Azam MurjiImpaired driving & over 80
What the charge covers
The charge covers operating a vehicle, boat, or other conveyance while impaired, or with blood alcohol of 80 or more within two hours after driving. Failing or refusing a lawful demand is a separate offence. The 80 means 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood.
What the Crown must prove
For impaired operation, the Crown must prove that alcohol, a drug, or both impaired the ability to operate, to any degree. Operating includes having care or control. For over 80, the Crown need not prove impairment. For failing or refusing, the demand must be lawful and known to the accused; a reasonable excuse is a defence.
How the Crown proceeds
Each offence is hybrid (the Crown chooses summary proceedings, with lower maximum sentences, or indictment, with higher ones). The maximum on indictment is 10 years. A first conviction brings a fine of at least $1,000 and a driving prohibition of at least one year.
Where a defence starts
A defence examines the stop, the demands, how the samples were taken and analyzed, and whether the right to a lawyer was respected.
Assault & domestic assault
What the charge covers
Assault is intentionally applying force without consent, or attempting or threatening to. Since July 2026, section 263.1 makes intimate partner violence its own offence. An intimate partner includes a current or former spouse, common-law partner, or dating partner. Sections 267 and 268 cover weapons, bodily harm, choking, and wounding.
What the Crown must prove
The Crown must prove intentional force without the consent of the complainant (the person alleged to have been assaulted). A threat by act or gesture counts only if the person could carry it out at the time, or reasonably seemed able to.
How the Crown proceeds
Assault is hybrid. On indictment, the maximum is five years, or 10 with a weapon, bodily harm, or choking. Aggravated assault is indictable only, with a 14-year maximum. Where section 263.1 applies, the maximums rise to 10 and 14 years, and to life for the most serious forms. Release terms can bar contact with the complainant and visits to a shared home. They must be followed exactly. A court can change them, sometimes with the Crown's agreement.
Where a defence starts
A defence examines consent, self-defence, and the complainant's account. Self-defence needs a reasonable belief in force or a threat, a defensive purpose, and a reasonable response.
Uttering threats
What the charge covers
The charge covers knowingly threatening death, bodily harm, property damage, or harm to an animal. The words are judged in context, as a reasonable person would hear them. A threat can be spoken, written, or sent by text, voicemail, or social media.
What the Crown must prove
The Crown must prove the words were a threat, judged objectively. It must also prove the accused meant to intimidate, or meant the words to be taken seriously. The person threatened need not be the person who received the words.
How the Crown proceeds
The offence is hybrid. On indictment, the maximum is five years for a threat of death or bodily harm, and two years otherwise. A threat of violence against an intimate partner may also fall under section 263.1.
Where a defence starts
A defence examines context and authorship. It also asks whether the words, read objectively, threaten one of the harms section 264.1 lists.
Weapons & firearms
What the charge covers
The sections cover careless firearm use or storage, weapons held for a dangerous purpose, and unauthorized possession of firearms. Possession requires knowledge and control. Section 95 covers a prohibited or restricted firearm kept loaded or with readily accessible ammunition, without the required licence and registration. Section 91 also covers prohibited weapons, such as some automatic-opening knives.
What the Crown must prove
Being near an item is not, by itself, possession. Section 88 requires a purpose dangerous to the public peace, or to commit an offence. Careless use or storage means a marked departure from the care a reasonably prudent person would take.
How the Crown proceeds
All four offences are hybrid. On indictment, the maximums run from two years for a first careless use or storage offence to 14 years under section 95. A section 95 charge reverses the bail onus: the accused must justify release.
Where a defence starts
A defence examines possession, the search, and whether the item meets the Criminal Code definition of the weapon or firearm charged.
Fraud, theft & property
What the charge covers
Fraud requires a dishonest act causing loss or risk of loss. Theft or fraud over $5,000 is the more serious form of each offence. Section 354 covers knowingly possessing property obtained by crime.
What the Crown must prove
For theft, the Crown must prove a fraudulent taking or conversion, without colour of right, with intent to deprive the owner, even temporarily. Conversion means treating property as the accused's own. Colour of right is an honest, even mistaken, belief in a legal right to the property. For fraud, it must prove the dishonest act, the resulting loss or risk, and that the accused knew the act could cause it.
How the Crown proceeds
Theft or possession over $5,000 is hybrid, with a 10-year maximum on indictment. Fraud over $5,000 is indictable only, with a 14-year maximum. At $5,000 or less, each offence is hybrid, with a two-year maximum on indictment.
Where a defence starts
A defence examines intent, colour of right, and the financial record.
Robbery
What the charge covers
Robbery is theft with violence or threats, or while armed with an offensive weapon or imitation. An assault with intent to steal is also robbery. An offensive weapon is anything used, designed, or intended to cause injury, or to threaten or intimidate.
What the Crown must prove
The violence must be linked to the theft, by its purpose or its timing. For an assault with intent to steal, no completed theft is needed.
How the Crown proceeds
Robbery is indictable only, with a maximum of life imprisonment. Where a firearm is used in listed circumstances, a minimum jail term applies. Since July 2026, a court must impose a shorter jail term where that minimum would be cruel and unusual for that offender. A robbery alleged with a firearm reverses the bail onus: the accused must justify release.
Where a defence starts
A defence examines identification, the force alleged, and intent to steal. It also asks whether any object was a weapon, as the Criminal Code defines it, or an imitation of one.
