Toronto Criminal Defence Lawyers For Appeals
The news media is frequently letting us know about people who were convicted for crimes that they actually did not commit. If you have been unjustly convicted of a crime or that the sentence given to you was not commensurate with the nature of the crime, you may want to speak to your criminal defence lawyer Toronto about the feasibility of initiating an appeal. An appeal is another legal process that your lawyer can help you to do. You should speak with your lawyer to help determine if an appeal makes sense.
The “appeals process” may not be as easy as it sounds. You really have to know what the process is and what it involves. You want to find out the steps of the process, how it affects you, your current conviction, and the length of time an appeal might take.
Typically, if an appeal is going to be done, it should be initiated within thirty days of the sentence being given in the Canadian Courts. First, your criminal lawyers Toronto will file a “Notice of Appeal” with the court. Then, the lawyer requests the trial transcript to file with the original notice. Written arguments for the appeal will be provided to the court and a date for a hearing about the appeal will be set. In addition, if you are already in jail, there can be a filing of an “application for bail pending appeal” which will hopefully get you released until the appeal hearing takes place.
There are factors that affect the length of the appeals process. These can include where the appeal is filed within the court system, the reasons for the appeal and even the amount of time that it took to complete the initial trial. When criminal lawyers Toronto are finally able to have the appeal heard, the outcome could occur at that time or it could be what is called “reserved” which means he appeals court needs to consider the details for a longer period of time.
The place in which the appeal is filed will be defined by the circumstances of the original trial. For instance, the appeal will need to be filed in the Superior Court of Justice if the original charge was a Summary Offense. In addition, one of the responsibilities of the criminal defence lawyer Toronto is to make sure that you understand that an appeal is not a retrial. It is actually a method for determining if any and what legal mistakes may have been made during the original trial. When the appeal process is complete, your lawyer will help you understand the results.