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The Crown brought an application during a first-degree murder trial to admit several ante mortem statements made by the deceased under the principled exception to the hearsay rule.

The statements primarily concerned the accused's anger towards the deceased and the accused allegedly stealing the deceased's apartment keys.

The court applied the framework from Bradshaw and Khelawon to assess substantive reliability, using corroborative evidence where appropriate.

The court admitted the statements made to the deceased's sister, a close friend, the building superintendent, and the property manager, finding them reliable.

However, statements made to the deceased's boyfriend and another friend were excluded due to reliability concerns and unclear declarant identity.

During a trial for first degree murder, the defence applied to exclude utterances made by one co-accused to a friend, arguing they were more prejudicial than probative to the other co-accused.

The Crown also sought to admit text messages extracted from the co-accused's phone.

The court ruled that the utterances were admissible, as their probative value outweighed the prejudicial effect, and juries are presumed to follow instructions limiting the use of such evidence against a co-accused.

The court also ruled that the text messages were admissible, finding that the Crown had met the modest threshold for authentication under s. 31.1 of the Canada Evidence Act through direct and circumstantial evidence.

In a joint trial for first-degree murder, the applicant co-accused brought a pre-trial motion to adduce evidence of the respondent co-accused's prior discreditable conduct through Crown witnesses.

The applicant sought to introduce this evidence to support a cutthroat defence and explain her state of mind.

The court reviewed various proposed items of evidence, ruling some admissible (such as prior violence towards the applicant and possession of a firearm) and others inadmissible (such as drug use, out-of-court statements, and speculative intimidation) based on relevance and the balancing of probative value against prejudicial effect.

The Crown applied to adduce evidence of prior discreditable conduct against the accused in a first-degree murder trial.

The proposed evidence included the accused's prior possession of a firearm, threats made against the deceased, and participation in a prior shooting incident.

The court found that the evidence was relevant and material to the issues of identity, animus, and motive.

Applying the framework for prior discreditable conduct, the court concluded that the probative value of the evidence outweighed its prejudicial effect, and ruled the evidence admissible with certain edits.

The accused brought a Charter application seeking a stay of proceedings on the basis that the delay to trial violated his right to be tried within a reasonable time under s. 11(b) of the Charter.

The total time from charge to anticipated trial was nearly two years.

Applying the framework from R. v. Morin, the court analyzed the length of delay, reasons for delay, waiver, and prejudice.

Although the court found approximately 15.5 months of Crown and institutional delay, this remained within the 16–18 month guideline for matters proceeding through two levels of court.

While the accused experienced some prejudice due to bail conditions and separation from family, the court concluded the prejudice attributable to delay was not significant enough to outweigh society’s interest in trying a serious drug importation offence.

The accused brought a voir dire application seeking exclusion of photographs recovered from a seized Blackberry phone on the basis that they were inadmissible and prejudicial.

The Crown sought to rely on the photographs to show the accused possessed a handgun consistent with the firearm used in a shooting incident.

Applying the probative value versus prejudicial effect framework, the court held that one photograph depicting incompatible ammunition lacked relevance and constituted impermissible propensity evidence.

However, two photographs depicting a handgun compatible with cartridge cases recovered at the scene were highly probative of the central issues of firearm possession and identity.

The potential prejudice could be mitigated by jury instructions and cross‑examination.

The court excluded the first photograph but admitted the other two at trial.