Legal Aid Alberta criminal duty counsel lawyer Cameron Mitchell shares how legal drama in pop culture compares to real life.
Police and courtroom dramas have long been a staple of popular culture, but how much of what we watch on American-based streaming platforms, read in books or scroll on social media is actually true to life, especially in Canada?
Legal Aid Alberta staff criminal duty counsel Cameron Mitchell joined Vinesh Pratap at Global Edmonton to help unpack some of the facts from the fiction, from arrests and police interrogations to what to what to expect in the courtroom.
Watch the interview
Let’s start with criminal duty counsel. What is that?
So, what I do is I’m kind of like the lawyer for the lawyerless. I help out people who’ve been charged with their first couple of court appearances. I do a lot of things like bail, hearings, guilty pleas, talk to the Crown prosecutor, help with like general navigation of the court system, spend a heck of a lot of time answering questions. Some of these questions come from what people see on TV, read on Facebook, things like that.
When we see the dramas on TV, we often see — the police, the dramatic arrest scenes, the reading of the Miranda rights. Does that actually happen here in Canada?
Kind of. So, Miranda rights are a very U.S. thing that comes from a case in the U.S., which has Miranda literally in the name. So, we don’t follow that in Canada, but we do have the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, so there’s a lot of Miranda rights that overlap with Charter rights.
For example, when you’re being arrested, the police have to tell you why you’re being charged, have to tell you have the right to speak to a lawyer and they have to tell you that you have the right to silence, which is the big one you always hear on TV.
Okay, so let’s go to another facet here: the police interrogation, which can appear pretty dramatic on TV. How about in real life? How does it work?
So, I guess some main points are, say the police are interrogating you and they ask if you want to speak to a lawyer. Say, “Yes, I do.” At that point, they got to stop asking questions. So, then they have to provide you with access to a private phone room to speak to your lawyer.
You don’t have a lawyer? They have to give the number for Legal Aid Alberta. We actually have lawyers on staff ready to answer these types of calls. We give you some advice.
One big difference from what you do see on TV is you’re not allowed to actually have that lawyer present with you for the interrogation. So, I guess that’s a little bit different.
“You don't have a lawyer? They have to give the number for Legal Aid Alberta. We actually have lawyers on staff ready to answer these types of calls.”
Is access to legal aid unique to Canada?
In a lot of ways, yes. And I mean, in Alberta, we have a pretty awesome and robust legal aid system, and even something like what we do, having duty counsel. If you’re charged, you’re going to be able to show up. We’ll help you out, give you advice — whether or not you can afford a lawyer. So, you don’t have to worry about doing all this alone.
Okay, so we’ve been through the arrests, the police interrogation. Let’s head into the courtroom. I remember the first time when I was covering a trial, I was like, this is not like what I’ve seen in TV. Take us through the court process.
So, I spend a lot of my time in docket court, and that’s for your first couple of appearances. So, I have people that show up and they think that they’re going straight to trial, going from being charged to going to trial. That’s not the way it works. You’re going to show up in docket court and have at least a couple of appearances in there. Kind of give you time to get your ducks in a row.
It’s going to be yourself, a bunch of other people who’ve also been charged. Maybe there’s a dozen or so matters, maybe there’s a hundred. People do things differently, some people just put it over, get a lawyer.
Some people might plead guilty. Maybe there’s some type of alternative measures — all sorts of different things will happen in court before even deciding whether or not you want to schedule a trial. Because you’re looking at trial, you’re probably looking at least months down the line.
Okay, so let’s go months down the line. We’re at an actual trial. Again, in the drama on TV we often see lawyers yell, “Objection!” How is it in actual court?
You see a little bit of that. I mean, that is something that’s true to form, and some of the more boisterous lawyers, they’ll jump up and down and make sure their objection is heard. But there’s differences too. So, some of the main ones are, if you’re in Provincial Court, you show up, you’re still going to be in front of a judge, but they’re actually called justices now. So, it’s a justice of the Alberta Court of Justice.
And another big thing is they don’t have gavels, so you don’t see them banging a little hammer on the desk. That’s another big difference. But again, there’s going to be somebody there for those early appearances, somebody like me as duty counsel, so we can answer some of these questions for you, sort of get through and help decipher between what is fact and what is fiction and give some proper legal advice.
Thank you for the advice and the lessons you’re giving us this morning, Cameron, on the Canadian law and the legal system.
Thank you for having me.
Need legal advice?
Learn more about Legal Aid Alberta services in family law, child welfare, domestic violence, immigration and youth and adult criminal defence.