Anthony Paciocco

The appellant was convicted of two counts of sexual assault and one count of gross indecency against his niece and nephew.

He appealed on the basis that his Charter right to trial within a reasonable time under section 11(b) was violated.

The trial lasted 660 days from the swearing of the information to the end of closing submissions, exceeding the Jordan threshold of 548 days by 112 days.

The trial judge dismissed the section 11(b) application, finding that after deducting defence delay and exceptional circumstances, the net delay fell just short of the threshold.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, finding that the trial judge made errors in calculating defence delay and pandemic-related delay.

After correcting these errors, the net delay was 571 days, exceeding the Jordan threshold by 23 days.

The court set aside the convictions and stayed the proceedings.

The accused, Mahmood Ahmad and Salam Fadhil, charged with sexual assault, brought a voir dire application to exclude their statements to police, arguing they were not voluntary due to language comprehension issues.

The court conducted a blended voir dire and found that both accused had sufficient language comprehension in French (for Fadhil) and English (for Ahmad) to understand their rights, including the right to silence and the consequences of speaking to police.

The court dismissed the application, ruling that the statements were voluntary and admissible at trial.

A young person charged with sexual interference and sexual assault brought a section 11(b) Charter application seeking a stay of proceedings based on unreasonable delay.

The applicant was charged on October 20, 2016, with trial scheduled to conclude by August 8, 2018, representing a total delay of 21.5 months.

The court found that the Crown's inadvertent disclosure of over 1,500 pages of text messages without proper section 278 application, combined with the Crown's failure to recognize the section 278 implications for over 14 months, constituted the primary source of delay.

After deducting defence waiver and defence-caused delay, the court calculated net delay at 18.6 months (or 19.2 months including deliberation time), exceeding the 18-month presumptive ceiling.

The Crown failed to establish exceptional circumstances to justify the delay.

The court also established a 15-month presumptive ceiling for young persons, finding that the 18-month ceiling applicable to adults does not adequately account for the heightened prejudice experienced by youth.

The charges were stayed.

The applicants, charged with manslaughter, brought an O'Connor application seeking the production of mental health and medical records of a key Crown eyewitness.

The witness suffered from cognitive deficiencies and mental illnesses, which the applicants argued affected her reliability and credibility.

The court found that the applicants met the 'likely relevance' threshold at the first stage of the O'Connor regime, relying on evidence from the preliminary inquiry regarding the witness's mental health challenges.

The court ordered the production of specific medical and psychiatric records to the court for review.

The defendant was charged with nine offences arising from a tumultuous marital relationship: uttering threats to cause death, three counts of assault, wilful damage to property, criminal harassment, and three counts of voyeurism.

The Crown's case relied heavily on the credibility of the complainant and her children.

The defendant denied all allegations and asserted the complainant fabricated evidence to destroy him.

The court found the complainant generally credible despite her delayed reporting and attempts at reconciliation.

The defendant was found guilty of assault on three dates, two counts of voyeurism, but acquitted on the threat charge, property damage charge, and criminal harassment charge.

The voyeurism convictions were upheld despite the defendant's public good defence, as the court found no objective evidence that the surreptitious recordings served any public purpose.

The Crown sought to admit certain text messages for the truth of their contents in a criminal trial.

The Defence objected, citing concerns about necessity and reliability under the principled approach to hearsay.

The court ruled that two of the four contested text messages were admissible for the truth of their contents under the present intentions and co-conspirators’ exceptions to the hearsay rule, finding that they met the necessity and reliability requirements despite the declarant's availability.

The other two messages were deemed to lack probative value for their truth.

During a trial, the Crown sought to introduce intercepted telephone conversations to show the state of mind of the witnesses, rather than for the truth of their contents.

The defence objected, arguing the Crown must first attempt to refresh the witnesses' memories or establish past recollection recorded.

The court ruled that the intercepted communications were admissible as real evidence without a preliminary voir dire or the need to exhaust the witnesses' memories, allowing the Crown to play the recordings and ask the witnesses to comment.

Sam Tsega was charged with second-degree murder.

The Crown sought to admit evidence of Tsega's marijuana use and dealing to establish opportunity, motive, context, and witness credibility.

The defense argued inadmissibility due to lack of support for inferences and prejudicial effect outweighing probative value.

The court applied the Handy/L.B. framework, finding the evidence relevant and material to central issues, and while discreditable, its probative value significantly outweighed any minimal prejudice, especially in a judge-alone trial.

The evidence was deemed admissible.

The Crown sought to admit out-of-court statements made by two accomplices who refused to testify at the accused's trial for second degree murder.

The accomplices had previously given statements to police and one had testified at his own trial.

Applying the principled approach to hearsay, the court found that the police statements met the test for threshold reliability due to corroborating evidence and circumstantial guarantees of trustworthiness.

However, the court excluded the prior trial testimony of one accomplice, finding that the leading cross-examination by the Crown at that trial undermined its reliability and admission would negatively impact trial fairness.