Brittany Jean Butler

The Crown applied to introduce prior discreditable conduct of the accused, Felicity Altiman, in a second-degree murder trial.

The conduct involved threatening to stab a third party and brandishing a knife.

The court applied the four-part test for admitting such evidence, focusing on the probative value versus prejudicial effect.

The court allowed evidence of the accused possessing and brandishing a knife but excluded evidence of the specific threats made due to moral prejudice.

Additionally, evidence of the accused admitting to regularly robbing the deceased was conceded as admissible.

The accused, charged with second-degree murder, brought an application to exclude DNA and fingerprint evidence, arguing that police violated his s. 8 Charter rights by searching a public genetic genealogy database (GEDmatch) and seizing cast-off DNA without judicial authorization.

The court dismissed the application, finding the accused had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the public database search results.

Furthermore, applying horizontal stare decisis, the court held it was bound by prior decisions establishing that the seizure of discarded items for DNA analysis does not violate s. 8.

The accused, charged with second-degree murder, brought a pre-trial application to adduce evidence that a third party committed the offence.

The court assessed whether there was a sufficient connection between the third party and the crime to establish an air of reality for the defence.

Assuming the proposed evidence to be true, the court found that the third party's opportunity, admissions of guilt, fingerprint evidence, and other circumstantial factors met the air of reality threshold.

The application was granted, permitting the accused to lead the third-party suspect evidence at trial, with admissibility to be determined when tendered.

This criminal trial concerned charges of two counts of assault, two counts of mischief under, and one count of breach of undertaking against the accused, arising from incidents with his common-law spouse.

The court found the complainant's testimony to be evasive, overly dramatic, and unreliable, while the accused's evidence was deemed credible and raised a reasonable doubt regarding the assault and mischief charges.

The court concluded that the complainant's provocative conduct initiated the events leading to the mischief charges and that she, rather than the accused, was at the heart of the family's dysfunction.

Consequently, the accused was acquitted of all assault and mischief charges.

He had previously pleaded guilty to the breach of undertaking, for which his blameworthiness was considered low.