David M. Paciocco

The appellant, Joshua Barreira, appealed his 15-year sentence for manslaughter, which had been reduced to a net 4.5 years after pre-sentence custody credit.

He raised four grounds of appeal: the sentence falling outside the appropriate range, the sentencing judge's failure to assume he did not know his accomplice had a gun, insufficient "Duncan credit" for harsh pre-sentence custody conditions, and an omission of pre-sentence credit for time served between sentencing submissions and the imposition of sentence.

The Court of Appeal granted leave to appeal and allowed the appeal in part, accepting the fourth ground as conceded by the Crown.

The court rejected the other grounds, affirming that the sentence was not demonstrably unfit, that mitigating facts must be established on a balance of probabilities, and that the "Duncan credit" was within the sentencing judge's discretion.

The sentence was adjusted to reflect the additional pre-sentence credit.

The appellant, J.R., appealed convictions for sexual offences against his two young daughters.

The Crown conceded that the trial judge erred by failing to instruct the jury against cross-count reasoning and propensity reasoning, and by instructing them that cross-count reasoning was permissible.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, set aside the convictions, and ordered a new trial, finding these errors required the convictions to be set aside.

The appellant, Shawn Labrosse-Quinn, appealed a six-month sentence for robbery and possession of stolen property, arguing the sentencing judge misconstrued his role and erred in not imposing a conditional or intermittent sentence.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario found the sentencing judge correctly assessed the appellant's moral culpability as a getaway driver who was wilfully blind to the robbery and did not err in declining a conditional or intermittent sentence, emphasizing the need for deterrence and denunciation.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant, Robert Gary Anderson, appealed his conviction for criminal harassment and sought leave to appeal his sentence.

The Court of Appeal found no error in the trial judge's conduct regarding the jury charge, an alleged juror falling asleep, or the imposed two-year suspended sentence.

Both the conviction appeal and the sentence appeal were dismissed.

The appellant, convicted of sexual assault against two young teenagers, appealed his conviction and sought leave to appeal his sentence.

The appeal focused on the trial judge's credibility assessment of the complainants, specifically the use of "lack of exaggeration" as a factor.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding no reversible error in the trial judge's reasoning, interpreting the impugned passages as noting the absence of factors that would diminish credibility rather than using lack of exaggeration as a positive makeweight.

Leave to appeal sentence was granted, but the sentence appeal was also dismissed, as the imposed prison term of 8.5 years was within the appropriate range given the breach of trust and serious consequences for the victims.

Angelina Codina applied for bail pending her application for leave to appeal three decisions of the Court of Appeal for Ontario to the Supreme Court of Canada.

The motion judge dismissed the bail application, finding that Ms. Codina had not met her burden of persuading the court that her release was in the public interest.

The court considered the strength of her proposed grounds of appeal, which were deemed not to "clearly surpass the minimal standard" of "not frivolous" and noted a residual public safety concern given her history of preying on vulnerable individuals and being "ungovernable." The court emphasized the paramountcy of enforcing trial judgments at this stage of proceedings, especially given no further right of appeal.

The appellant mother challenged the Ontario Superior Court's jurisdiction over her youngest child, who was born in the U.S. and had never been to Canada, in the context of temporary parenting orders.

The Court of Appeal affirmed the motion judge's finding of jurisdiction, holding that the Superior Court had subject-matter jurisdiction under the Divorce Act because the father was ordinarily resident in Ontario.

Furthermore, the mother had attorned to the court's jurisdiction by actively participating in the merits of the underlying motions without formally challenging jurisdiction.

The appeal was dismissed, with no order as to costs due to the mother's reliance on public assistance.

The appellant, Xylem Canada Company, appealed an application judge's order declaring that an obligation to purchase, set out in a 1996 lease, remained in effect through subsequent lease renewals.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no palpable and overriding error in the application judge's interpretation of the contractual documents.

The court reiterated that contractual interpretation involves issues of mixed fact and law, entitling the application judge's decision to deference.

The Crown appealed the acquittal of the respondent on charges of aggravated assault and firearms offences, arguing the trial judge misapprehended surveillance video evidence, failed to assess evidence holistically, and provided insufficient reasons.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no errors of law in the trial judge's factual findings or assessment of the circumstantial evidence, and that the reasons were sufficient.

The court reiterated that Crown appeals from acquittals are limited to questions of law alone and cannot challenge the reasonableness of the verdict.

The appellant appealed a summary judgment dismissing his action against the Ontario Ombudsman.

The motion judge proceeded in the appellant's absence after finding he knew of the motion and chose not to participate.

The motion judge dismissed the action because the respondent was immune from proceedings absent bad faith, and the appellant provided no evidence of bad faith.

The Court of Appeal found no error in the motion judge's discretionary decision to proceed or in granting summary judgment, and dismissed the appeal.

The appellant, Robert Lockhart, appealed a lower court order that declared Powers of Attorney (POAP and POAPC) he arranged for his mother, June Lockhart, void ab initio, and awarded costs to his sister, Barbara Lockhart.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, affirming the motion judge's findings that Robert had reasonable grounds to believe June was incapable of granting the POAPC, thus negating the presumption of capacity under the Substitute Decisions Act, 1992.

