D. McCabe-Lokos

The Crown brought an application during a first-degree murder trial to admit several ante mortem statements made by the deceased under the principled exception to the hearsay rule.

The statements primarily concerned the accused's anger towards the deceased and the accused allegedly stealing the deceased's apartment keys.

The court applied the framework from Bradshaw and Khelawon to assess substantive reliability, using corroborative evidence where appropriate.

The court admitted the statements made to the deceased's sister, a close friend, the building superintendent, and the property manager, finding them reliable.

However, statements made to the deceased's boyfriend and another friend were excluded due to reliability concerns and unclear declarant identity.

During a trial for first degree murder, the defence applied to exclude utterances made by one co-accused to a friend, arguing they were more prejudicial than probative to the other co-accused.

The Crown also sought to admit text messages extracted from the co-accused's phone.

The court ruled that the utterances were admissible, as their probative value outweighed the prejudicial effect, and juries are presumed to follow instructions limiting the use of such evidence against a co-accused.

The court also ruled that the text messages were admissible, finding that the Crown had met the modest threshold for authentication under s. 31.1 of the Canada Evidence Act through direct and circumstantial evidence.

In a joint trial for first-degree murder, the applicant co-accused brought a pre-trial motion to adduce evidence of the respondent co-accused's prior discreditable conduct through Crown witnesses.

The applicant sought to introduce this evidence to support a cutthroat defence and explain her state of mind.

The court reviewed various proposed items of evidence, ruling some admissible (such as prior violence towards the applicant and possession of a firearm) and others inadmissible (such as drug use, out-of-court statements, and speculative intimidation) based on relevance and the balancing of probative value against prejudicial effect.

The Crown applied to adduce evidence of prior discreditable conduct against the accused in a first-degree murder trial.

The proposed evidence included the accused's prior possession of a firearm, threats made against the deceased, and participation in a prior shooting incident.

The court found that the evidence was relevant and material to the issues of identity, animus, and motive.

Applying the framework for prior discreditable conduct, the court concluded that the probative value of the evidence outweighed its prejudicial effect, and ruled the evidence admissible with certain edits.

The Crown appealed an acquittal on a charge of failing to comply with a recognizance.

The trial judge had excluded the original information and recognizance because the Crown had not provided notice under s. 28 of the Canada Evidence Act.

The appeal court held that judicial documents such as recognizances may be admitted under the common law without notice and that s. 36 of the Act preserves that common law authority.

The court further held that the Crown was not barred from advancing this argument on appeal even though it had not been raised at trial.

The acquittal was quashed and a new trial was ordered.