Morton's Musings: Only 3 in 100 acquitted

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Only 3 in 100 acquitted

An outright acquittal in a criminal trial in Canada is a lot less common than most people might think.

A finding of "not guilty" was the result in just more than 3% of the more than 390,000 criminal cases in the country in 2008-2009, according to data recently released by Statistics Canada.

If Quebec is excluded from the totals the percentage drops to a little more than 1% -- just 3,570 people acquitted in the rest of the country last year.

2 comments:

Stephen Downes said...: I wonder what the percentage is if the person pleads 'not guilty'.; August 3, 2010 at 4:32 PM
James C Morton said...: It's basically the same -- the conviction rate following a trial (which implies a not guilty plea) ranges from 88% in Quebec to 99% in other provinces with Ontario coming in at 97%.

I have had two clients I was morally certain were innocent.

Both were found guilty.; August 3, 2010 at 9:33 PM