Dean Fraser Embry

The accused was charged with assault, threatening, and use of an imitation firearm while threatening, stemming from incidents on two streetcars.

The accused harassed female passengers, elbowed one, spat at a male passenger, and brandished what appeared to be a gun.

The accused denied the allegations, claiming accidental contact, showing a cell phone holster instead of a weapon, and arguing self-defense.

The court disbelieved the accused's testimony, finding it lacked an air of reality, and credited the corroborating civilian witnesses and security video.

The accused was found guilty on all counts.

The defense applied for a mistrial due to a mid-trial breakdown in the solicitor-client relationship between the accused and his former counsel, Uma Kancharla.

The breakdown stemmed from counsel's application for a psychiatric assessment of the accused's fitness to stand trial, which the accused opposed.

The defense argued that counsel's actions prejudiced the accused and constituted a breach of privilege, effectively depriving him of counsel.

The court found that counsel acted properly in raising the fitness issue, disclosed minimal privileged information, and that the accused's rights were protected.

The application for a mistrial was dismissed, emphasizing that such declarations are a last resort.

The appellant appealed a decision of the Ontario Review Board ordering that he remain under a conditional discharge, seeking an absolute discharge.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the Board's decision was reasonable and supported by the treating physician's opinion that the appellant continued to pose a significant risk to the public if he discontinued his medication.

The Board had appropriately recognized the appellant's progress by reducing his conditions, and left open the possibility of an absolute discharge at the next annual hearing.

The offender was convicted of conspiracy and attempting to import approximately 356 grams of cocaine from Costa Rica.

The Crown sought a three-year sentence, while the defence sought two years, noting the offender's impending deportation.

The court found the offender was a key participant in the scheme and had a prior record for drug trafficking.

The court determined a fit sentence was 35 months, but reduced it to two years less a day after applying credit for pre-sentence custody, strict house arrest, and the collateral consequence of certain deportation.

The appellant appealed his summary conviction for impaired driving, arguing the trial judge erred in dismissing his Charter application under ss. 8 and 9.

The appellant contended the police lacked reasonable grounds to arrest him and demand breath samples after observing him driving the wrong way on a ramp and exhibiting signs of impairment.

The Superior Court of Justice dismissed the appeal, finding the trial judge correctly concluded the officers had the necessary subjective and objective reasonable grounds.

The court further held that even if a Charter breach had occurred, the breathalyzer results would not be excluded under s. 24(2).

The accused was charged with conspiracy to import cocaine into Canada and attempting to import cocaine, arising from a scheme to ship packages from Costa Rica to Toronto through FedEx.

Intercepted communications demonstrated the accused’s involvement in coordinating shipments and arranging for a contact within FedEx to intercept packages before delivery.

The cocaine was discovered when two packages were intercepted in Panama, and documentary evidence from Panamanian authorities obtained under the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act was tendered to prove the contents of the packages.

The court held that the foreign investigative and laboratory records were admissible under s. 36 of the MLACMA and could be relied upon for their truth after assessing their reliability and corroboration with other evidence.

The court concluded that the packages contained approximately 355 grams of cocaine and that the accused was a participant in a conspiracy to import the drug into Canada.

On a pre-trial application in a cocaine importation prosecution, the accused sought exclusion of a Panamanian laboratory report identifying the seized substance as cocaine, together with related foreign investigative documents obtained under mutual legal assistance procedures.

The court held that s. 36(1) of the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act permits admission of foreign records containing opinion evidence and does not exclude expert opinion evidence from its scope.

Applying the court’s gatekeeper role and reasoning by analogy to analyst-certificate jurisprudence, the court found no evidentiary basis to doubt the accuracy or reliability of the Panamanian testing process.

The court further held that s. 657.3 of the Criminal Code did not govern because the evidence was tendered under the MLACMA, and in any event the Mohan criteria were satisfied.

The application to exclude both the expert report and the other Panamanian materials was dismissed.

The appellant appealed a disposition of the Ontario Review Board.

The Court of Appeal upheld the Board's reliance on expert psychiatric evidence indicating that the appellant posed a significant risk of violence to hospital staff if he remained in a medium secure facility without a medication change.

The court found it was reasonable for the Board to rely on evidence regarding enhanced security and potential privileges at Waypoint.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant appealed a disposition of the Ontario Review Board, challenging the scope of a no-contact provision that included the Toronto Star.

