Successful Case Summaries - Criminal 

Posted on January 25, 2025 by Shazia Umer – 

This week, Shazia Umer successfully defended her client against robbery charges, for which the crown was seeking a minimum sentence of three years in prison if the client entered a guilty plea prior to the trial. The crown originally insisted that there is a strong chance the court will find the client guilty on all charges since a video was available. Nonetheless, Shazia Umer had complete faith in her client's account of events and set the matter for the preliminary inquiry. 

In major criminal matters, a preliminary inquiry is a court hearing used to decide if the evidence gathered by the Crown against an accused individual is adequate to move on with a trial. Even though the accused or their lawyer may cross-examine any witnesses the Crown calls, the preliminary inquiry is not a trial in the traditional sense. 

Before the preliminary inquiry, as is customary, the crown wanted to know if Defence wanted to proceed with the preliminary inquiry or not. We had several back-and-forth conversations about the disclosures, Shazia Umer was able to persuade the crown that their evidence is weak and that proceeding with the preliminary inquiry would be a waste of court resources. The crown reviewed the evidence again in light of Ms. Umer's remarks and the evidence she was preparing to highlight to the court at the preliminary inquiry, and later that day she got an email informing her that the crown was no longer continuing with the charges and that they were being stayed.