is back to easymode. Go figure.
Do you have any idea of how much you sound like a spambot? :-P
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Ugh, how I *don't* miss LFR. Or grinding stupid reputation points/tokens/whatever crap they decided to call it this patch.
(Has it really been a whole year since I got out? Dang. I still miss it sometimes, until I remember having to log in every day for a couple months, for a half hour of the same boring rep grind... and then after a couple month reprieve a new patch would pop, and I'd be all excited about the content until I realized that it meant another long rep slog... ugh. Or alternatively, now I can ju
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Sure, like just reaching 80 would be enough to get into the raid. No, you'd also have to spend months grinding honor tokens, or whatever the fuck they're called now, for the entry level gear to get in.
WoW-free for 2+ years - what a lucky escape.
I thought WoW gave you a fully geared max level char with new games now?
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Blizzard never did implement the Equipment Potency EquivalencE Number (EPEEN) system (which they introduced on 4/1/2010). If they did it would block out you from seeing or hearing anyone who wasn't leet enough to be worth your time (based on gear level) along with other bonuses to allow you to troll those lesser players.
Efficiency (Score:2)
If you were allowed to call a lawyer multiple times then I see no reason not to allow a person to google a lawyer.
This might actually speed things up and maybe even alleviate the need for an escort. A cell with some locked down access to a yellow pages site or something of the sort. No need to leave.
Mr. Anderson... (Score:5, Funny)
...what good is the internet if you are...unable to type?
[Apologies to those with physical challenges.]
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Presumably if they're unable to use a finger to press a key on the keyboard they wouldn't be able to dial a phone number either...
Truly a worthy ruling (Score:2)
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While that certainly sounds nice, it has no real meaning to me.
One of my teachers once told me: (translated)"Measuring is knowing". Followed by a grave "But only when you know what you are measuring".
In my case (and probably lots of people with me) I would have no idea what to use as yardstick to measure those lawyers against.
To pick a good lawyer probably goes the same as with picking a good plumber: Only after he did his
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How true. My wife *is* a lawyer. But there is very little of our own legal business that she feels qualified to handle herself, since legal practice is very specialized, and her specialties aren't a lot of good outside of a large company context. Mostly, she is very good at hiring the right lawyer and getting good value for the hours billed.
It's kind of sad that you need to be a lawyer in order to hire the lawyer that you need.
I'll say this, if you are arrested and charged with something, you need a crim
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Thanks. (mod parent up, please)
I hope this NEVER comes to the USA! (Score:1)
And here's why -- just imagine if police were forced to provide this in the '80s. Kevin Mitnick could have used a Google search box to activate a script running on WOPR to launch a nuclear missile!
We wouldn't even be here on Slashdot now, just huddled in our underground shelters for decades waiting for the end of nuclear winter. Although now that I think about it, I haven't been out of mom's basement since World of Warcraft was released. So I guess no real difference there.
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He could have done that by whistling into the phone.
Internet access is a basic right (Score:2)
So under our law, this allowance for access is easily within reading such rights.
Not a lawyer, but worked for Canadian ISPs since the '90s.
Hollywood... Ontario? (Score:2)
The portrayal of police procedures in "Hollywood crime dramas" is generally going to reflect US law (or the popular perception of it, anyway). Last time I checked, our Neighbors to the North had their own legal system - one that doesn't always mirror our American one.
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There are numerous differences in the particulars, of course.
Stupid summary (Score:2)
Dang summary made me go look at various Miranda/phone call pages on tvtropes!
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MirandaRights [tvtropes.org]
Right to contact counsel only (Score:1)
In Canada, the right to contact counsel does not extend to the right to have that counsel present during questioning. Unlike in the US, we can't tell the police to bugger off until our lawyer shows up. They can question us without counsel present as long as they like. We don't have to answer, but they can continue aggressive questioning.
Health vs. Justice (Score:3)
Canada has a public health care system.
Unfortunately, it does not have a public "justice care" system. If you need to defend yourself in court, you either need to pay a huge amount of money or, if you cannot afford the shittiest possible lawyer, you'll get a public defender that is so overworked and underfunded as to be even worse than the aforementioned shittiest possible lawyer.
Once I asked an acquaintance of mine, who happens to be a criminal lawyer, how much on the average does it cost to have a decent legal representation for, say, a murder case. His answer: "How much does it worth it to you?"
The institutional injustice system is a blight upon society.
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English is my third language and my command of it is imperfect.
I am pretty sure that his actual statement was more grammatically correct than my quoting.
"Myth" but based in fact... (Score:1)
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Not to mention the fact that Michael is well respected in his real job as a law professor and does this mostly out of the goodness of his heart (of course, since his real job is teaching, I'm sure there's crossover with his advocacy hobby).
Lawyer Googling (Score:3)
Sounds painful.
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It would be, if you're in custody and you're trying to find a lawyer immediately and then find out if they're any good. My lawyer's on speed dial. Is yours?
In Canada, anything you say, EVEN AFTER YOU ASK FOR A LAWYER, is admissible in court. The only thing to say is "I have nothing to say. My lawyer's name is [fill in name]." Repeat as required.
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In the US, speed-dial will probably not be of much help. When my friend was arrested, they took her phone and stored it with her personal property and did not allow her to access it, even to get a needed phone number.
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Well, I do know enough people that if I did get a call, I'd still be able to get my lawyer to the PHQ in a hurry.
Or not a hurry, I'd just sit back and play some minecraft on my ph... oh.
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Yellow Pages ??? (Score:2)
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Because rather than just having the name and how much they spent on an ad in the yellow pages to go on it would be nice when making what could quite possibly be the most important decision in your life to be able to do at least the research you would do before choosing which restaurant to have lunch at.
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The ones with the ability to plan ahead in a reasonable fashion are much less likely to be put in the position of needing a lawyer.