Manning, Mewett & Sankoff - Criminal Law, 5th Edition, published by Lexis Nexis Canada. The text, which is now 1400 pages long, provides an updated, detailed and critical examination of the criminal law of Canada, exploring both the governing principles and providing comprehensive analysis of every offence in the Criminal Code and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act as well as common law and statutory defences. This was no minor update, according to Sankoff. "The criminal law changes so dramatically, that many chapters in this book were completely re-written. I had to address the major changes to the law of terrorism, for example, and the many significant developments to the treatment of sexual offences." Since the release of the last edition, in 2009, the Supreme Court has even altered the way it addresses numerous core aspects of the criminal law, including its approach to criminal negligence, the law of causation and the treatment of mental elements. All of those developments have been thoroughly outlined and critiqued in this new work.
Previous editions of this text have been cited repeatedly by the courts at every level including multiple times by the Supreme Court of Canada. The text is designed for academics, practitioners and students, providing them a foundation upon which to build cogent legal argument and assist with legal research. The 5th edition includes coverage of a host of new topics, including:
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Analysis and discussion of the new self-defense regime;
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Substantial analysis of the Supreme Court of Canada's multiple re-visiting of the "Air of Reality" test for the ability to successfully raise a defence;
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Coverage of new Supreme Court of Canada decisions on transferred intent in the defense of mistake;
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Discussion of new case law or legislative developments in such areas of identity theft and fraud, sexual offences (including the new legislative framework for prostitution-related offences), motor vehicle offences, weapons offences, strict and absolute liability offences, corporate liability in criminal law and many more;
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Updated analysis of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms' limitation on criminal law, including discussion of Supreme Court of Canada cases such as R. v. Khawaja, Canada (Attorney-General) v. Bedford and Carter v. Canada (Attorney General).
Professor Sankoff wishes to thank the University of Alberta, which provided funding for research through the Roger S. Smith awards. It enabled him to work with 2015 Bronze Medallist Adrienne Funk, whose research assistance was invaluable to the project.