David Paul Finley

The appellant was convicted of first degree murder.

The Crown's case relied heavily on the testimony of the deceased's wife, with whom the appellant was having an affair, who claimed the appellant confessed to the murder.

The appellant appealed his conviction on several grounds, including the trial judge's instructions on forensic testing, the admission of intercepted phone calls, the admission of video re-enactments and lay opinion evidence, the adequacy of the Vetrovec warning, and instructions on after-the-fact conduct.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no reversible errors in the trial judge's rulings or jury instructions.

The appellant appealed his global sentence of ten years for trafficking in firearms and hard drugs while on bail.

The Crown conceded the trial judge erred in stating the appellant pled guilty to nine firearm trafficking offences, when he only pled to four.

Considering this error, the appellant's age, and fresh evidence of his progress in the institution, the Court of Appeal found the ten-year sentence too long.

The Court reduced the global sentence to eight years, imposing two years concurrent on the drug and gun trafficking charges (accounting for four years pre-trial custody credit), while leaving the consecutive sentences for breach of recognizance unchanged.

The appellant was acquitted at trial of operating a motor vehicle with a blood alcohol concentration over 80 milligrams, after the trial judge excluded the breath readings due to a s. 10(b) Charter breach for denying the appellant the use of his cell phone to call counsel while waiting for the Approved Screening Device.

The summary conviction appeal judge allowed the Crown's appeal and ordered a new trial.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appellant's appeal, finding that the breath demand was valid despite omitting the word 'forthwith', and that there was no s. 10(b) breach because the police officer was in a position to require the breath sample before there was any realistic opportunity for the appellant to consult counsel.

The appellants appealed jury convictions for two murders arising from a drug-debt execution theory advanced through accomplice and jailhouse informer evidence.

The Court of Appeal held that the trial judge failed to provide an adequate Vetrovec caution regarding key unsavoury witnesses and also committed several additional reversible errors, including admitting highly prejudicial investigative hearsay, admitting evidence of a co-accused’s manslaughter conviction, excluding exculpatory portions of a recorded statement under the whole statement rule, permitting inadmissible hearsay concerning one appellant’s alleged admission to his girlfriend, and failing to control prejudicial Crown cross-examination and oath-helping evidence.

The court rejected the reasonable apprehension of bias claim and declined to intervene on several discrete evidentiary rulings, but found the cumulative and individual errors too serious for the curative proviso.

The convictions were set aside and a new trial ordered.

The self-represented appellant, appealing his two convictions for first-degree murder, brought a motion for directions seeking access to disclosure, transcripts, and other trial materials, as well as orders compelling approximately forty persons to testify on the appeal.

The Court of Appeal granted an order providing the appellant with direct and reasonable access to disclosure, noting the Crown's undertaking to use best efforts to provide the other requested materials.

The court dismissed the request to compel witnesses, finding the appellant failed to establish that the proposed witnesses would probably have evidence relevant to the issues raised on appeal.

The appellant appealed a sentence of two years less a day, arguing the trial judge closed his mind to a conditional sentence by revoking bail during an adjournment.

The Court of Appeal found the trial judge had not closed his mind and that the sentence was within the appropriate range.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant appealed his convictions and sentence arising from a 'criminal swarm' assault.

The Court of Appeal applied the Kienapple principle to stay two counts on the indictment to prevent multiple convictions for the same delict.

On the sentence appeal, the Court found an unjustified disparity between the appellant's five-year sentence and the significantly shorter sentences imposed on older co-accused with more serious records who had pleaded guilty.

The appeal was allowed, and the sentence was reduced to 24 months' imprisonment, in addition to pre-trial custody credit.

The appellant appealed his conviction for the first-degree murder of his wife by cyanide poisoning.

The sole issue on appeal was whether the trial judge erred in admitting evidence of the appellant's prior fraudulent behaviour.

The Court of Appeal found the admissibility of the bad character evidence to be borderline at best, but applied the curative proviso under s. 686(1)(b)(iii) of the Criminal Code.

The Court concluded that the evidence against the appellant was overwhelming and there was no reasonable possibility that the impugned evidence tipped the balance or that a new trial would produce a different verdict.

The appellant appealed his speeding convictions, arguing that speeding should be classified as a strict liability offence rather than absolute liability, and that absolute liability violates his section 7 Charter liberty interest.

The Court of Appeal affirmed that speeding remains an absolute liability offence in Ontario.

The Court also held that legislative amendments to the Provincial Offences Act separating default proceedings from the original trial make the risk of imprisonment sufficiently remote that section 7 is not engaged.

The appeal was dismissed, but the appellant was awarded disbursements.

The appellant, aged 75 and in very poor health, was convicted of indecent assault and sexual assault and sentenced to 14 months' incarceration.

After serving 2.5 months, he was granted bail pending appeal.

On appeal, fresh evidence showed his health had further declined, requiring 24-hour nursing care, and that provincial facilities were inadequate for his needs.