Break and enter
What the charge covers
The charge covers breaking and entering a place to commit an indictable offence, or committing one inside. The Criminal Code treats breaking into a home (a dwelling-house) more seriously. Breaking includes simply opening a closed door or window. Section 349 covers being unlawfully in a home, intending an indictable offence.
What the Crown must prove
The Crown must prove a break, an entry, and the intended or committed offence. Any part of the body, or of a tool, inside counts as entry. Proof the accused broke in is proof of intent, absent evidence to the contrary.
How the Crown proceeds
Breaking into a home is indictable only, with a maximum of life imprisonment. For any other place, the offence is hybrid, with a 10-year maximum on indictment. Since July 2026, an accused charged with a home break-in must justify release on bail.
Where a defence starts
A defence examines identification and forensic links. It also asks whether the place was a home in law, and whether other evidence rebuts the presumed intent.
Arson
What the charge covers
Arson is deliberate or reckless fire or explosion damage. It is more serious where the accused knows, or is reckless whether, the property is inhabited or occupied, or another is hurt. Section 434 covers property the accused does not wholly own. Other sections cover fire set to defraud, and the accused's own property where the fire seriously threatens another person's health, safety, or property.
What the Crown must prove
The Crown must prove the accused caused damage by fire or explosion, intentionally or recklessly. Under section 433, it must also prove knowledge or recklessness about occupancy, or that the fire or explosion caused bodily harm to another person.
How the Crown proceeds
Arson under sections 433, 434, and 434.1 is indictable only. The maximum is life under section 433, and 14 years under the other two. Arson to defraud is hybrid, with a 10-year maximum on indictment.
Where a defence starts
A defence examines cause and identity: whether the accused caused the fire, and did so intentionally or recklessly. It also asks who owned the property and what the accused knew about occupancy.
Murder & attempted murder
What the charge covers
Murder is first or second degree; both carry life imprisonment. The Crown must prove the required intent, not only a death. Attempted murder requires a specific intent to kill. First degree murder is planned and deliberate, or falls in a listed category, such as killing a police officer on duty.
What the Crown must prove
The intent for murder includes meaning to kill, or meaning to cause bodily harm the accused knew was likely to kill. Without that intent, the verdict may be manslaughter, which carries no mandatory life sentence.
How the Crown proceeds
Murder is tried in the Superior Court of Justice, with a jury unless the accused and the Crown agree to a judge alone. Bail is decided there, and the accused must justify release. Parole eligibility begins after 25 years for first degree, and after 10 to 25 years for second. Attempted murder carries a maximum of life.
Where a defence starts
A defence examines intent, identity, causation, and self-defence. Causation asks whether the accused's act was a significant contributing cause of the death.
Sexual assault
What the charge covers
Sexual assault is an assault of a sexual nature that violates sexual integrity. Consent means voluntary agreement to the activity in question. It must exist at the time, and can be withdrawn.
What the Crown must prove
The Crown must prove a sexual touching, the absence of consent, and the accused's knowledge of, or recklessness about, that absence. There is no consent where the complainant is unconscious or incapable, or where trust, power, or authority was abused to obtain agreement. A belief in consent is no defence without reasonable steps to confirm it.
How the Crown proceeds
The offence is hybrid. On indictment, the maximum is 10 years, or 14 where the complainant is under 16. Since July 2026, a conditional sentence (jail served in the community) is unavailable on indictment.
Where a defence starts
A defence examines consent, credibility, and the rules on sexual history and records. Evidence of the complainant's other sexual activity needs a written application and a judge's ruling first. Rules revised in July 2026 govern private and therapy records, including any the accused holds. Messages between the accused and the complainant now fall outside those rules, and applications must be filed at least 60 days ahead.
Bail hearings and appeals
Bail hearings
What bail decides
Bail decides whether an accused is released before trial, and on what terms. Usually the Crown must justify detention; in listed cases, the accused must justify release. That duty to justify is why it is also called a show-cause hearing.
Who must justify what
The listed cases include some firearm, violence, and intimate partner cases, and some offences alleged while on release. Since July 2026, those accused must clearly show a release plan that addresses the risks.
When detention is justified
Detention is justified only to ensure attendance in court, to protect the public, or to maintain confidence in the justice system.
Reviews
The accused may seek a review under section 520, and the Crown under section 521. Murder bail is heard in the Superior Court of Justice, under section 522, and has its own review route. Except on a murder charge, an accused held 90 days without the trial starting is entitled to a further detention review.
Appeals
What an appeal is
An appeal asks a higher court to review conviction or sentence. Notice is due within 30 days of sentencing; a court may extend it. An appeal is argued mainly on the trial record: the transcript and exhibits. New evidence is admitted only where the interests of justice require it.
Where it is heard
Indictable appeals go to the Court of Appeal for Ontario. Summary conviction appeals go to the Superior Court of Justice. A further appeal from the Superior Court of Justice needs leave (permission) and a question of law.
Grounds of appeal
A conviction can be set aside for an unreasonable verdict, a legal error, or a miscarriage of justice (a serious unfairness). The court may then order a new trial or enter an acquittal. A sentence appeal asks whether the sentence is fit; in the Court of Appeal, it needs leave. On indictable matters, the Crown can appeal an acquittal only on a question of law.
Release pending appeal
An appellant in custody may apply for release until the appeal is decided. On a sentence-only appeal to the Court of Appeal, leave must be granted first.
Talk it through with Azam Murji.
In the initial consultation, Azam Murji goes through the charge, the next court date, the likely court process and the options available. Consultations are confidential and carry no obligation to hire Mr. Murji.
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