Amanda Warth

The accused, Athena King, was stopped by police and found in possession of illegal drugs.

She challenged the admissibility of the evidence, alleging breaches of her Charter rights during the stop, search, and arrest.

The court found minor breaches of her right to counsel but held that these did not warrant exclusion of the evidence.

King was found guilty of all charges.

The accused, I.T., a young Black youth charged with second-degree murder, brought a Corbett application to exclude or sanitize parts of his youth record for the purpose of assessing his credibility if he were to testify.

The court considered the traditional Corbett factors (nature, remoteness, similarity of convictions, and attack on Crown witness credibility) and, significantly, extended the consideration of systemic anti-Black racism, drawing on principles from R. v. King and R. v. Morris.

The application was allowed in part: a conviction for assault peace officer was excluded, firearm possession convictions were sanitized to "possession of a restricted weapon" and "possession of a restricted weapon contrary to a prohibition order", and a robbery conviction was substituted with "assault and theft".

The court found that these modifications balanced the probative value of the record against the heightened prejudicial effect due to racial stereotypes and the risk of improper propensity reasoning.

This is a pre-trial ruling in a murder trial concerning the admissibility of two types of evidence: lay recognition opinion testimony (video and voice) and prior discreditable conduct of the accused.

The court admitted the recognition evidence from two youth detention center staff members, finding they had sufficient familiarity with the accused to offer valuable identifying information, including unique mannerisms and gait.

The court also admitted evidence of the accused's prior possession and discharge of the alleged murder weapon three weeks before the killing, and possession of another handgun three days before, balancing its high probative value for identity and means/opportunity against its moral prejudice.

The court imposed limitations on how the relationship evidence between the accused and the staff witnesses could be presented to mitigate prejudice related to the accused's detention history.

The offender pleaded guilty to manslaughter for his role in a fatal shooting outside a bar.

After a dispute, the offender handed a mask to an unidentified shooter who then shot the victim.

The Crown sought an 8-year sentence, while the defence sought 7 years and 3 months, arguing for mitigation due to harsh pre-sentence custody conditions, including extensive lockdowns and lack of medical care.

The court found the appropriate sentence was 8 years, but reduced it by 6 months to 7.5 years to reflect the exceptionally harsh conditions of pre-sentence custody.

The appellant, Oliver Ritchie, appealed his convictions for luring a child under 16 and communicating for the purpose of obtaining sexual services of a minor, and sought leave to appeal his 16-month sentence.

The convictions stemmed from an online police sting operation where a detective impersonated a 14-year-old girl.

The appellant denied sending the texts, claiming a stranger used his phone.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal from conviction, finding no errors in the trial judge's application of the law regarding age presumption, evidence assessment, or the W.(D.) analysis.

Leave to appeal sentence was granted but the appeal was also dismissed, as the sentence was not demonstrably unfit and aligned with the Supreme Court's directive in Friesen for increased sentences in child sexual offense cases.

During deliberations in a lengthy murder trial, the jury sent several notes indicating they had reached unanimous verdicts for two accused and a unanimous verdict on a lesser included offence for the third accused, but were deadlocked on the greater offence for the third accused.

Five majority jurors sent notes attacking the reasoning of the minority jurors, including allegations of racism.

The trial judge declined to conduct an inquiry into the minority jurors' reasoning or declare a mistrial, finding that doing so would violate the common law jury secrecy rule and s. 649 of the Criminal Code.

The court accepted the unanimous verdicts reached by the jury.

In a trial for first-degree murder involving three co-accused, the Crown and one co-accused sought to admit text messages and prior convictions of another co-accused to establish a drug dealer-purchaser relationship and a disposition for violence and firearms.

The court ruled the evidence admissible, finding that its probative value in supporting the co-accused's defence of lack of intent outweighed the prejudicial effect.

The court provided mid-trial and final limiting instructions to the jury regarding the permissible and impermissible uses of the disposition evidence.

The accused, charged with first-degree murder, brought a pre-trial motion alleging his statement to police was obtained in violation of his right to counsel under s. 10(b) of the Charter.

The police delayed his access to counsel for ten hours while securing search warrants.