The costs order was also upheld.

The appellant, Nathan Tenthorey, appealed his conviction for aggravated assault, arguing the trial judge erred by failing to instruct the jury on the included offences of simple assault and assault causing bodily harm, and by failing to provide a *Soobrian* limiting instruction.

The Court of Appeal held that the trial judge erred in law by concluding that assault causing bodily harm was not an included offence in a non-particularized aggravated assault charge, and erred factually by finding no air of reality for either included offence.

The court clarified the test for included offences in multi-mode charges.

The appeal on the *Soobrian* instruction was dismissed.

The conviction was set aside, and a new trial ordered.

This is an appeal from conviction and sentence.

The appellant, Muhammad Abbas Jaffer, was convicted of child luring and communicating to obtain sexual services from a minor, stemming from an undercover police operation (Project Raphael).

He appealed on grounds of entrapment, arguing both opportunity-based and inducement-based entrapment, and that his sentence was unfit.

The Court of Appeal dismissed both the conviction and sentence appeals, finding that the police operation did not constitute entrapment and that the trial judge's sentence was fit, adequately considering aggravating and mitigating factors.

This is a Crown appeal concerning entrapment in an undercover police operation (Project Raphael) targeting individuals seeking sexual services from juveniles online.

The trial judge initially dismissed the respondent's entrapment application but later granted a stay of proceedings after the Supreme Court of Canada's decision in R. v. Ahmad.

The Court of Appeal examined whether the police conducted a bona fide inquiry and properly applied the entrapment doctrine in virtual spaces.

The court found the police had reasonable suspicion of criminal activity on Backpage and that the investigation's scope was sufficiently narrowed, despite a large number of "innocent" persons being virtue-tested.

The appeal was allowed, setting aside the stay of proceedings.

This appeal arose from convictions for child luring and communicating to obtain sexual services from a minor, stemming from Project Raphael, an undercover police investigation targeting demand for juvenile sexual services.

The appellant, Temitope Dare, appealed his convictions on two grounds: that the trial judge erred in jury instructions regarding the mental element of belief (linking it to reading text messages) and that the trial judge erred in dismissing his entrapment application.

The Court of Appeal dismissed both grounds, finding that the jury instructions, when read holistically, were not misleading regarding the requirement of belief, and rejecting the entrapment argument based on reasons provided in a related case.

The appellant, Erhard Haniffa, appealed his convictions for child luring and communicating to obtain sexual services from a minor, arguing entrapment, misapplication of the Kienapple principle, and s. 11(b) Charter delay.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeals regarding conviction, Kienapple, entrapment, and s. 11(b) applications.

However, the Court allowed the sentence appeal, setting aside the sentence imposed by the trial judge on a stayed count and remitting the matter for sentencing on the correct count.

The moving parties, former residents of St. Anne's Indian Residential School, appealed an order appointing an Independent Special Advisor (ISA) to review Independent Assessment Process (IAP) claims and sought an interim preservation order for documents.

They argued the ISA appointment undercut ongoing proceedings and was made by a biased judge.

The court dismissed both motions, finding no serious issue on appeal due to the probable interlocutory nature of the order, no irreparable harm to the moving parties, and the balance of convenience not favoring a stay.

The preservation order was also denied due to ongoing related proceedings and Canada's undertaking to preserve documents.

This appeal concerned a jury award for damages in a motor vehicle accident case, specifically challenging the trial judge's directions on causation and the admissibility of evidence.

The appellant argued that the trial judge misdirected the jury on the "but for" test for causation by using "material contribution" language and improperly excluded a Statistics Canada report and curtailed re-examination of an expert.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the jury, despite the "material contribution" language, would have properly understood the "but for" test.

The court also upheld the exclusion of the Statistics Canada report due to lack of authentication and reliance by the expert, and found no reversible error in the re-examination ruling.

Furthermore, the court affirmed that hypothetical past income loss is to be proven on a "real and substantial possibility" standard, not on a balance of probabilities.

The appellants, Joshua and Jordan Powell, appealed their convictions for assault causing bodily harm and mischief (Jordan only) stemming from a group altercation.

They raised five grounds of appeal, including unreasonable verdicts, misunderstanding of mens rea, deficient reasons, improper rejection of exculpatory police statements, and erroneous rejection of a witness's testimony based on unraised bias.

The Court of Appeal dismissed both conviction appeals, finding that the trial judge's verdicts were reasonable, the mens rea for assault causing bodily harm was correctly applied, the reasons were sufficient, and the handling of exculpatory statements and witness credibility did not infringe the appellants' rights or legal principles.

The moving parties sought a stay pending appeal of a lower court's decision to permanently stay their underlying action in Ontario on the basis of forum non conveniens and forum selection clauses.

They also sought an order expediting the appeal.

The motion judge dismissed both requests, applying the three-part RJR-MacDonald test for stays pending appeal.

The court found that while the appeal raised a serious question, the moving parties failed to demonstrate irreparable harm or that the balance of convenience favoured granting the stay.

The court also denied the request to expedite the appeal, finding no urgency.