R. v. R.R.S.

(Alberta Court of Justice/Cochrane - Sexual Assault, unlawful confinement and assault). RRS was charged with sexual assault, unlawful confinement and assault arising out of an incident with a domestic partner. While the charges, on the surface, portrayed as very serious, the disclosure painted a much different picture. In short, the prosecution very likely did not have a reasonable chance of conviction in relation to sexual assault or confinement. RRS's case was one where the accused was overcharged.

Overcharging is not unusual. "Overcharging" occurs in situation where a person is charged with many offences or colloquially speaking, when the police or crown "throws the book" at the accused. In some cases, overcharging actually results in the accused being accused of things that cannot be proven or lack reasonable prospect of conviction. This criminal defence lawyer in Calgary often sees overcharging in homicide cases. It is the opinion of this Calgary criminal lawyer that overcharging is sometimes used as a prosecution strategy to drive early case resolution. For example, if a person is charged with sexual assault when the evidence really only supports "assault", the accused might be more included to plead guilty to assault rather than take a risk at a more serious conviction. Other examples occur when an accused is charged with first degree murder when realistically, the charge should be second murder or manslaughter. An accused charged with first degree murder will often plea bargain rather than take the risk of life sentence without parole for 25 years.

To be clear, the above examples of tactical overcharging  ultimately played no role in RRS's case. In this case, after reviewing disclosure, the Crown properly evaluated the evidence and conceded that neither sexual assault nor unlawful confinement were realistic prosecutions. For instance, the evidence did not at all support unlawful confinement; for the complainant was never "confined" to a specific space.

This case resolved very quickly by way of peace bond and the withdrawal of the charges. Peace bond was a very fair an effective resolution in this circumstances of this case. RRS avoided the risk of a criminal record and was not required to pay hefty trial fees.

David Chow is an experienced Calgary and Cochrane criminal lawyer. While he has physical offices in both Calgary and Cochrane, David is very careful to limit in-person meetings. In part, this is to save the client time and money because most information can be communicated without an in-person meeting (by telephone or Zoom/WebEX).  David Chow is an Alberta domestic violence lawyer who has successfully defended hundreds of cases alleging domestic assault, mischief, uttering threats and unlawful confinement.