The appellants, Shawn Cargioli, Kendell Kamal, and Famien Morrisson, appealed their murder convictions stemming from the stabbing death of Shadi Taleb during a planned robbery.
Cargioli was convicted of first-degree murder, while Kamal and Morrisson were convicted of second-degree murder.
The appeals raised various grounds, including the admissibility of expert evidence, trial judge's rulings on witness testimony, admissibility of police statements, jury instructions on after-the-fact conduct, misapprehension of evidence, the co-conspirator's exception to the hearsay rule, and jury instructions on liability for manslaughter, murder, and first-degree murder.
The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeals of Morrisson and Kamal, affirming their convictions and sentences.
For Cargioli, the court found a reversible error in the first-degree murder instruction regarding the contemporaneity of mens rea and actus reus for active participation.
Given the Crown's concession, the court substituted a conviction for second-degree murder for Cargioli and remitted the matter for sentencing.
