Peer Recognition
Peer Reviews of Dr. Lugosi’s Character, Abilities, Work and Accomplishments
-
Barrister and Solicitor, Prince George BC.
He has heart. Above all else, this defines him. His grit and determination in adversity have won him trials that ought to have been lost. … He has great courage – of several important kinds – but in particular the courage to take on the most difficult fight and not settle for grace in defeat once the fight is underway.
-
Lead homicide detective, private investigator, former member of the RCMP and the Abbotsford BC Police Department
Dr. LUGOSI has defended before Judge and Jury Trials, Appellate Court level and has presented cases before the Supreme Court of Canada. There were few lawyers in British Columbia who were as able as Dr. LUGOSI to handle such complicated cases requiring superior intelligence, sophistication and experience. At that time, he would have been one of the top 5 Criminal Defence Lawyers in BC, if not in Canada. I have no hesitation in comparing Dr. LUGOSI to such prominent lawyers as Mr. Richard PECK, British Columbia and Eddie GREENSPAN of Ontario and believe they would consider him their equal.
-
Virginia USA
As an attorney, Dr. Lugosi is in a rare category of successfully advocating for his clients in both the United States Supreme Court and in the Supreme Court of Canada. His exceptional work as a trial and appellate attorney has been nationally recognized in Canada and in the United States. In the case of Michael Feeney, Dr. Lugosi won a narrow victory in the Supreme Court of Canada that changed the law of search and seizure. The Feeney case is now required reading in every criminal law textbook in Canada. He is an outstanding attorney, who successfully led a team of law students and attorneys in pro bono work that involved complicated legal strategy and challenging legal issues, to free Julie Baumer, a factually innocent person who was wrongfully convicted of first-degree child abuse in Michigan. Less tenacious counsel would have been defeated. Her case was featured in the New Yorker magazine and on 60 Minutes.
-
Retired member of the Law Society of British Columbia.
Charles is one of the finest lawyers I know and has superb abilities both for academic and courtroom work.
-
(1999) 141 C.C.C. (3d) 559 (B.C.C.A.) at 567-568.
In his instructions to the jury in a first-degree murder trial involving co-defendants with cutthroat defenses, B.C. Supreme Court Tim Singh made the following comment that resulted in an application for a mistrial and ultimately was the reason a new trial was ordered by the Court of Appeal: “Members of the jury, he [Copeland] was then cross-examined by Mr. Lugosi. I am sure you will vividly recall that examination. It was one of the most forceful, effective, brilliant pieces of work where he attacked Copeland’s credibility ...Mr. Cluff: [applying for mistrial] ...There is no question that anybody perceiving what it is that your Lordship says is going to take from that that your Lordship’s impression was that he [Copeland] was essentially destroyed on cross-examination. The Court: I still hold that view.
Life Member, Million Dollar Advocates’ Forum
Membership is limited to trial lawyers who have demonstrated exceptional skill, experience, and excellence in advocacy by achieving a verdict, award or settlement in the amount of one million dollars or more.
Peer Recognition of Intellectual Contributions to Advance Justice
Footnote 36
ESSAY
ABORTION-FROM PRIVACY TO EQUALITY:
THE FAILURE OF THE JUSTIFICATIONS
FOR TAKING HUMAN LIFE
Robert John Araujo, S.J.
45 Hous. L. Rev. 1737 (2008-2009)
In this context, Professor Charles Lugosi has prepared an extraordinary and immensely clarifying work that dispels the unscientific claims that embryos, fetuses, and unborn children are not humans and therefore not entitled to constitutional protection.
See Charles I. Lugosi, Conforming to the Rule of Law: When Person and Human Being Finally Mean the Same Thing in Fourteenth Amendment Jurisprudence,22 ISSUES L. & MED. 119, 121 (2006-2007).
In his careful examination, Professor Lugosi notes that while the Fourteenth Amendment was promulgated with the original intent to protect people from racial discrimination, racism is not the only matter to which the Amendment’s protections apply. Id. at 120-21. As this Essay illustrates, it has been and continues to be relied upon by pro-abortion advocates. However, as Professor Lugosi’s careful study reveals, there is nothing to prevent its protections from being applied to all humans including those conceived but not yet born.
