Alex Cornelius

Patrick Doyle was convicted by a jury of manslaughter and first-degree murder.

The court's task was to sentence him for these offences.

For first-degree murder, a mandatory life sentence with no parole eligibility for 25 years was imposed.

For manslaughter, the Crown sought 10 years, and the Defence sought 5 years.

The court imposed an 8-year concurrent sentence, considering the gravity of the offence, the degree of the offender's responsibility, and aggravating factors such as a lengthy criminal record and firearms prohibition.

The court also considered mitigating collateral consequences of harsh pre-sentence detention conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic, applying a "Duncan credit" as a factor in determining the fit sentence, and a "Summers credit" for time served.

The accused, Justine Ordonio, sought to adduce ante mortem hearsay statements made by the deceased, Teresa Hsin, regarding a third-party suspect, Tim Chiu, to establish motive and disposition.

The court examined three categories of statements, considering their admissibility under the state of mind exception or the principled approach to hearsay.

While necessity was established due to the deceased's unavailability, the court found the statements lacked threshold reliability.

This was attributed to the confrontational and strategic nature of one conversation, the deceased's compromised state in hospital during another, and the ambiguity and lack of specific fear of violence in statements relayed by the deceased's mother.

The motion to admit the hearsay evidence was dismissed.

The accused, charged with first-degree murder, brought an application to exclude his post-arrest statement to police, alleging breaches of ss. 7 and 10(b) of the Charter and arguing the statement was involuntary.

The court found a minor s. 10(b) breach occurred when an officer questioned the accused en route to the station before he spoke to counsel, but admitted the subsequent 13-hour interview statement under s. 24(2).

The court dismissed the remaining Charter claims and found the statement voluntary, concluding the accused was not overborne by the length of the interview or the officer's use of the Reid technique, but rather chose to speak after being confronted with overwhelming incriminating evidence.

Three offenders were convicted of manslaughter following a botched home invasion robbery targeting a drug dealer.

The offenders planned to use extreme violence, bringing weapons and gasoline, but mistakenly encountered the target's brother, who was stabbed to death by one of the offenders.

The court found the offence to be an aggravated manslaughter due to the high degree of planning, the home invasion context, and the extreme violence intended.

The court sentenced the stabber to 13 years and the other two offenders to 11 years, less credit for pre-trial custody.

Requests for enhanced credit due to lockdown conditions were denied for lack of evidence of detrimental impact.

During a criminal trial, the accused sought to introduce the contents of text messages from cell phone records to show he was not the user of a specific phone number, arguing the messages were circumstantial evidence and not hearsay.

The Crown objected.

The court held that the text messages were implied assertions being tendered for the truth of their contents, and therefore constituted presumptively inadmissible hearsay.

The court further found that the messages did not meet the criteria of necessity and reliability under the principled exception to hearsay, as they were devoid of context and the declarants were unavailable for cross-examination.

The application to instruct the jury on a non-hearsay use was dismissed.

During a joint trial for first-degree murder, the trial judge ruled on several motions.

The judge excused a prospective juror for obvious partiality under s. 632(c) of the Criminal Code.

A motion to sever one of the co-accused due to his counsel's illness was dismissed, as the jury was willing to wait and the public interest favoured a joint trial.

The judge also dismissed a Charter application alleging that the consumption of a DNA negative control by the Centre of Forensic Sciences breached the accused's rights, finding the control was an analytical tool rather than first-party disclosure.

Finally, a request for a mid-trial instruction regarding an in-dock identification was denied, with the judge opting to provide a general warning about eyewitness identification instead.

During jury deliberations in a first-degree murder trial, the jury requested to take a view of the apartment complex where the shooting occurred.

The Crown opposed the request due to logistical and security concerns, while one of the accused argued a view constitutes real evidence.

The trial judge refused the request, finding that a view would not provide a real and demonstrable advantage given the extensive photographic and video evidence already adduced.

Furthermore, the judge held that a view at the deliberation stage was not in the interests of justice due to the passage of time, the risk of the jury drawing untested inferences, and significant logistical challenges.

The Crown and defence brought multiple pre-trial motions in a first-degree murder case.

The court ruled on various procedural and evidentiary issues, including denying the Crown's request to shackle the accused and the defence's request to sit at counsel table.

The court permitted the defence to introduce alternate suspect evidence, finding an air of reality to the claim.

The court allowed the Crown to introduce post-offence conduct evidence regarding changes in hairstyle and phone numbers, but excluded bad character evidence regarding prior firearm possession due to its prejudicial effect.

The court also found a section 7 Charter breach due to the police's unacceptable negligence in losing a witness interview DVD, but ordered alternative remedies rather than excluding the witness's evidence.

The accused were jointly charged with first-degree murder.

During pre-charge conferences, the Crown and defence counsel raised several issues regarding the jury instructions.

The court declined the Crown's request to leave section 21(2) of the Criminal Code and unlawful confinement under section 231(5)(e) as routes to liability, finding insufficient evidence to support those theories.

The court also dismissed defence requests to remove planning and deliberation or section 229(a)(ii) intent from the charge for one of the accused, finding sufficient circumstantial evidence for the jury to consider.

Further defence requests for a specific identification instruction and modifications to the summary of eyewitness testimony were also dismissed.

During a first degree murder trial, the Crown sought to introduce evidence that the accused had been in custody for two years prior to the murder.

