David Newton

The offender was convicted by a jury of second-degree murder for killing his grandfather using a hammer and a dog leash.

The Crown sought a 17-year period of parole ineligibility, while the defence sought 10 years.

The court considered the offender's untreated mental health issues, including schizophrenia, alongside the brutal and unprovoked nature of the attack.

Balancing the aggravating factors and the jury's recommendations against the mitigating factors, the court set the period of parole ineligibility at 15 years.

The applicants brought a joint omnibus Charter application seeking a stay of proceedings or exclusion of evidence following their arrest during the execution of a search warrant at a condominium unit.

They alleged multiple Charter breaches, including unreasonable search and arbitrary detention due to the police's dynamic entry and use of handcuffs, unlawful strip searches, failure to preserve CCTV evidence, and delays in fulfilling their informational and implementation rights to counsel.

The court found that the dynamic entry, manner of detention, and strip searches were reasonable and justified for officer safety.

The court also dismissed the lost evidence claim.

However, the court found breaches of s. 10(a) and s. 10(b) due to unjustified delays in informing the applicants of the reasons for their arrest and their right to counsel, as well as delays in facilitating access to counsel.

Despite these breaches, the court declined to grant a stay of proceedings under s. 24(1) or exclude evidence under s. 24(2), concluding that the breaches were not systemic, had minimal impact on the applicants' trial fairness, and the evidence was not obtained as a result of the breaches.

The three co-accused applicants brought a pre-trial motion challenging the validity of a search warrant that led to the seizure of firearms and drugs.

The Crown asserted Confidential Informant privilege over portions of the Information to Obtain (ITO) and provided a redacted version along with a proposed judicial summary.

In this Step 6 Garofoli ruling, the court held that the proposed judicial summary sufficiently alerted the defence to the nature of the redacted information, allowing them to challenge the warrant by argument or evidence.

The Crown was permitted to rely on the unredacted ITO to support the issuance of the warrant.

The applicant, charged with second-degree murder, brought a pre-trial motion challenging the constitutionality of Bill C-75 amendments to the Criminal Code that abolished peremptory challenges and altered the challenge for cause procedure.

The applicant argued the changes violated sections 7, 11(d), and 11(f) of the Charter and relied on a recent coordinate court decision that found the repeal of peremptory challenges unconstitutional.

The court dismissed the application, finding the coordinate decision was plainly wrong and therefore not binding.

The court held that the amendments are constitutional and operate retrospectively.