When finally offered a call at 2:35 a.m., the accused asked to wait until morning when his lawyer would be awake.

The police nevertheless proceeded to interview him at 4:15 a.m.

The court found the accused was reasonably diligent in exercising his rights and did not waive them.

The police violated their duty to hold off eliciting evidence, and the statement was excluded under s. 24(2) of the Charter.

The Crown applied to admit a videotaped statement of a deceased witness under the principled exception to hearsay in a second-degree murder trial.

The witness had an extensive criminal record and was released on her own recognizance shortly before giving the statement, raising concerns about her motive to fabricate.

The court dismissed the application, finding that the inability to cross-examine the witness on her motives would seriously impair the respondent's right to make full answer and defence, thereby failing the threshold reliability requirement.

The offender was convicted of manslaughter for the beating death of his wife.

The court considered the severe aggravating factors, including the domestic nature of the violence, the brutality of the attack, and the offender's lack of genuine remorse.

Mitigating factors were limited to harsh pre-sentence custody conditions, including triple-bunking and loss of in-person visits due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The court determined a fit sentence was 9.5 years imprisonment, reduced to 1684 days after applying credit for pre-sentence custody.

In a trial for second degree murder, the Crown sought to adduce statements made by the accused to police on the day of his wife's death.

The defence challenged the admissibility of the statements, arguing they were involuntary due to oppression and intoxication, and that the accused's right to counsel under s. 10(b) of the Charter was infringed.

The court found that the accused had an operating mind and the statements were voluntary.

However, statements made during the six-and-a-half-hour delay between the accused's arrest and his consultation with counsel were excluded to preserve trial fairness.

Statements made prior to arrest and during subsequent video-recorded interviews were admitted.

During a trial for second-degree murder, the Crown sought to adduce evidence of the defendant's prior discreditable conduct toward his deceased wife.

This included hearsay statements the deceased made to her sister about the defendant's abusive behaviour.

The court ruled the statements admissible under the principled approach to hearsay.

Necessity was established by the declarant's death, and threshold reliability was met based on the inherent trustworthiness of the statements, given the close relationship between the sisters, the deceased's reluctance to complain, and corroborative evidence from the deceased's daughter.

The accused was charged with second-degree murder following the death of his wife, who died from blunt force trauma resulting in a lacerated liver.

The accused claimed he acted in self-defence and that the fatal injuries were accidental.

The court rejected the accused's testimony as a fabrication, finding that he inflicted the severe beating that caused her death.

However, due to the accused's significant intoxication and the lack of evidence regarding how the assault unfolded, the court found a reasonable doubt as to whether he had the specific intent required for murder.

The accused was found not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter.

The appellant, Jennifer Renaud, appealed a custodial sentence of ten months for multiple criminal offences, including unauthorized possession of a weapon, theft of a motor vehicle, and personation.

The Court of Appeal found the sentence to be too harsh because it exceeded the Crown's requested range without explanation, there was an underestimation of pre-sentence custody credit, and the sentencing judge failed to mention the appellant's guilty plea as a mitigating factor.

The appeal was allowed, and the sentence for personation was varied to be concurrent, resulting in time served.

The defendant, Tahir Ali, was charged with multiple drug trafficking offenses and manslaughter related to an opioid overdose death.

The court acquitted the defendant on charges of trafficking and possession for trafficking on April 9, 2017, and manslaughter, due to reasonable doubt regarding the source of drugs and causation of death.

The court also acquitted the defendant on a charge of trafficking on April 28, 2017, as the specific substance trafficked was not proven.

However, the defendant was convicted of possession of heroin and furanyl fentanyl for the purpose of trafficking on April 28, 2017, as the arrest was deemed lawful and the seized evidence admissible.

The Crown charged two defendants with breaking and entering a dwelling with intent to commit an indictable offence.

The case involved circumstantial evidence of identity, including BlackBerry Messenger communications recovered from the deceased intruder's phone.

The court admitted hearsay evidence under the present intentions exception and the co-conspirator's exception to the hearsay rule.

The Crown established that the defendants were members of a conspiracy to commit the break-in through analysis of cryptic text messages, DNA evidence, and circumstantial connections.

Both defendants were convicted.