Getting Away with Murder: The Canadian Criminal Justice System

Lesley H. Morley is a practising lawyer with a particular interest in
immigration law.

David Paciocco sets his sights high in this book. Its objective, he
says, is to foster dialogue between the Canadian public and the legal
profession, so that the former’s waning faith in the justice system
may be restored. This is a critical task, he maintains, as such a system
without credibility can destroy itself in a desperate grasp for
acceptance. If the public understands the system better, the author
maintains, it will respect the system more.

Paciocco seems, at first blush, to be pulling for different teams. His
contention that the purpose of sentencing is to punish, not
rehabilitate, will delight law-and-order types, who will surely also
appreciate his arguments for the abolition of parole. On the other hand,
civil-rights advocates will applaud his proposals for eliminating the
minimum penalty for murder, and for reserving jail for violent
offenders. Likewise, victims of crime will agree with Paciocco that we
should be careful about the criminal conduct that we excuse, and that we
should eradicate the defences of provocation and battered woman
syndrome. One might expect them, however, to be deeply disappointed with
his conclusion that a crime breaches the victim’s blood but the
king’s peace, and that therefore victims cannot be allowed full
participation in the criminal justice process.

That Paciocco goes his own way in this book may have something to do
with the fact that he is a professor of law, and both a former
prosecutor and a former defence attorney. His love for what he calls
“the majesty of the law” is apparent in every anecdote and argument
in the book, which makes abundant reference not only to cases from law
books but also to cases reported in the popular press.