With the Crown's consent, the Court of Appeal granted leave to appeal and varied the remainder of his sentence to a 12-month conditional sentence with strict conditions.

The Crown appealed a summary conviction appeal court decision that set aside the accused's conviction for care and control of a motor vehicle.

The accused's vehicle was half in a ditch, and he had called a tow truck.

The appeal court judge had ruled that the conviction could not stand because the accused did not intend to set the car in motion.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and restored the conviction, holding that the trial judge reasonably found a risk of danger that the accused might drive off or inadvertently set the car in motion once it was extricated.

The appellant was convicted of second degree murder of his stepson and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole eligibility for 20 years.

He appealed both conviction and sentence, arguing the trial judge erred in instructions regarding his false alibi statements, consciousness of guilt, and the victim's prior injuries.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding the jury instructions adequate in the context of a stark 'either/or' case where either the appellant or the child's mother committed the murder.

The sentence appeal was also dismissed, with the 20-year parole ineligibility period upheld due to the heinous nature of the crime.

The appellants were convicted of second-degree murder and manslaughter in a gang-related shooting.

At trial, the francophone co-accused requested trials in different official languages, leading the trial judge to conduct a bilingual trial.

The trial judge also admitted out-of-court statements made by the deceased victim before his death under the principled exception to the hearsay rule.

On appeal, the Court of Appeal held that the bilingual trial was permissible under the Criminal Code and did not violate the appellants' language rights.

However, the Court found that the trial judge erred in admitting the deceased's statements by improperly relying on extrinsic evidence and mere consistencies to establish threshold reliability.

The Court also found a significant error in the jury instructions regarding reasonable doubt and the absence of evidence (the 'Miller' error).

The appeal was allowed and a new trial ordered.

The appellant appealed his convictions for first-degree murder, second-degree murder, and attempted murder.

The appeal raised numerous issues, including the validity of his warrantless arrest, the legality of a gunshot residue test and the seizure of his clothing, and the admissibility of similar fact evidence and hearsay.

The Court of Appeal found that the police had reasonable grounds for the arrest and that the gunshot residue test was a valid search incident to arrest.

However, the trial judge erred in admitting highly prejudicial similar fact evidence of a subsequent shooting, as it lacked the requisite degree of similarity to prove identity.

The trial judge also failed to properly resolve factual issues regarding an alleged violation of the appellant's right to counsel.

Due to the erroneous admission of the similar fact evidence, the appeal was allowed and a new trial ordered.

The appellant appealed a four-year sentence for robbery.

The Court of Appeal found the trial judge made two errors in principle: treating the unproven likelihood of a gun as an aggravating factor, and failing to apply the principle that a young offender's first penitentiary sentence should be as short as possible.

The appeal was allowed and the sentence was varied to two years and three months, in addition to nine months of pre-trial custody.

The appellant appealed his conviction, advancing an implied consent defence for the first time on appeal.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no air of reality to the defence, as the appellant's conduct went well beyond routine physical contact.

The court also found no error in the trial judge's assessment of the complainant's evidence.

The appellant appealed his conviction and sentence for aggravated assault.

The Court of Appeal upheld the conviction, finding that the appellant was trespassing and engaged in an unlawful assault when he and the victim went over a balcony, establishing causation.

However, based on fresh evidence of the appellant's significant progress during his 18 months in custody, the Court allowed the sentence appeal and varied the sentence to time served plus two years of probation.

The appellant appealed his conviction and sentence for fraud over $5,000 related to welfare fraud.

He had pleaded guilty at trial and received a twelve-month conditional sentence and a restitution order.

On appeal, he argued his plea was entered under duress, he received ineffective assistance of counsel, and his lawyer had a conflict of interest.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no evidence to support his claims, noting he admitted the facts at trial, and upholding the sentence which was based on a joint submission.

The appellant appealed a disposition of the Ontario Review Board.

The Court of Appeal rejected the appellant's constitutional argument and found the finding of detention in hospital was not unreasonable.

However, the Court held that the Board erred by applying an 'appropriate' standard rather than the 'least onerous and least restrictive' test to the level of detention and conditions, contrary to Tulikorpi and Pinet.

The appeal was allowed and the matter remitted to the Board for an expedited re-hearing.

The appellant was convicted of first degree murder based entirely on circumstantial evidence, including hair comparison, DNA, identification, and after-the-fact conduct.

On appeal, the appellant argued the trial judge erred in admitting prejudicial hair comparison evidence and in instructing the jury on identification and after-the-fact conduct.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, finding the trial judge erred in admitting type 2 hair comparison evidence without confirming DNA, failing to properly instruct the jury on the limitations of the hair evidence, improperly leaving worthless identification evidence to the jury, and erroneously instructing the jury that they could infer guilt from a concocted alibi and ambiguous after-the-fact conduct.

A new trial was ordered.