Toronto Dangerous Offender Applications

People accused of sexual assault, attempted murder, murder and the most violent offences run the risk of being labelled a dangerous offender at the sentencing hearing. At the criminal defence law firm of Hicks Adams, our lawyers have more than a century of combined experience. We use that experience to defend against serious violent offences and sexual offences in order to avoid the heightened penalties that come along with a dangerous offender application.

If a person is found guilty, the crown may make an application for dangerous offender status instead of the regular sentence the law has dictated for the offence. Essentially, this is a method of indefinitely incarcerating a person who is believed to have violent tendencies that cannot be controlled. The dangerous offender will be imprisoned until a tribunal finds that it is safe and advisable for the person to be released, which may very well be never.

The possibility of life-long incarceration means that a dangerous offender application should be aggressively opposed. We will fight to avoid conviction. If convicted, we will turn to our network of experts, which includes experienced and well-respected forensic psychiatrists. Our goal is to avoid the dangerous offender designation at sentencing in favour of long-term offender designation or some other lesser penalty.

We have a tremendous amount of experience and success in this difficult area, having represented dozens of persons at trial and on appeal who faced a dangerous offender designation on sentence. You can benefit from the experience, knowledge and resources we offer.

Our experienced Toronto dangerous offender application defence lawyers are ready to defend your rights.

Call us on 416-975-1700 or send us an e-mail for a free consultation.