Tersha De Koning is an Ontarian lawyer with an interest in (among other things) criminal, constitutional, and human rights law. She graduated with her JD from Queen’s University, where she won awards for her trial and appellate advocacy, and articled as a clerk at the Superior Court and an ex-officio clerk at the Divisional Court. She then worked as a lawyer at Innocence Canada, an organization engaged in advocative, exonerative, educative, and reformative work for the wrongfully convicted, in which role she reviewed and assisted in the appellate litigation of historical and contemporary homicide cases that had exhausted appeals at their provincial appellate courts and, often, the Supreme Court of Canada. She is currently an LLM student specializing in criminal law at the University of Toronto, where her thesis concentrates on section 12 of the Charter, the right against cruel and unusual treatment or punishment. In her LLM thesis, she will be examining and evaluating how section 12 has historically been shaped, philosophically and morally, by law and legal literature; how recent case law from the Supreme Court of Canada  has substantively changed the section 12 framework; whether the change is constitutionally appropriate; and what the change means for future section 12 litigants.