Catriona Verner

The Crown appealed a stay of proceedings granted by the trial judge due to unreasonable delay under s. 11(b) of the Charter.

The respondent was charged with sexual offences and the trial was delayed by a mistrial due to lack of judicial resources and a subsequent adjournment due to the illness of a key witness.

The Court of Appeal found that the trial judge erred in characterizing the entirety of these delays as institutional or Crown delay.

Properly calculated, the institutional delay fell within the Morin guidelines.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, lifted the stay of proceedings, and ordered the trial to proceed.

The accused was acquitted of first-degree murder after the trial judge excluded expert and lay evidence regarding the meaning of a teardrop tattoo the accused obtained after the murder.

The Crown appealed.

The Court of Appeal held that the trial judge erred in excluding the sociologist's expert evidence by applying the Daubert factors, which are suited for scientific evidence, to non-scientific specialized knowledge.

The trial judge also erred in excluding the lay evidence of gang members regarding the tattoo's meaning within their culture.

The appeal was allowed and a new trial ordered.

The appellant was convicted of second-degree murder and aggravated assault after stabbing his wife and her lover.

On appeal, he argued the trial judge erred in admitting evidence of prior discreditable conduct, in instructing the jury on after-the-fact conduct, in failing to include provocation in the rolled-up instruction on intent, in responding to a jury question, and in failing to relate the evidence to the contested issues.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no prejudicial errors in the trial judge's evidentiary rulings or jury instructions.

The appellant was convicted of incest against his developmentally challenged daughter.

On appeal, he argued the trial judge erred in handling the issue of the complainant's motive to fabricate and that Crown counsel engaged in misconduct.

The Court of Appeal found that the Crown improperly cross-examined witnesses on the complainant's motive to fabricate, made inflammatory comments in closing, and improperly injected personal opinion.

The trial judge failed to provide necessary corrective instructions.

The cumulative effect of these errors undermined the fairness of the trial.

The appeal was allowed and a new trial ordered.

The Crown appealed the conditional sentence imposed on the respondent for drug trafficking and related offences.

The Crown argued, and the respondent conceded, that the trial judge erred in imposing a conditional sentence after concluding the offences warranted a penitentiary term.

The Court of Appeal agreed and found it was required to impose a fit sentence.

Noting the respondent had served the equivalent of 25 months in custody and had made tremendous rehabilitative progress, as evidenced by fresh evidence and his Gladue worker, the Court substituted a sentence of time served plus three years' probation.

The appellant was convicted of two counts of welfare fraud for collecting social assistance while in an undisclosed common law relationship and failing to disclose support payments.

She appealed the convictions and the $90,127.15 restitution order.

The Court of Appeal upheld the first conviction, finding the trial judge did not err in determining she was a common law spouse based on family court affidavits.

However, the Court set aside the second conviction because the trial judge misapprehended evidence regarding her disclosure of support payments, which the Crown had conceded she reported.

The restitution order was correspondingly reduced to $51,263.85.

The appellant was convicted of multiple counts of armed robbery and related offences following two trials.

He appealed his convictions, arguing that his s. 11(b) Charter rights were violated by a 56-month delay, that the trial judge erred in admitting similar fact evidence and refusing to sever the charges, and that bad character evidence was improperly admitted.

He also appealed his sentence of life imprisonment.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeals, finding that the delay was largely attributable to the appellant's own conduct and that the trial judge made no reversible errors in his evidentiary rulings or jury instructions.

The sentence appeal was also dismissed, with the Court holding that a life sentence was fit given the appellant's extensive violent criminal record, incorrigibility, and the need to protect the public.

The offender was convicted of aggravated sexual assault, wearing a disguise with intent, and uttering threats.

The Crown sought a dangerous offender designation.

The trial judge instead designated the offender as a long-term offender and imposed a 15-year sentence consecutive to his current sentence, followed by a 10-year long-term supervision order.

Both the Crown and the offender appealed.

The Crown argued the trial judge erred in relying on statistical evidence of age-related decline in risk to find a reasonable possibility of eventual control in the community.

The offender argued the 15-year sentence violated the totality principle.

The Court of Appeal dismissed both appeals, finding the trial judge properly weighed the expert evidence and that the totality principle does not require a shorter sentence if it would preclude a long-term offender designation in favour of an indeterminate dangerous offender sentence.

The appellant appealed his conviction for sexual offences against a child.

He argued the trial judge erred by refusing to take judicial notice of physical signs of sexual intercourse in a child and by treating his failure to contact his family as after-the-fact conduct indicative of guilt.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no error in the trial judge's refusal to take judicial notice or in his treatment of the after-the-fact conduct.

The appellant challenged a conviction and penitentiary sentence arising from a historical sexual assault in which consent was the central issue.

The appeal focused on whether the trial judge improperly used prior consistent statements and post-offence conduct to bolster the complainant’s credibility, misapprehended evidence, applied an uneven standard of scrutiny, and gave insufficient reasons.

The court held that the impugned statements were admissible and were used only to assess consistency of conduct placed in issue by the defence, not for their truth.

The proposed fresh evidence relating to a post-trial statement by the complainant did not meet the admissibility test because it could not reasonably be expected to have affected the verdict.

Leave to appeal sentence was granted, but the sentence appeal was dismissed.

