B. Walker

The defendant was charged with operating a motor vehicle with a blood alcohol content exceeding the legal limit.

He challenged the admissibility of evidence, alleging breaches of his Charter rights under sections 9 (arbitrary detention/overholding) and 10(b) (right to counsel).

The court found no arbitrary detention, but did find a minor breach of the right to counsel due to an 11-minute delay in providing the approved screening device demand.

Applying the Grant test, the court determined that admitting the evidence would not bring the administration of justice into disrepute, given the minor nature of the breach, minimal impact on the accused's interests, and strong societal interest in adjudicating the case on its merits.

The defendant was found guilty.

The accused, charged with two counts of second-degree murder, applied for judicial interim release (bail).

The Crown presented exceptionally strong evidence, including DNA, cell phone records placing the accused near the crime scene and a pawnshop where victims' items were sold, and testimony from five witnesses alleging confessions or suspicious inquiries.

The proposed sureties, the accused's mother and a friend, were deemed weak due to lack of positive influence, lack of knowledge about the accused's history, and questionable commitment to surety duties.

The court found that electronic monitoring could not compensate for the weak sureties and dismissed the application on both secondary and tertiary grounds, confirming the accused's continued detention pending trial.

The defendant was charged with mischief for allegedly damaging a motor vehicle at an apartment building in Niagara Falls on June 20, 2017.

The Crown called witnesses who testified they observed the defendant throwing objects at vehicles in the parking lot.

The defence presented evidence regarding the lighting conditions at the building, establishing that the parking lot would have been in near-complete darkness at the time of the alleged incident due to non-functioning exterior lights.

The court found a reasonable doubt regarding the defendant's guilt based on the reliability of the Crown's eyewitness evidence in light of the poor lighting conditions established by defence witnesses.

The accused was charged with possession for the purpose of trafficking cocaine following his arrest and a strip search at a police station.

The court found the accused not guilty on two independent grounds: (1) the chain of custody for the alleged drugs was so deficient that the court could not be satisfied the substance analyzed was the same substance seized from the accused, and (2) the strip search violated the accused's Charter rights under section 8 both because reasonable and probable grounds were not established and because the manner of the search was unreasonable.

The court excluded the evidence under section 24(2) of the Charter.

During a trial for first-degree murder, the accused requested that the partial defence of provocation be left with the jury.

The accused testified that the victim made threatening comments before the accused killed him.

The trial judge refused the request, finding no air of reality to the objective element of the defence.

The court held that the victim's comments, made while bound and confined by the accused, would not cause an ordinary person to lose the power of self-control.

The Crown brought an application for a ruling on the admissibility of post-offence conduct evidence against three accused in a first-degree murder trial.

The court deferred the decision on the admissibility of vehicle cleaning evidence, finding it premature to balance probative value against prejudicial effect until further trial evidence was presented.

However, the court granted the admission of evidence regarding alleged witness intimidation by one accused, finding its probative value outweighed its prejudicial effect, subject to proper jury instructions and prior identification evidence.

In a first-degree murder trial, the Crown sought to admit thermal-imaging video evidence, lay opinion evidence from a surveillance technician interpreting heat signatures, and demonstration evidence.

The defence objected to the lay opinion and demonstration evidence, and requested the full unedited video.

The court reserved decision on the lay opinion evidence pending further qualification of the witness, disallowed the demonstration evidence due to its high prejudicial effect outweighing its probative value, and permitted the Crown to present an edited version of the thermal-imaging video, finding the timestamp sufficient to convey time gaps.

The Crown sought a ruling on the admissibility of cell phone evidence and the use of a PowerPoint presentation summarizing call detail records at a first-degree murder trial.

The court permitted non-expert telecommunications company representatives to testify about the "general rule" regarding cell phone location in relation to towers, acknowledging exceptions.

The court also allowed the use of a PowerPoint presentation as demonstrative evidence, provided it was amended to be neutral, fact-based, and accurate, with consistent formatting and scale for maps, and subject to limiting instructions to the jury.

The accused, indicted for first-degree murder, applied for an order requiring the Crown to produce criminal records and police occurrence reports for all Crown witnesses.

The Crown agreed to provide criminal records but opposed the production of occurrence reports, arguing they were not first-party disclosure and that the third-party disclosure procedure had not been followed.

The court found that occurrence reports from the investigating police service (NRPS) for nine specific Crown witnesses fell within the Crown's first-party disclosure obligation under *Stinchcombe* and *McNeil*, as credibility was a live issue and the reports related directly to the investigation.

However, the court declined to order disclosure from other police services, deeming them third parties, and dismissed the third-party disclosure application due to procedural non-compliance under *O'Connor*.

The accused, Jeremy Gough, charged with first-degree murder, brought a pre-trial motion challenging the admissibility of two videotaped statements made to police.

The first statement was challenged on grounds of voluntariness and breaches of Charter rights (ss. 7, 10(a), 10(b)), alleging he was a suspect and detained without proper caution or counsel notification.

The second statement was challenged on voluntariness and as tainted by the first.

The court found the Crown failed to prove the voluntariness of the first statement beyond a reasonable doubt.

Alternatively, the court found Gough was psychologically detained by police without being informed of his Charter rights, leading to breaches of ss. 7, 10(a), and 10(b).

Consequently, both statements were ruled inadmissible at trial.

The Crown brought a pre-trial motion to determine the admissibility of ante mortem statements made by the deceased, Jessica Scanlon, to her sister, friend, and boyfriend, in a first-degree murder trial against Jeremy Gough.

The statements concerned the nature of Scanlon's relationship with Gough, their separation, and Gough's reaction.

The court found the statements relevant and material to Gough's state of mind, Scanlon's state of mind, and motive.

Applying the principled exception to the hearsay rule, the court found the statements met the necessity and threshold reliability criteria, noting that most were recorded text messages and corroborated by multiple recipients available for cross-examination.

The court also determined that the probative value of the statements outweighed their minimal prejudicial effect, making them admissible.

The accused, charged with first-degree murder, brought a pre-trial motion concerning the admissibility of and testimony about two police-prepared PowerPoint presentations containing video clips of a vehicle and an unidentified male.

The court ruled the presentations admissible for efficiency and organization, but restricted the police officer's testimony regarding lay opinion evidence on vehicle identification.

The officer could testify to factual observations and reasons for selection, but not offer an opinion on whether vehicles matched or were the same.

Video clips of the unidentified male were deemed relevant circumstantial evidence and admissible.

The court also allowed the use of annotations in the presentations and directed mid-trial instructions to the jury.

Two young men pleaded guilty to armed robbery and related offences.

The Crown sought seven years imprisonment; defence counsel sought four years.

The court imposed a sentence of five years and six months (60 months total), comprising 18 months credit for pre-sentence custody at an enhanced 1.5:1 ratio plus 42 months additional imprisonment.

The court balanced serious aggravating factors—including the use of a loaded shotgun that was discharged during the robbery, targeting a vulnerable convenience store clerk, and the offenders' lack of firearms licenses—against significant mitigating factors including youth, genuine remorse, guilty pleas, positive pre-sentence reports, and the offences being out of character.

Lifetime firearms prohibitions and DNA orders were imposed.