The Crown argued this evidence was necessary to prove the accused did not have access to a cell phone during that time, thereby refuting a potential defence claim that the accused was a contact in the deceased's phone.

The defence offered to admit the accused was 'out of the area' without cell phone access for two months.

The court held that the extended two-year period of non-access was irrelevant.

Furthermore, the court ruled that even if relevant, the prejudicial effect of revealing the accused's prior incarceration to the jury outweighed its probative value, and prohibited the Crown from leading the evidence.

In a murder trial, the Crown applied to exclude references to the name 'CJ' from the deceased's phone records, arguing the evidence was irrelevant and hearsay.

A co-accused also sought to redact text messages involving 'Scarface' on similar grounds.

The court dismissed the applications, finding the evidence relevant to the live issue of DNA transfer and identification.

The court held that the admission of the contact list and text messages engaged issues of authentication rather than hearsay, as they were not being adduced for the truth of their contents but to determine whether the communications were actually made by the accused.

During a jury trial, the Crown sought to file a DNA expert's written report as an exhibit after the expert had already provided viva voce evidence.

The defence objected, arguing the report was prejudicial.

The court dismissed the Crown's request, ruling that the report was inadmissible because it added nothing to the oral testimony, contained matters not explored in evidence, and risked misleading or confusing the jury.

The court emphasized that the expert's evidence is their testimony, not their report.

During a criminal trial for a shooting death, the court issued written reasons for several oral evidentiary rulings.

The court ruled that the defence could not elicit self-serving admissions from a Crown witness during cross-examination.

The court allowed two photographs to be entered as numbered exhibits, finding them relevant and authenticated.

The court permitted the Crown to re-examine a witness regarding phone numbers to clarify answers given in cross-examination, but denied re-examination on the circumstances of an identification, finding it more prejudicial than probative.

Finally, the court prohibited the defence from introducing investigative hearsay about a third-party suspect without a proper voir dire.

The accused, charged with first degree murder, sought to exclude cell phone numbers they had provided to their probation officers, which were subsequently disclosed to the police.

The accused argued the disclosure violated their rights under sections 7 and 8 of the Charter, and that the statements were not voluntary.

The court dismissed the application, finding that the probation officers were not persons in authority at the time the numbers were provided.

Furthermore, the court held there was no reasonable expectation of privacy in phone numbers, and the disclosure was lawfully permitted under the Ministry of Correctional Services Act.

The court also found no evidence that the accused were compelled to provide the numbers in violation of section 7.

The phone numbers were ruled admissible.

The accused were on trial for first degree murder.

During the trial, the defence filed a section 24(1) Charter application alleging a breach due to the Centre of Forensic Sciences consuming a 'negative control' sample during DNA testing.

The Crown sought directions, arguing the court should determine the relevancy of the consumed sample before the Crown's DNA expert testified, and restrict cross-examination if relevance was not established.

The court dismissed the Crown's request, holding that the defence was entitled to cross-examine the expert on the DNA extraction process, including the use and consumption of the negative control.

The court deferred ruling on the Charter application until the end of the trial, when the full evidentiary record would allow for a proper assessment of prejudice.

During a criminal trial, the Crown sought to adduce opinion evidence from a police officer that clothing worn by a male in a surveillance video resembled clothing she had previously observed the accused wearing.

The defence objected, arguing the officer was in no better position than the jury to make this comparison.

The trial judge reconsidered and reversed an earlier ruling, holding that the officer's opinion was not helpful to the trier of fact and was more prejudicial than probative.

The jury, equipped with the video as real evidence, could make the comparison themselves without the officer's narration or opinion.

During a criminal trial, the defence sought to introduce Telus cell phone records as a numbered exhibit during the cross-examination of a Wind Mobile employee.

The Crown objected, arguing the witness could not act as a conduit for records from a different company.

The court allowed the records to be marked as an exhibit, finding them relevant and sufficiently authentic under section 30 of the Canada Evidence Act.

However, the court ruled that the witness could not be questioned on the contents of the Telus records, as she lacked personal knowledge of them.

During a criminal trial, the Crown sought leave to communicate with its witness, a cell phone security analyst, while she was still under cross-examination.

The defence had pointed out a geographical and temporal discrepancy in the cell phone records, and the Crown wished to direct the witness to investigate the discrepancy.

The court granted leave, noting that the witness was providing factual evidence about the operation of the network and that investigating the discrepancy would prevent further delay.

During a first-degree murder trial, the Crown sought to admit portions of a witness's prior police statement as past recollection recorded due to the witness's professed memory loss.

The defence initially agreed to admit certain excerpts but later objected to the Crown tendering subsequent portions of the statement.

The court granted the Crown's application, finding that all relevant parts of the statement met the four essential conditions for admissibility as past recollection recorded and that fairness to the Crown required presenting a complete and non-misleading picture to the jury.

This endorsement addresses procedural issues during a joint criminal trial for murder, specifically concerning the illness of lead defence counsel for one of the accused.

The court considered whether to continue with a critical Crown witness in counsel's absence and the appropriate duration to delay proceedings.

The court deferred the critical witness's evidence and directed the Crown to call other witnesses, emphasizing the accused's right to full answer and defence and the importance of lead counsel's presence for cross-examination of critical witnesses.

The court deemed discussions of severance premature, pending further medical information on counsel's return.