The appellant appealed his convictions for administering a stupefying substance and sexual assault, as well as his 22-month sentence.

The appellant argued that the trial judge erred by failing to stay the charges due to unreasonable delay under s. 11(b) of the Charter, misapprehending expert toxicological evidence regarding the effects of GHB and alcohol, and finding that the complainant lacked the capacity to consent.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding no unreasonable delay and that the trial judge's findings regarding the complainant's incapacity to consent due to intoxication were supported by the evidence.

The sentence appeal was also dismissed.

The appellant was convicted of first degree murder after causing the victim's death through severe internal injuries inflicted during a sexual assault.

On appeal, he argued the trial judge erred in admitting a statement made to police at the scene, in instructing the jury on the defence of accident, in failing to limit the use of post-offence conduct, and in instructing on sexual arousal and mens rea.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the statement was voluntary as the appellant was not detained or a suspect.

While the trial judge erred in failing to instruct the jury that post-offence conduct could not be used to determine the level of culpability between murder and manslaughter, the court applied the curative proviso as the error caused no substantial wrong.

The accused was acquitted of murder following a stabbing at a nightclub.

At trial, evidence was admitted that the deceased had 39 ecstasy pills sewn into his underwear, on the condition that the defence would not use it to suggest the deceased had a violent disposition.

However, in his closing address, defence counsel rhetorically asked the jury to link the drugs to violence, implying the deceased was the aggressor.

The trial judge refused the Crown's request for a corrective instruction.

The Court of Appeal allowed the Crown's appeal and ordered a new trial, finding that the trial judge erred in failing to correct the impermissible propensity reasoning invited by defence counsel.

The appellant appealed his conviction for second degree murder and his sentence of life imprisonment with a 15-year period of parole ineligibility.

He argued the trial judge erred by excluding evidence of the deceased's propensity for violence, misdirecting the jury on after-the-fact conduct regarding intent, and misdirecting the jury on self-defence.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding no errors in the trial judge's evidentiary rulings or jury instructions.

The sentence appeal was also dismissed, as the trial judge properly considered the appellant's prior record, the senseless nature of the killing, and the jury's recommendation.

The appellant appealed his convictions for robbery, wearing a disguise, and possession of property obtained by crime, as well as his three-year sentence.

The key issue at trial was identity, with the defence alleging a third party committed the robbery.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding no reversible errors in the jury instructions, evidentiary rulings, or Crown conduct.

Although hearsay evidence was improperly admitted, the Court found it did not occasion a substantial wrong or miscarriage of justice.

The sentence appeal was also dismissed, as the three-year sentence was fit given the seriousness of the offence, despite the appellant's youth and aboriginal heritage.

The appellant appealed his global sentence of ten years for trafficking in firearms and hard drugs while on bail.

The Crown conceded the trial judge erred in stating the appellant pled guilty to nine firearm trafficking offences, when he only pled to four.

Considering this error, the appellant's age, and fresh evidence of his progress in the institution, the Court of Appeal found the ten-year sentence too long.

The Court reduced the global sentence to eight years, imposing two years concurrent on the drug and gun trafficking charges (accounting for four years pre-trial custody credit), while leaving the consecutive sentences for breach of recognizance unchanged.

The appellant was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to seven years and one month imprisonment.

He appealed his conviction and sentence, arguing the trial judge erred in instructing the jury on self-defence under s. 34(2) of the Criminal Code, the interplay of self-induced intoxication, the application of W.(D.) principles to his police statements, and the exclusion of evidence regarding the deceased's prior argument.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding no reversible errors in the jury instructions or evidentiary rulings.

The sentence appeal was also dismissed, as the sentence was fit given the vicious and unrelenting nature of the attack.

The appellant appealed his convictions for kidnapping, sexual assault, and criminal harassment of his former partner, as well as his 54-month sentence.

He argued the trial judge erred by refusing to admit evidence of prior sexual activity with the complainant, by allowing evidence of his prior discreditable conduct to show motive, and by failing to leave the defence of mistaken belief in consent to the jury.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the trial judge correctly applied the procedural requirements for admitting prior sexual history, properly instructed the jury on the highly probative discreditable conduct evidence, and correctly concluded there was no air of reality to the mistaken belief defence.

The sentence appeal was also dismissed.

The appellants, Muhammad and Naveed Malik, appealed their convictions for first degree murder following a joint trial.

The deceased was beaten to death with baseball bats in a parking garage.

Both appellants conceded guilt to manslaughter but contested the intent to kill and whether the killing was planned and deliberate.

The Court of Appeal dismissed both appeals, finding sufficient evidence of planning and deliberation for both appellants, and upholding the trial judge's rulings on evidence admissibility, jury instructions, and the denial of a severance motion.

The respondent was convicted of manslaughter after stabbing his landlady 107 times while intoxicated.

The trial judge imposed a sentence of 11 years, deducting pre-trial custody for a net sentence of 4.5 years.

The Crown appealed, arguing the sentence was manifestly unfit and that the trial judge erred by treating the 8 to 12 year range for 'aggravated manslaughter' established in R. v. Clarke as an immutable cap.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, holding that while subcategorizing manslaughter is not a useful sentencing approach, the trial judge did not fetter his discretion and imposed a fit sentence based on all relevant circumstances.