- [Megan] Hi, I'm Megan
- [Kate] And I'm Kate. And in this video we'll show you how to use Canadian criminal procedure by Salhany, and its online form in WestlawNext.
- [Megan] Does this mean that I have access to it now at any courthouse library location in BC?
- [Kate] Yes, any public access computer at any one of our 30 locations now has the most up to date version available. Easier to search and link cases and other resources seamlessly.
- [Megan] I'm guessing I'm going to really like this, just as soon as I figure out how to make it work. I'm hoping you might be able to help me with a particular research request. I'm working with the Crown on a prosecution. Snow, the daughter of a prominent political figure, has recently gone missing. Preliminary investigations lead us to believe that she is alive, but an employee of the family has admitted that the girl's stepmother hired him to kill her. She has denied this, but has suspiciously packed up a number of her personal possessions, got a mare, and locked the chambers of her residence, in their, some might say, palatial home. We think there might be evidence of the hit on her laptop, but we need warrant. I need to determine what the factors are for a search warrant to search a computer and would like to see what Salhany's text might have on this topic.
- [Kate] No problem. Let's start by opening WestlawNext and clicking on CriminalSource. CriminalSource is where you'll find all of the criminal resources that Westlaw has to offer. If you scroll to the middle of the page, you'll see there's a list of commentary by title. And we can select Salhany directly from here.
- [Megan] So am I now looking at the table of contents?
- [Kate] That's right. This is great if you want to browse through the book.
- [Megan] So if I had the hard copy version, I would probably flip to Chapter three. Arrest and Seizure of Property.
- [Kate] Excellent. So a simple click now brings us to a drop down of all the subheadings in this chapter.
- [Megan] Perfect. Could we take a look at procedure to obtain a search warrant?
- [Kate] Of course.
- [Megan] Okay, so now I can just read this section to see if it mentions a search of computers.
- [Kate] You could. But the beauty of using the online version is that you now have the ability to run a variety of different searches to make it faster.
- [Megan] I like faster. How would I do that?
- [Kate] You actually have a few choices. First of all, if you wanted to run a search in a particular section, like this one, you could select this icon that looks like a magnifying glass. Now we simply enter a keyword and hit search.
- [Megan] Let's try computer.
- [Kate] And there you are. Directly to your reference on computer. Using the arrows here you can flip between the references
- [Megan] That's great. What about the tiny footnote there for 197 W one?
- [Kate] Good eyes. Clicking there will take you to the list of cases that support that principle. And because you're in Westlaw, you can of course click right through to the cases.
- [Megan] Fantastic. You mentioned there was another way of searching, though.
- [Kate] That's right. You could run a search right from the beginning as well. Let's say you were just starting this from the beginning. We'll select Salhany from the list of commentary again.
- [Megan] Okay, this looks pretty familiar.
- [Kate] Yes, but see your search box at the top? It's now set to only search Salhany. You can always verify what it is searching because it reminds you in the lighter text of the search box.
- [Megan] Handy. So maybe we could try search warrant computer.
- [Kate] Done.
- [Megan] Oh, 45 results. That seems like a lot.
- [Kate] Fair enough. But there are several ways to evaluate or reduce your results list. First, they will be sorted with the potentially most relevant at the top.
- [Megan] Oh, and I can see in the first line here which chapter each result came from. So I can see that the first two results there are from the chapter on Arrest and Seizure of Property. So they probably have a greater likelihood of being relevant.
- [Kate] That's right. The other thing to remember is that WestlawNext defaults to search for any of your words using a natural language search. If you want more control over your search, you could always use a couple of simple Boolean connectors. Even just the word and, and then quotation marks around search warrant. And then click this display results using Boolean terms and connector search.
- [Megan] Oh, look at that. Then I'm just down to one.
- [Kate] So, do you time for one more tip?
- [Megan] Sure.
- [Kate] If you select all content at the top, and then click search, it will run your search across all of the content in CriminalSource. This can be a really great way to see what other resources might exist on your topic. Your results are organized by type of resource, like cases and decisions, statutes, et cetera. I think you'll find it particularly helpful to scroll to Texts and Annotations, and then select view all.
- [Megan] Oh wow, look at all the options. Can we look at the Ewaschuk selection?
- [Kate] Of course.
- [Megan] So helpful. You were right, I am going to like this. Thanks, Kate.
- [Kate] You're welcome, Megan. That brings us to the end of this tutorial. If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to contact us here at Courthouse Libraries BC.