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So you're saying that double-jeopardy exists in the US? Because that's what a "do-over" is: a second trial, which is contrary to the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution. It is also contrary to s. 11(h) of the Canadian Charter. In short, there are no "do-overs" at the appellate level in the US or Canada. Hell, in both the US and Canada, an appellate matter is lawyers speaking to judges: no witnesses, no evidence, no nothing, except caselaw research.
In fact, your claim that " In the US an appeal means a do-over," tells me that you really do not understand law at all. So let me set you straight.
First of all, in the US, as in Canada, appellate matters are handled on errors in law. They are not do-overs. Facts are always found at trial; they are never found on appeal. Errors in law are dealt with upon appeal, but never facts.
Secondly, Lieneke, you are wrong, wrong, and yet more wrong, in so many other ways. Suggest you study US and Canadian appellate decisions, and laws (both statutory and common-law) and reconsider your position. You might start by reading these two books:
I should add, both are on my bookshelf, and both are full of highlights and marginalia, made by me. (And I have attended lectures by both Professors Gall and DeCoste.) Are they on your bookshelf? At any rate, you can probably find them at your local public library. If not, your local law library will have them. I suggest that you read them before you get yourself in serious trouble. Not from me, but from the authorities, who will not accept your "we use EU law" argument. Try that in court, and listen to the judge laugh.
Never been in court, Lieneke? Well, I have. Not as an accused, but as a lawyer, representing clients in criminal and civil matters. I know this stuff--it's my job. What do you do for a living, and what qualifies you to comment on the law? Have you been to law school? I have. Have you studied for, and passed, the bar? I have. Have you been consulted by the provinces as to how their research in Supreme Court cases is solid or weak, as the case may be? I have.
I've done all of the above. Have you? No?
Then, when it comes to Canadian, or common-law, law; you would do well to sit down, shut up, and listen. You might learn something.
Yes, the US has double jeopardy. No, the prosecutor cannot appeal a verdict. Yes, an accused can appeal a verdict. When the accused appeals the verdict, the trial is a do-over.
I was actually looking forward to a good debate, but it's no fun discussing something with someone who takes my words and turns them into something I didn't say.
Enjoy it while you still have the desire to. Trust me when I say you'll get over that with any kind of advancing maturity.
Your sense of smell alone will eventually rebel.
Have you ever been to any 3rd World country? There are so many older people from the western countries are traveling or living there.
When I did the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal (a 250 km mountain trek in Himalaya), about half of the trekkers were 50+ old. No running water, no western toilets, but so much excitement! People socializing all the time, making friends, exchanging stories and meeting locals. We have hired a Nepali guide so we learned a lot about the local culture and people during our trek. Yes, there are hot water and comfy accommodations with clean toilets in Canadian Rockies, but nothing compared to the level of excitement you can get in Himalaya because of the social atmosphere. And most tourists want to feel the excitement during the travels and break the routine life they have at home.
Hundreds of thousands of older expats are living in tropical 3rd world countries. Yes, instead of sterile environment and running water of retirement homes, where they can slowly die in loneliness and depression, they choose a better place to live. And some of them even have much better romantic life than many young people here in the west. Once, while visiting a tiny town located 500 km north-east of Bangkok, I met a 75 years old american expat from San Francisco. He was living there in the heart of farmland. I asked him wasn't it boring to stay in such place. He laughed and answered "I feel so happy here". And his eyes were glowing with happiness.
As older you are, the more important social life becomes to you. And running water just can't replace it...
Enjoy it while you still have the desire to. Trust me when I say you'll get over that with any kind of advancing maturity.
Your sense of smell alone will eventually rebel.
My sense of smell is what attracts me to those places. Please visit a Mexico City marketplace or a Shanghai temple and tell me the smells don't draw you in.
Have you ever been to any 3rd World country? There are so many older people from the western countries are traveling or living there.
When I did the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal (a 250 km mountain trek in Himalaya), about half of the trekkers were 50+ old. No running water, no western toilets, but so much excitement! People socializing all the time, making friends, exchanging stories and meeting locals. We have hired a Nepali guide so we learned a lot about the local culture and people during our trek. Yes, there are hot water and comfy accommodations with clean toilets in Canadian Rockies, but nothing compared to the level of excitement you can get in Himalaya because of the social atmosphere. And most tourists want to feel the excitement during the travels and break the routine life they have at home.
