Toronto Criminal Lawyer

Karen M. McArthur

Tag Archives: commentary

April showers, brings May seizures…oops, wrong plant!

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police-officer-doll-setPolicing is hard work. Front line police officers respond to the unpredictable, the predictable and the mundane. They must bring to bear patience, fortitude, common sense, and a great deal of compassion. They carry guns, and their actions are scrutinized, often mercilessly.

I immensely respect the work our men and women in blue do for us. I did, however, find this ‘blooper’ of a policing mistake humorous, and wanted to share it with you.

A call to the New York police about pot plants set the scene in action. Police arrive to search and destroy. Only the crop was not pot.  Tomato plants were seized and hauled away. NYDaily News Article here.

The gardener had not run afoul of drug legislation, but had run afoul of the building’s ‘no access to the roof’ policy. The jig is up. The roof will now be out of bounds for our New York urban garden guerilla.

Balancing Lawyering and Motherhood

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Mother’s Day is Sunday. My youngest bursting with pride presented me with my Mother’s Day gift yesterday. Carefully wrapped with tissue paper and tied off with a teacher’s bow. Inside lay a frame of my son’s art and carefully hand printed rendition of Mommy stuff. My Mom’s name is Karen. My Mom is Nis. My Mom loves Sports.

Apparently, my other two are hard at work on their Mother’s Day gifts and I will receive them Sunday morning. I await with bated breath.

This morning’s Globe and Mail contained Sarah Hampson’s piece on motherhood. It resonated deeply.

She writes,” I think every mother knows, not necessarily right away but little by little with each passing year, that motherhood has shaped her differently. We get stretch marks of the heart and mind.” According to research cited by Sarah, motherhood changes women’s brains, with an increasing volume of grey matter in the mid-brain section. She cites Katherine Ellison’s, The Mommy Brain, for the proposition that bump-dom brings increased perception, resiliency, motivation and EQ. Continue reading →

Constitutional Safeguards

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images-1One of my very first cases as an articling student at McCarthy and McCarthy as it then was, involved margarine. Warehouses full of the wrong coloured margarine were locked down as the colour violated regulatory requirements, that margarine be a different colour than butter. No false advertising. I remember the urgency of trying to deal with the search warrant and the return/preservation of the product. I had nightmares, brought on by my trauma of being thrust into articling hell, about rivers of my client’s melting product wading through London, Ontario.

During the course of my articling year, I then became involved with a second case,where on behalf of margarine manufacturers, we brought a constitutional challenge under the Charter, arguing that the regulatory requirements violated our clients’ freedom of expression.

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Today is the 20th anniversary of a free world wide web

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Original WWW proposal

Original WWW proposal

Started from the work of astrophysicists and scientists. I was first introduced to its notion, May 19, 1996 through a dear friend, an astrophysicist turned lawyer, in a Left Bank bar, when he tried to explain his PsiOn to me.

Now 20 years later, hyperconnectivity buzzes our days. Education on every subject imaginable is only a key stroke or two away.

Harvard Law School Offers ‘Tax Planning For Marijuana Dealers’—No Joke

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This morning after dropping my three kids off at school, I was listening to the radio. Barack Obama quipped, ” I remember when Buzzfeed was just something I did in College.” A man of our times. How times have changed. From, Bill Clinton’s  line, ” I didn’t inhale”, to this.

Last night, I came across this article, “Harvard Law School Offers ‘Tax Planning For Marijuana Dealers’—No Joke”

As a mom and a criminal defence attorney, who has defended asundry marijuana cases over the years, from as minor as smoking a single joint, to sophisticated hydroponic pot growing operations in suburban basements, I reflect. What will I tell my kids? I plan on telling them to keep focused and that modern day boot leggers who ply their drug trade for profit, can put some pretty nasty stuff out on the streets.  Knowledge is power.

Read the entire article here