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Canadian Court Rules You Have the Right To Google a Lawyer
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."
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...
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.
If you were allowed to call your lawyer, would you know who to call?
bickerdyke
... my lawyer is on a raid in WoW, I MUST level my char to 80 to be able to reach him!
The right to freely choose a lawyer might be affected by such a pre-selection by the police.
bickerdyke
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.
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
The problem with just having a list is that the police now get to choose which lawyers will be defending representatives (the police could remove a lawyer from the list because he's very good at winning). The whole point of a phone call is that you get to CHOOSE your lawyer.
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)
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.)
How many roads must a man walk down? 42.
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 nothing". Eventually, they have to find you an attorney or let you go.
Sounds painful.
As an added bonus, it would provide the lockdown too!
...what good is the internet if you are...unable to type?
[Apologies to those with physical challenges.]
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
A simple list is useless, you need to be able to research to find a good lawyer.
No sir I dont like it.
Oh, never mind. He did have phone books available.
"But this one goes to 11!"
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 work you will know. And in case of lawyers that method can cost you dearly, both in money (to be payed to the lawyer and others) as in freedom (because of being put into jail because of this lawyers bad job).
In other words: for most people who do not deal with the Law on a regular basis being able to pick a lawyer is nothing more than a farce.
But than again, I regard the judicial process as a kind of random thing: depending on quite a few factors which have very little to do with the Law itself you could win or lose a case.
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.
He could have done that by whistling into the phone.
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 criminal lawyer who does mainly criminal law. If it is a domestic violence charge (real or something imaginary from crazy-land) get a specialist in DV. If it in any way touches on civil rights law, get somebody with experience in civil rights litigation. If firearms are involved in any way, make absolutely certain that the lawyer understands your state's gun laws forwards and backwards. (In California, call the CalGuns Foundation hotline: http://www.calgunsfoundation.org/)
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.