The Court of Appeal found sufficient evidence to justify the continued inclusion of the Toronto Star in the condition, noting the appellant's history of threatening and harassing behaviour targeting media agencies.

The appeal was dismissed, subject to minor modifications proposed by the respondents.

The accused was charged with accessing child pornography contrary to section 163.1(4) of the Criminal Code.

The defence brought Charter applications challenging the validity of the search warrant under section 8 and alleging breaches of the right to counsel under section 10(b).

The court found that the Information to Obtain the search warrant contained significant embellishments and generalizations about offender behaviour that were devoid of meaningful factual support.

The court determined that the ITO provided only suspicion and speculation rather than reasonable and probable grounds that evidence would be found at the residence 13 months after the alleged offence.

The court also found multiple breaches of the accused's section 10(b) rights during questioning by police before he was informed of his right to counsel.

Both the physical evidence and the accused's statements were excluded pursuant to section 24(2) of the Charter.

The accused, charged with invitation to sexual touching, brought an application for a stay of proceedings under s. 11(b) of the Charter due to unreasonable delay.

The total delay from the swearing of the Information to the anticipated trial date was 34.7 months.

The court found that a significant portion of the delay was attributable to the Crown's failure to disclose relevant computer forensic evidence until shortly before the original trial date, necessitating an adjournment.

Finding that the delay exceeded the guidelines and caused actual prejudice to the accused, the court granted the application and stayed the proceedings.

The appellant challenged the dismissal of his certiorari application seeking to quash a preliminary inquiry committal for second degree murder.

He argued the evidence could support committal only for manslaughter and that the inferences drawn by the preliminary inquiry judge amounted to speculation.

The Court of Appeal held that, at the preliminary inquiry stage, the inference most favourable to the Crown must be drawn and that difficult inferences may still be reasonable.

It found the inferences supporting committal under ss. 21(1) and 21(2) of the Criminal Code were reasonably available given the appellant's conduct, the conduct of his accomplices, and the planning and execution of the robbery.

The defendant applied for a stay of proceedings pursuant to section 11(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms on grounds of unreasonable trial delay.

The defendant was charged with conspiracy to commit fraud over $5,000, fraud over $5,000, and obstructing a peace officer in connection with an alleged staged motor vehicle accident and fraudulent insurance claim.

The charges arose from Project Whiplash, a large-scale investigation involving 38 separately charged individuals.

The court conducted an attribution analysis of the delay periods and found that approximately 8 months of the 16-month total delay constituted neutral intake procedures inherent to the case, while 7 months represented systemic institutional delay.

The court determined that the defendant suffered only modest actual and inferred prejudice and that society's interest in a trial on the merits outweighed the defendant's interest in prompt adjudication.

The application was dismissed.

The accused pleaded guilty to three charges: mischief under $5,000 by interference with an ATM, possession of a forgery device (skimmer device), and possession of a credit card obtained by crime.

The accused was observed manipulating an ATM where a skimmer device and pinhole camera had been installed to steal debit card data and record PINs.

The Crown sought a suspended sentence with 12 months probation, while the defence sought a conditional discharge.

The court rejected both positions, finding that incarceration was necessary but that a conditional sentence was appropriate given the accused's youth, first-offender status, and the need to balance general deterrence with rehabilitation principles.

The respondent, a first offender, pleaded guilty to importing 9.56 kilograms of high-grade heroin into Canada as a courier.

The sentencing judge imposed a sentence of seven years and nine months, treating heroin as only marginally more dangerous than cocaine and considering the respondent's wilful blindness as a mitigating factor.

The Crown appealed the sentence.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, holding that heroin is significantly more dangerous than cocaine and that wilful blindness is not a mitigating factor.

The Court established a sentencing range of 12 to 17 years for first offender couriers importing large amounts of high-grade heroin for personal gain, and increased the respondent's sentence to 14 years and nine months.

The appellant appealed her sentence for dangerous driving causing bodily injury and failing to remain.

The Court of Appeal found that the trial judge's six-year sentence for dangerous driving exceeded the Crown's requested maximum of five years and fell outside the acceptable range.

The appeal was allowed, reducing the dangerous driving sentence to four years (for a global sentence of five years) and the driving prohibition from sixteen years to eleven years.