David E. Harris

The applicant brought a Charter application alleging breaches of his s. 10(b) right to counsel following his arrest during a dynamic entry.

The court found the police breached the informational component by delaying the reading of rights for 20 minutes despite having control of the scene.

The court also found an implementational breach when police refused the applicant's request for a second consultation with counsel after he expressed dissatisfaction with duty counsel.

Applying the Grant framework, the court excluded the applicant's statements to police.

The accused, a municipal bus driver, was charged with dangerous driving causing death after her bus rammed into a line of stopped cars at full speed, killing one driver.

The Crown relied on Engine Control Module (ECM) data showing the accelerator was fully depressed and brakes were not applied until seconds after impact.

The defence argued the brakes failed and challenged the ECM's reliability, pointing to a botched police inspection and the unexplained destruction of the bus before trial.

The court admitted the accused's spontaneous utterances at the scene that the brakes failed.

Finding that the Crown failed to exclude the reasonable possibility of mechanical failure, the court acquitted the accused.

The applicant and her late husband added her adult daughter to the title of three real estate properties and several bank accounts.

A judgment creditor of the daughter sought to enforce its judgment by seizing and selling the properties.

The applicant brought an application for a declaration that the properties and bank accounts were held by the daughter in a resulting trust.

The court found that the presumption of resulting trust applied and was not rebutted.

The intention behind adding the daughter to title was for survivorship and to avoid probate, not to make a gift.

The application was allowed, and the court declared that the daughter held the properties in a resulting trust for the applicant.

The offender was convicted of robbery with a firearm and being in a vehicle knowing it contained a firearm after robbing victims during an online marketplace transaction.

The Crown sought a sentence of 7 to 8 years, while the offender sought the mandatory minimum of 5 years.

The court considered the serious nature of the offence, the offender's positive rehabilitative prospects, and the impact of systemic anti-Black racism and racial profiling he experienced in his youth.

Applying the principle of restraint, the court found that a sentence above the mandatory minimum was not required to satisfy the principles of denunciation and deterrence, and sentenced the offender to 5 years imprisonment minus pre-sentence custody.

The appellant pled guilty to ten offences, including assault and harassment, against his wife and her brother.

He appealed his suspended sentence, arguing the sentencing judge erred by failing to consider the immigration consequences of a conviction instead of a conditional discharge.

The Superior Court of Justice dismissed the appeal, finding the sentencing judge was fully aware of the potential for deportation and correctly concluded that a conditional discharge would be contrary to the public interest given the ongoing intimate partner violence.

The accused was charged with the first-degree murder of his estranged wife, whom he stabbed to death in a park.

The court found the accused's statements to police voluntary and admissible.

The evidence, including videos the accused took of the victim dying and sent to others, overwhelmingly proved he committed the stabbing with the intent to kill.

The court further found the murder was planned and deliberate, based on the accused's jealousy motive, his bringing of a knife to the meeting, and a threat he made the night before.

The accused was found guilty of first-degree murder.

The applicant sought a bail review under s. 520 of the Criminal Code.

The court had previously detained the applicant but issued these postscript reasons to address the validity of 'bail set not met' orders, where a release order is made but surety approval is deferred to a separate proceeding.

The court held that such orders are valid in law, including in reverse onus situations.

The court found that the prior decision in R. v. C.S., which held such orders invalid, was decided per incuriam as it failed to consider a long line of binding authority and established practice.

The court emphasized that bail procedures must remain flexible and that the ladder principle's inapplicability in reverse onus cases does not preclude bifurcated surety approval proceedings.

The appellant appealed his conviction for operating a conveyance with a blood alcohol concentration exceeding the legal limit.

He argued that the trial judge erred in her analysis of whether he had language deficits that interfered with his understanding of his right to counsel under s. 10(b) of the Charter.

The appeal court dismissed the appeal, finding that the trial judge properly applied the objective test to the arresting officer's observations and reasonably relied on video evidence to conclude the appellant understood his rights.

The trial judge's negative credibility findings regarding the appellant's testimony on his language comprehension were fatal to his claim.

The appellant appealed his conviction for sexual assault, arguing the trial judge misapprehended evidence regarding phone records.

The appellant, a driving instructor, sexually assaulted the complainant in his office.

At trial, the defence argued the appellant's phone records did not show calls to the complainant on the day of the offence.

The trial judge accepted the complainant's evidence that the appellant had multiple phones.

The Superior Court of Justice dismissed the appeal, finding no misapprehension of evidence and noting that the issue of how the parties arranged to meet was peripheral to the trial judge's reasoning.

The applicant brought a constitutional challenge arguing that ss. 119(1)(c) and 120(1) of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act violate ss. 7 and 12 of the Charter.

The applicant argued that because pre-sentence custody is not recognized in calculating parole eligibility, offenders denied bail are arbitrarily delayed in their day parole compared to those released on bail.

The court dismissed the application, finding that while the right to apply for parole engages a liberty interest, the deprivation is not grossly disproportionate or overbroad given the distinct purposes of pre-trial custody and the conditional release regime.

In a judge-alone criminal trial involving allegations of sexual assault by a religious leader against a congregant, the case turned almost entirely on credibility and reliability.

The court found the complainant generally responsive and convincing, but concluded that significant implausibilities and exaggeration in her account of the wedding ceremony undermined the reliability of her evidence on a central event.

The accused's evidence was not perfect, but the Crown did not expose material inconsistencies sufficient to reject his denials.