Hundreds of thousands of older expats are living in tropical 3rd world countries. Yes, instead of sterile environment and running water of retirement homes, where they can slowly die in loneliness and depression, they choose a better place to live. And some of them even have much better romantic life than many young people here in the west. Once, while visiting a tiny town located 500 km north-east of Bangkok, I met a 75 years old american expat from San Francisco. He was living there in the heart of farmland. I asked him wasn't it boring to stay in such place. He laughed and answered "I feel so happy here". And his eyes were glowing with happiness.
As older you are, the more important social life becomes to you. And running water just can't replace it...
Yes I have been to a number of third world countries. Not my preference for reasons already stated.
You are debating the things that make people happy from the viewpoint of your preferences now. Those are subjective to say the least. Running water? I have hunted the Pacific northwest for weeks at a time with nothing more than dehydrated food and a charred old military camp kit. It was fun then, not my cup of tea now.
Toured throughout Europe in mid-sixties on an old BMW R50 500cc that I rebuilt myself. Enjoyed it then but was glad to get home. Spent weeks on a Canal barge touring some of the UK canal system and found a place in the Cotswolds I'd eventually return to three times over the years to recharge my batteries.
Quite a bleak picture you describe as the two disparate lifestyles for aged people, one being an old age home with folks all lined up bored out of their gourds waiting to die and the other being some recluse living in the wild with happiness in his "eyes".
The two are not exclusive to each other. I can show you a very happy octogenarian living in a highrise condo doing crossword puzzles. She is happy remembering having raised four children and watching them thrive to occasionally babysit her great grandchildren and would scoff at your suggestion she's bored stiff and just waiting to die.
You'll eventually find out it's just a matter of perspective with a dash of romanticism thrown in.
Happiness is in the mind of the individual as garnered from a life well lived.
Canada can be a place full of mystery and beautiful wilderness to those who really look.
I said this before in another post and I'll say it again. Many Americans have never visited Canada before because they have this "sameness" notion about Canada, i.e. everything about Canada is the same as the US and so pretty much dull and boring. Having visited no less than 12 times, I can tell you all this is not true at all. I love visiting Canada, I think it is a very good tourist destination, and I haven't even been to all of the provinces yet. Personally I'd prefer Canada to any of the exotic locations mentioned so far in other posts (I'm a cold weather person anyways). It's so close by to most of the US that it's really most convenient to visit as well. I always recommend Canada to friends and get excited telling them about it.
Who cares! I am a tourist, I want to discover a new fascinating culture.
I take Mexico city, Bombay, Shanghai, Rio, CapeTown, Moscow any day over any Canadian city!
To many people Canada is a fascinating culture, if you actually visit you would be surprised how different it really is... looking around everywhere it was obvious you were in a different country, even when you turn on the tv and listen to the radio... the only thing that was annoying was turning on a Canadian news station and hearing "blah blah blah Trump this Trump that"
So the US has no double-jeopardy, as per the fifth amendment to the US constitution, and yet you are asserting that it does?
No. No appeal is ever a do-over of a trial, in the US as in Canada. Suggest you study the law of both countries: start by reading appellate decisions of both countries, at both the SCOTUS level, and at the SCC. Show me where any appellate decision is a do-over. with witnesses, evidence bags, and so on.
Regardless, notice how each follows the common-law system in deciding those cases: stare decisis.
That's the common-law system of law. It has nothing to do with death penalties, whether the Crown can appeal, or all the other details you assert as "differences in the systems." Those are minor details.
What really counts is whether you've been accused of a crime, and the judge is an active player, asking you questions, and you have no right to be silent. You must answer. In the common-law tradition, in the adversarial common-law system used in the US as in Canada, you can stay silent; you have that right. In an inquisitorial system, such as is used in Europe, South America, Asia, and some countries in Africa, which are under a civil-law inquisitorial system, you must answer to the judge when he or she asks you questions. You don't have the right to remain silent.
In short, in Canada's common-law system, as in the US, an accused doesn't have to answer to a judge. Constitutional rights and caselaw protect that right. In most of the rest of the world--not so much. Civil-law (France, Germany, China, etc.) and common-law (Canada, the US, the UK, New Zealand, Ireland, etc.)--those are the only two systems of law. We can argue details, but in the end, I think you'll agree that a common-law, adversarial system, with codified rights such as we find in the Charter; is much different from a civil-law, inquisitorial, system, where your rights are not necessarily codified, and when the judge asks, you cannot rely on US Constitution Amendment V or Canadian Charter s. 11(c), as the case may be.
Lieneke, I don't see that you will understand this fully at this point (I only understood it after taking two semesters of constitutional law, plus one semester of "Philosophy of Law,") but I do hope that you see where I'm coming from.
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