Corbin Cawkell

The accused was charged with first-degree murder after his spouse, who suffered from COPD, died when her home oxygen was turned off.

During the medical emergency response, the accused made several statements to police officers and a paramedic.

The defence brought an application to exclude the statements, arguing they were involuntary and obtained in violation of ss. 7, 9, and 10 of the Charter.

The court found that statements made to the first responding officers and the paramedic were voluntary and admissible, as the accused was not detained and the paramedic was not a person in authority.

However, the court found a s. 10(b) Charter breach occurred when officers told the accused he would be arrested but delayed advising him of his right to counsel.

Statements made after this breach were excluded under s. 24(2).

The accused applied for a stay of proceedings under s. 11(b) of the Charter, arguing unreasonable delay.

The central issue was whether the 29-month period between the swearing of the Information and the accused's arrest should be attributed to the Crown.

The court found that the police took reasonable and diligent steps to locate the accused, characterizing the pre-arrest delay as an exceptional circumstance and discrete event.

After subtracting this period, the remaining delay fell below the presumptive ceiling established in Jordan.

The application for a stay of proceedings was dismissed.

The offender was convicted of sexual interference relating to a single incident involving a child at a pool party.

The offender was in a position of trust as the only adult supervising the party.

The Crown sought 3 to 4 years imprisonment, while the defence sought time served.

The court considered the offender's prior record for sexual offences against a minor, the vulnerability of the victim, and the lack of mitigating factors.

After granting enhanced credit for pre-sentence custody, including time spent in lockdown, the court imposed a sentence of 28 months, resulting in time served plus one day, followed by two years of probation and ancillary orders.

Following convictions for sexual assault, sexual interference, and invitation to sexual touching against a minor, the Crown applied for a dangerous offender assessment under s. 752.1(1) of the Criminal Code.

The defence applied to stay the sexual assault and invitation to sexual touching charges under the Kienapple principle.

The court stayed the sexual assault and invitation to sexual touching charges, entering a conviction only for sexual interference, finding it more accurately described the offence against a child.

The court dismissed the Crown's application for a dangerous offender assessment, concluding there was no real possibility the offender would be found to be a dangerous or long-term offender given the lack of recent similar offences and a de-escalation in his criminal record.

The offender, a 58-year-old first-time offender, was convicted of historical sexual interference, sexual touching, and simple assault against a child who was between five and seven years old at the time.

The offences occurred approximately 30 years ago while the offender was in a position of trust living with the child's mother.

The Crown sought a penitentiary sentence of 3.5 to 4.5 years, while the defence sought a conditional sentence of two years less a day.

The court emphasized denunciation and deterrence, noting the significant impact on the victim, but considered the offender's age, poor health, and lack of criminal record as mitigating factors.

The offender was sentenced to two years in the penitentiary.

The applicant, facing multiple firearms charges, brought a pretrial motion seeking a stay of proceedings under s. 11(b) of the Charter, alleging unreasonable delay.

The total delay from the laying of charges to the anticipated end of the trial was 17 months.

The court applied the Morin framework, attributing portions of the delay to inherent time requirements, the accused's scheduling constraints, and the Crown's vetting of a sealed Information to Obtain.

Balancing the societal interest in trying serious gun offences against the prejudice suffered by the applicant in pretrial custody, the court concluded the delay was reasonable and dismissed the application.

The Crown applied during a voir dire to admit crime scene and autopsy photographs of the deceased in a first-degree murder trial.

The accused argued the photographs were gratuitous, inflammatory, and highly prejudicial.

The court found the photographs were highly probative to illustrate the forensic pathologist's opinions, corroborate testimony, and rebut potential defences such as self-defence or a third-party suspect.

The court concluded the probative value outweighed any prejudicial effect and granted the application to admit the photographs.

The accused, charged with murder, brought an application to adduce evidence of a third-party suspect defence, pointing to his co-accused who had previously pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact.

The court assessed whether there was a sufficient nexus between the third party and the offence, focusing on motive and opportunity.

Finding that the third party had a severe drug addiction requiring money and was present at the crime scene and with the accused during the relevant times, the court concluded there was some evidence to support the defence.

The application was granted, and the third-party suspect defence was permitted to be put to the jury.

The Crown applied to admit utterances of the accused made to two civilian witnesses as prior discreditable conduct, and two ante-mortem statements made by the victim to the same witnesses.

The accused is charged with first degree murder.

The court found that the accused's prior threats to kill the victim were relevant to animus, motive, and intent, and their probative value outweighed their prejudicial effect.

The court also ruled that the victim's ante-mortem statements were admissible under the state of mind exception to the hearsay rule and the principled approach, as they were reliable, necessary, and highly probative of the victim's state of mind and the relationship between the parties.

The Crown applied to edit letters written by the accused while in custody awaiting trial for second-degree murder.

The defence argued that without significant editing, the letters would invite prohibited propensity reasoning, while the Crown argued they contained highly probative confessions relevant to identity, motive, and the third-party suspect defence.

The court balanced the probative value against the prejudicial effect, ordering the removal of references to the accused's knowledge of the legal system and inflammatory language, but retaining passages that amounted to confessions or related to the third-party suspect defence.

The accused, charged with first-degree murder, sought to exclude audio and videotaped statements made to police following his arrest.

The court found that a specific utterance made during transport to the police station was obtained in violation of the accused's rights under ss. 10(a) and 10(b) of the Charter, as he had not been given a reasonable opportunity to speak to counsel and was seeking clarity on his charges.

This utterance was excluded under s. 24(2).

However, the court found the subsequent 3.5-hour videotaped statement was voluntary under the Oickle rule and did not violate the accused's s. 7 right to silence, despite his numerous assertions of the right, as police conduct was not oppressive and the accused maintained an operating mind.

Following a jury conviction for trafficking approximately half a kilogram of heroin, the court determined the appropriate sentence within the established appellate range.

The defence argued that heroin trafficking sentences should be reduced because heroin is not demonstrably more harmful than cocaine or methamphetamine.

After reviewing expert evidence, historical arguments, and appellate jurisprudence, the court held that existing authorities establish an eight‑to‑twelve‑year range for trafficking in a half kilogram of heroin and that trial courts are not entitled to lower that range based on the record before them.

The court concluded that even if other drugs are similarly harmful, that would justify increasing sentences for those drugs rather than lowering heroin sentences.

Each offender received an eight‑year penitentiary sentence, with additional concurrent time for possession of proceeds of crime and a fine in lieu of forfeiture against one offender.