Libby Znaimer is joined by Criminal Defence Counsel and former President of the Criminal Lawyers Association, Frank Addario.

We continue our discussion on how the justice system has been operating in Ontario amid the COVID-19 pandemic. You’ll remember that we initially held this discussion, on May 14, with Criminal Defence Lawyer Ari Goldkind. He said of our new reality that, “violent young men have been released back into the community…I can tell you from the inside, while I get many of these people out, and I’ll do it today, I’m doing it again later today, I’ll do it tomorrow, I just think there’s not enough public debate about it”. Well, it turns out that our discussion with Ari did spark a debate with regards to how the courts are actually operating during the current health crisis and a number of criminal defence lawyers have been weighing in on social media. We’ve enlisted Mr. Addario’s legal expertise to provide clarity on where things are at with this issue. Mr. Addario makes it very clear from the beginning that, “what Ari Goldkind was talking about was people in remand jails…those people are presumed innocent, they are awaiting trial…so those are people who are accused of violence but they are not violent criminals. They are people charged with crimes to whom the presumption of innocence applies”. Libby also asks Mr. Addario about the mounting backlog of court cases.

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