He convincingly demonstrates how the judicial branch could define “person” so that all human beings, born and unborn, would be protected; however, as he indicates, most judges, including those who have developed the Supreme Court jurisprudence on abortion, have chosen not to do so. Id. at 121. As he argues, “We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.” Id. at 120 (quoting Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval (July 12, 1816) (inscribed on the wall of the statue chamber, Jefferson Memorial, Washington, D.C.).
He continues by stating:
“If it is accepted, as I believe, that the unborn members of the human species are human beings, then it is arguable that as human beings they are natural persons as a matter of law. If all this is true, I contend that it is immoral and legally wrong to exclude the unborn human being at any age prior to birth from the constitutional meaning of person under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It is my position that American constitutional law will not conform to the rule of law, and will fail to honor the basic doctrines of equal protection under the law and substantive human rights, until the legal meanings of ‘human being’ and ‘person’ are identical and are mutually recognized as a matter of constitutional law when a new human being is created at the time of conception.
I maintain that there is no rule of law if the Constitution is interpreted to perpetuate a legal caste system of ‘separate and unequal,’ where there is no justice for the unborn. I contend there is no justice for the unborn human being so long as there is denial of equality, respect, dignity, liberty, life, and due process of law. Since the word ‘person’ in the Fourteenth Amendment is capable of being interpreted liberally in an objective manner consistent with the rule of law to include all human beings, not to do so violates the natural law which is the foundation of the Declaration of Independence and the core liberal ideals of equality and human dignity.”
Id. at 120, 122 (emphasis added).
Featured Speaker at Conferences and Meetings
The WikiLeaks Controversy: Julian Assange – Enemy of the State or Hero? Remarks delivered to the Southeast Association of Law Schools (SEALS) Annual Conference, July 28, 2011, Hilton Head, S.C.
Natural Rights and the American Constitutional Experience, Panelist, Tocqueville Forum on the Roots of American Democracy, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. January 30-31, 2009
Natural Disaster; Unnatural Deaths: The Killings on the Life Care Floors at Tenet’s Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans During Hurricane Katrina, Panelist, 2007 Annual Meeting, University Faculty for Life, Villanova University
“Living in the Twilight Zone: A Roundtable Discussion Regarding Presidential Power, the Rule of Law, and Warrantless Wiretaps in the War Against Bin Laden,” January 27, 2006, Department of Criminal Justice and Legal Studies, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida
“Cruelty to Animals: Empathy, Ethics and Experimentation,” February 3, 2005, St. Thomas University School of Law, Miami, Florida
“Conforming to the Rule of Law,” June 3, 2005, Ave Maria School of Law, Ann Arbor, Michigan
As Guest Panelist, presented lecture “Mocking the Rule of Law: A Kangaroo Court for Aussie David Hicks” at Symposium “Balancing Security and Liberty in the New Century:” hosted by the Temple Political and Civil Rights Law Review, October 15, 2004 Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
“Respecting Human Life in the 21st Century” Invited oral presentation of paper presented by DVD at the First Legal Medical Congress of Islamic Countries, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran, June 25-27, 2004
“Killing One to Save the Other: Lessons from the Case of Rose (Mary) and Gracie (Jodie), the Conjoined Twins from Malta” Guest Lecture, Bioethics Forum, Sponsored by the Program in Biomedical Ethics and Medical Humanities, University of Iowa, May 7, 2002
“Medical-Legal Considerations of New Developments in Biotechnology and Bioethics,” invited conference speaker, keynote address delivered to the Annual General Meeting, Real Women of Canada, Richmond, B.C. 1993
-
Charles LugosiDr. Lugosi was first admitted to practice on April 9, 1981, and has been licensed to practice for over 40 years, not just in Ontario, but British Columbia, and in the United States, including the United States Supreme Court. Dr. Lugosi has authored three pro bono Amicus Briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court and significantly contributed to a fourth. He has appeared as lead counsel in several important cases in the Supreme Court of Canada, and won the landmark case of R. v. Feeney, a decision that changed the law to now require the use of a “Feeney warrant” to enter private residences and to make a search.
