Christian Jarry

A naturopath was charged with criminal negligence causing death and unlawful act manslaughter after a patient died of endotoxic shock following an intravenous nutrient injection administered at her clinic, contrary to Quebec's Medical Act.

The trial judge acquitted the accused on both charges after a 39-day trial, finding the intravenous injection was not objectively dangerous in the circumstances and that the accused's conduct did not constitute a marked departure from the reasonable person standard.

The Court of Appeal set aside both acquittals, substituted a conviction for unlawful act manslaughter, and ordered a new trial on the criminal negligence charge.

The Supreme Court majority (5-2) allowed the appeal and restored the acquittals, holding that objective dangerousness is not an independent element of the actus reus of unlawful act manslaughter and that the Court of Appeal improperly replaced the trial judge's factual findings.

The dissent would have ordered a new trial on both charges, finding the unlawful injection was inherently objectively dangerous regardless of the accused's training.

The accused was charged with second degree murder in the death of his wife.

The trial judge granted a stay of proceedings for unreasonable delay.

The Crown appealed but the Court of Appeal declined to adjudicate on the merits, dismissing the appeal as moot on the basis that the accused had been deported to a country with which Canada has no extradition treaty.

The Supreme Court held that the Court of Appeal erred at the first stage of the mootness test: deportation of an accused, even to a non-extradition treaty country, does not render criminal proceedings moot where the underlying basis for those proceedings has not disappeared and a live controversy remains.

The appeal was allowed and the matter remitted to the Court of Appeal for decision on the merits.

In a Crown appeal from acquittals on breaking and entering, assault, and drug offences, the Court held that the trial judge erred in the air-of-reality analysis for colour of right by relying on non-evidentiary propositions raised in cross-examination.

The error was material because it could have affected the acquittals on the February 1 breaking and entering counts and also tainted related self-defence and Charter s. 8 determinations.

The Court emphasized that subjective belief evidence must meet evidentiary rules, and that a possible colour-of-right inference does not itself establish a reasonable expectation of privacy on a balance of probabilities.

Although the February 18 counts were analytically distinct, the Court ordered one remedy across all counts.

The acquittals were set aside and a new trial was directed on all charges.

The Court allowed the Crown appeal and restored a detention order under s. 515(10)(c) of the Criminal Code.

It held that the public-confidence ground is a distinct and non-residual basis for pre-trial detention, not confined to exceptional cases or unexplained crimes.

The Court also held that review under ss. 520 and 521 is a hybrid remedy available only for significant new evidence, legal error, or a clearly inappropriate decision, and found no proper basis for the reviewing judge to overturn detention on these facts.

The appellant sought an extension of time to appeal historical guilty-plea convictions entered between 1996 and 2005, after later being found unfit to stand trial because of intellectual disability.

A majority of the provincial appellate court refused the extension.

The Supreme Court held there was no reversible error in that refusal and dismissed the appeal, adopting the majority appellate reasons.

A dissenting justice would have granted the extension and remitted the matter.