Alias Amelia Sanders

The appellant was convicted of sexual assault at trial following proceedings in Alberta.

On appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, the appellant argued that the trial judge engaged in stereotypical reasoning in assessing the accused's evidence and erred by failing to conduct a voir dire under s. 276 of the Criminal Code regarding the complainant's evidence of a past sexual relationship with the appellant.

A majority of the Court held that the trial judge did not engage in stereotypical reasoning, and that any inferential error was harmless in light of the reasons as a whole.

The majority further held that the failure to conduct a s. 276 voir dire did not give rise to a substantial wrong or miscarriage of justice.

The appeal was dismissed, with Côté J. dissenting on the ground that the curative proviso should not have been applied.

The Court considered the legal meaning of the phrase "her mind is then disturbed" in the infanticide provision of the Criminal Code.

It held that the phrase carries its ordinary meaning, does not require proof of a defined mental disorder, and sets a broad, flexible standard tied to childbirth or lactation effects at the time of the act.

Applying that standard, the Court found no reversible legal error in the trial judge's approach and upheld the infanticide verdicts and acquittals on murder counts.

The Crown's appeal was dismissed.

The appellant was stopped by an RCMP officer at a bus terminal based on suspicious behaviour.

The officer called for a sniffer dog, which indicated the presence of drugs in the appellant's bag.

The appellant was arrested and a search of the bag revealed cocaine and heroin.

The Supreme Court of Canada held that a dog sniff constitutes a search under s. 8 of the Charter.

While the police have a common law power to use sniffer dogs based on a standard of reasonable suspicion, the officer in this case did not have sufficient grounds to meet that standard.

The search was therefore unreasonable, and the evidence was excluded under s. 24(2) of the Charter, resulting in the appeal being allowed and the conviction set aside.