Applying the beyond a reasonable doubt standard from Lifchus, the court held the complainant's evidence did not attain the necessary degree of certainty and acquitted on all counts.

The accused brought a Charter motion challenging a search warrant executed at his residence nearly two years after a robbery and firearm discharge offence.

The accused conceded reasonable grounds existed to believe he was the perpetrator but argued there were insufficient grounds to believe evidence would still be found at his residence.

He also argued that the inclusion of bad character evidence in the ITO was improper and that a subsequent cell phone warrant was overbroad.

The court dismissed the application, finding it reasonable to infer that clothing and cell phones would be retained over two years, that bad character evidence of similar robbery offences was relevant at the investigatory stage, and that any potential overbreadth in the cell phone warrant caused no prejudice as no evidence from the phone was tendered at trial.

Sentencing for multiple voyeurism offences, making child pornography, sexual assault, and a firearms offence arising from surreptitious recordings of women and a child in a family home over two distinct periods.

The court treated the bathroom-camera offences and child pornography offence as the most serious conduct, emphasizing the invasion of sexual integrity, the victims' reasonable expectation of privacy, and a profound breach of trust within the home.

A conditional sentence was rejected because denunciation and deterrence predominated and a community-based sentence would depreciate the gravity of the offences.

Applying proportionality and totality, the court imposed a global custodial sentence of 30 months, reduced by 10 days' credit for pre-trial custody.

The applicant sought an order compelling the respondents to deliver books, records, and equipment to the court-appointed receiver, and a declaration that the respondents breached the Receivership Order.

The respondents argued that their pending application for leave to appeal the Receivership Order automatically stayed the proceedings.

The court held that while filing an appeal as of right triggers an automatic stay under section 195 of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, filing an application for leave to appeal does not.

The court granted the requested orders, finding the respondents in clear breach of the Receivership Order.

Following a finding of guilt for robbery and firearm offences, the self-represented accused brought an abuse of process motion alleging that police stole $23,000 in cash from his home during the execution of a search warrant.

The court bifurcated the motion to first determine the factual issue of whether the theft occurred.

The court found the evidence of the accused and his common-law wife to be vague, inconsistent, and illogical.

The accused failed to meet his burden of proving on a balance of probabilities that the police stole the money.

The motion was dismissed.

The appellant appealed a Small Claims Court decision in which the deputy judge awarded the respondent contractor $18,813.37 for flooring installation work.

The appellant had refused to pay the balance of the invoice, alleging defective work, and hired another contractor to remedy the problems.

The Divisional Court found that the deputy judge erred in law by deciding the case primarily on the basis of unjust enrichment, a legal doctrine that had not been pleaded or argued by the parties.

The court held that unjust enrichment was irrelevant to the central contractual issue of whether the contractor had fulfilled its obligations regarding the quality of the work performed.

The appeal was allowed, the decision was set aside, and a new trial was ordered.

The applicant, charged with possession of a firearm, brought a Charter application to exclude the firearm under section 24(2).

The applicant was accosted by three uniformed police officers outside a strip club in Brampton and a firearm was discovered in his satchel.

The applicant argued violations of sections 8 and 9 of the Charter (unreasonable search and arbitrary detention).

The court found that the police officers lacked reasonable grounds for arrest or search, that their observations were implausible given the extremely limited time available (5-10 seconds), and that their stated grounds were generic and could apply to innocent persons.

The court concluded the officers fabricated grounds ex post facto and engaged in a pattern of indiscriminate searches.

The firearm was excluded under section 24(2) due to the seriousness of the Charter violations, the deliberate and planned nature of the misconduct, false police testimony, and the impact on the applicant's Charter-protected interests.

The applicant, charged with firearm offences, applied for a stay of proceedings under s. 11(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms on the basis that the trial had not been held within a reasonable time.

The charges were laid on January 16, 2022, with trial scheduled for December 2025, representing a delay of nearly four years.

The Crown had originally charged the applicant with both firearm offences and a possession for the purpose of trafficking charge, which was withdrawn on May 30, 2024.

The court found that the Crown's handling of the drug charge—including indecision about withdrawal, tentative communications, and delays in actually withdrawing the charge—constituted Crown delay that exceeded the Jordan ceiling of 30 months for two-stage proceedings.

The court calculated net delay at approximately 37 months and granted the stay of proceedings.

The accused was charged with three counts of sexual interference against his step-daughter over a five-year period when she was between four and nine years old.

The complainant's evidence was admitted as a hearsay exception through videotaped police interviews and preliminary hearing testimony.

Two jury trials resulted in hung juries.

The trial judge, applying section 669.2(4) and (5) of the Criminal Code, resolved the case without additional evidence.

The judge found the complainant credible but had significant concerns about the reliability of her evidence regarding the third count, which involved recovered memories disclosed for the first time at the preliminary hearing after a nearly four-year gap.

The judge also questioned the accused's credibility regarding the mattress incident but found the Crown had not proven guilt beyond a reasonable doubt on any count.

Not guilty verdicts were entered on all three counts.

This is an addendum to a Garofoli ruling dismissing an application to quash a search warrant.

The original ruling was released on August 19, 2025.

The application involved a search warrant based substantially on evidence from a confidential informant, requiring extensive redactions to the Information to Obtain to protect informer privilege.

The initial ruling was sent only to the Crown to prevent inadvertent disclosure of the informant's identity.

Upon Crown counsel's request, one sentence in paragraph 13 of the ruling was redacted before release to defence counsel and the trial office.

The unredacted paragraph and pertinent emails are sealed as exhibits to preserve the record.