If you’ve hired a skilled criminal defence lawyer to help you fight criminal charges in the Greater Toronto Area, you trust that they will help steer the case towards a favourable resolution. Among the most favourable outcomes a criminal defendant can secure is the Crown dropping the charges before trial, preferably early in the case’s progression towards trial. While many of our clients know that dropped—or “withdrawn”—charges are a great outcome, they often don’t understand why the Crown might drop charges and what exactly happens when they’re withdrawn.
With tremendous success helping secure dropped charges for thousands of our Greater Toronto Area clients, the skilled criminal defence lawyers of Mass Tsang LLP can tell you all about dropped charges and what they might mean for you if you’re facing criminal charges in an Ontario court. Read on to learn more about dropped charges, and consider contacting the skilled legal team at Mass Tsang for help getting your criminal charges dropped.
After Ontario Police charge someone with a criminal offence, the arrest file is transferred to the Crown Attorney’s office, which will determine how the case will proceed—whether to prosecute or withdraw the charges. Typically, when Crown lawyers receive a new case, they assess the file and its evidence in what’s known as “screening” to determine the prospects of securing a guilty plea or conviction. Screening also determines the extent to which prosecuting the accused serves the public interest.
Weak evidence, inherent Charter Rights violations, conflicting narratives about the incident, exonerating evidence, and other factors decrease the prospects for a conviction and increase the likelihood of dropped charges. However, even in the face of such, Crown prosecutors may keep moving the case forward, believing they can coerce the accused into accepting a plea deal. After all, the defendant may not know what the Crown knows, so why not keep moving forward with prosecution as if they have a strong case?
Regarding the other screening element, it’s almost always in the public’s interest to prosecute criminal offenders to punish the transgression, deter others from committing similar offences, and to maintain the public’s confidence in the judicial system. However, degrees of public interest must be weighed with each case. For example, it’s far more in the public’s interest to convict an accused murderer than it is to punish someone charged with an injury-free simple assault. As part of the public interest component of screening, prosecutors also consider their caseload. The Ontario Court System’s caseload is overwhelmed, and there are not enough prosecutors or time to steer every case to a Crown-favourable resolution.
Based on the case evidence and public interest weighting, other factors that can influence a Crown prosecutor to drop charges include:
The last factor can be critical because it shows the Crown that you’re going to put up a fight against the charges. In assessing how to proceed, they know it will likely require more scarce courtroom resources to secure a conviction than it would for prosecuting someone lacking legal expertise.
When Crown lawyers decide to drop charges, they inform the court that the charges are being withdrawn, citing either a lack of reasonable prospect for conviction or because it’s not in the public interest. Once filed with the court, the case is over, and the legal process ends. With the case closed, defendants face no more court appearances, and any pre-trial release conditions are lifted.
While this negates any future conviction and its associated criminal record, Ontario police agencies maintain a record of the arrest. Police arrest records are generally not released to the public and are not a component of provincial or federal criminal records. However, police may release them to governmental agencies conducting background checks. Some agencies—like the Toronto Police Service —are willing to destroy these records upon request, depending on various circumstances.
If the Crown drops charges against a defendant, they have limited recourse to reinstate the same charges. However, if the Crown uncovers new evidence or can prove that procedural errors were made in the initial withdrawal, they might be able to reinstate the charges, though this will be subject to judicial scrutiny. Additionally, defendants can challenge the reinstatement of charges based on abuse of process and fairness. While Canadian law prohibits people from being tried twice for the same offence, this double jeopardy legal standard does not apply with dropped charges because the case did not proceed to trial.
If you’re facing criminal charges in a Greater Toronto Court, don’t just assume the apparent weakness of the Crown’s evidence and an overloaded court docket will get you off the hook. Crown prosecutors don’t just drop criminal charges because of those reasons or because it was a minor offence and you seem to be an otherwise respectable person. The skilled Mass Tsang criminal defence team has decades-long experience negotiating with Ontario Crown prosecutors on behalf of our clients. With evidentiary expertise and insights into how the Crown screens their caseloads, we’re adept at steering them towards dropping charges or other favourable resolutions as applicable. And, when we can’t sway the Crown to our line of thinking pre-trial, we’re always ready to challenge their case at trial. To learn more about how we help our Toronto-area clients strategize effective criminal defences, contact us for a free consultation.
