Stunt Driving Zoom Facts and Tips for Ontario Courts - Secrets Revealed

Prior to Covid, all court appearances had to be in person. What this meant was that if you were charged in Hamilton, you had to show up in Hamilton for your court date. And worse, sometimes there were five or six court dates before your case is resolved. So, this would mean multiple trips to court. If you were charged on a vacation while up in northern Ontario, you would have to attend court up in northern Ontario, even if you lived hours and hours and hours away. This was very problematic for multiple reasons. Firstly, as I mentioned before, court could take many appearances before resolving. And the reason for this, is that if your evidence or disclosure is not available on a court date, it would have to be adjourned to another court date. And this could happen multiple times. Secondly probably 50% of cases. A lot of people get charged in an area where they don’t live or reside. Which means each time you need to go to court. You would have to commute all the way over to the court. And more problematic. Is a lot of these traffic offenses involved as suspension of a license so it’s impossible to get to these remote locations.
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The only alternative to going to court Is hiring somebody that resides near the courthouse. This was also problematic for multiple reasons. Firstly, you may not have had a good connection or conversation or strategy from the limited selection of representative that were near the courthouse. But you would’ve had to hire them anyway, simply to avoid going to court. Also, this means that to avoid going to court because it may have been impossible, you would have to pay a lot of money to hire someone even if you wanted to do it on your own.
Covid changed everything. Suddenly, these court appearances were now available by zoom. This means that you could attend court for these multiple hearings in remote locations in your own home. All you needed was a computer or a phone. The software was free. There was no travel time. It was no commute. And you didn’t have to hire someone if it was out of your budget or not in your interest.
Now let’s not confuse what a zoom court appearance really is. You are in fact, zooming directly into the actual courthouse in that location. So, for example, again, if you were charged in Hamilton, your zoom appearance put you directly on a screen in the Hamilton courthouse. So, you’re not in the middle of nowhere, you are actually in the court in which you were issued the charges.
The major benefit of this changeover to zoom appearances is something called “access to justice “. Let’s look at what that means. As I mentioned earlier before zoom, if you were charged in Bay Ontario, and you don’t live in thunder Bay Ontario, to avoid going to court appearances, you would’ve had to hire a representative in thunder Bay Ontario now keep in mind that for a stunt driving charge. Your license is on the line for one to three years. So, when you decide to hire somebody, you better be hiring the right person for your case, or you could lose everything. But you didn’t have these options prior to zoom. Had to hire whoever was available near that court. Concept of access to Justice means that you can now hire a representative anywhere in Ontario that representative can zoom into the courthouse where you were charged. This gives you better access to legal representation. That is best to serve your purposes for your stunt charge.
For example, my law firm, NextLaw, has now built relationships with every court across Ontario because of zoom. We are as familiar with the prosecutor in Windsor Ontario all the way across to Ottawa Ontario the representatives that used to reside near the courthouse. There is no longer an advantage to a legal representative having an office near a courthouse. In fact, many people that are charged no longer access their option to attend court in person. So, a firm’s physical presence near the courthouse is almost deemed unnecessary at this point.
My law firm can now represent clients In over 70 courts across Ontario. We have built relationships with prosecutors in all of these courts. We attend all of these courts on a regular basis. And myself and Dan Joffe, are able to attend all of our clients court dates personally. This means that we no longer ever have to rely on hiring an outside party, simply because they’re closer to a physical courthouse. This gives you better representation, this gives you a better strategy, and this gives you a better chance of making sure that you get to keep your license in a stunt driving charge.

[@abhim9955]

great information john, this gives a clear perspective to what to expect.

[@NextLaw]

Glad it was helpful!

[@dnr1738]

I've been wondering for a while now, and I'm assuming many others have the same question (It would be very nice if you could make a video on this topic) I've never been convicted of stunt driving, and hope to never be, although I do stay up to date with the stunt driving laws in Ontario. My question is, considering that Canadians have the right to be "innocent until prove guilty" why do police officers have the ability to take away our cars and licenses, therefore punishing you for a crime, while you're currently innocent and before being proven guilty? This seems against our charter of rights and freedoms... And my part 2 to this question is, if you do get convicted of stunt driving, have your car impounded and license suspended, only to have the charges later dropped because you were wrongly convicted, what are your options after being wrongly convicted and punished for something you shouldn't have been punished for?