Bronagh Ryan

The accused, residing in a hotel converted into a homeless shelter, was subjected to a warrantless search of his unit by police responding to an anonymous 911 call about a firearm.

The officers entered the unit, handcuffed the semi-nude accused, and discovered a handgun.

The accused brought a pretrial application to exclude the evidence, alleging violations of his rights under ss. 8, 9, and 10(b) of the Charter.

The Superior Court of Justice found that the police lacked exigent circumstances for the warrantless search, unreasonably handcuffed the accused during investigative detention, breached his right to counsel by failing to hold off questioning, and relied on an invalid search warrant.

Applying the Grant framework, the court excluded the evidence under s. 24(2) of the Charter due to the egregious nature of the multiple Charter breaches.

The Crown sought to introduce expert opinion evidence from an RCMP analyst comparing camouflage clothing seized from the accused's residence with clothing worn by a masked individual in a terrorist propaganda video.

The accused challenged the admissibility of the comparison evidence.

The court excluded the comparison evidence, finding it was not necessary as the trier of fact could make the comparison without expert assistance.

The court also found the proposed expert was not duly qualified to opine on camouflage patterns due to limited and dated training, and noted concerns regarding confirmation bias and reliability.

The accused was convicted after trial of possession of cocaine and fentanyl for the purposes of trafficking.

The offences involved 28.7 grams of cocaine and 183.6 grams of fentanyl seized from a rental vehicle and a residential search.

The court found the accused to be a mid-level trafficker motivated by financial gain.

The court rejected a conditional sentence as inconsistent with the fundamental sentencing objectives of denunciation and deterrence given the large quantity of fentanyl, and imposed a penitentiary sentence.

Significant mitigating factors — including five years of compliance with stringent bail conditions, prosocial conduct, and severe collateral consequences to young children — reduced the sentence from a starting point of eight years to a net sentence of six years, reflecting one year credit for restrictive bail conditions and three days of pre-trial custody.