Emily Lam

The offender was convicted of possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking after 87 pellets of cocaine were surgically removed from his abdomen.

The Crown sought a five-year penitentiary sentence, while the defence sought a conditional sentence of two years less a day, citing the offender's background, anti-Black racism, and the severe collateral consequences of family separation on his two autistic sons.

The court rejected a conditional sentence due to the gravity of the offence but departed from the usual five-to-eight-year range for commercial trafficking.

Emphasizing the offender's rehabilitative prospects, pro-social life, and the significant impact of family separation, the court imposed a sentence of three years' imprisonment.

The appellant appealed his convictions for assault, assault causing bodily harm, break and enter, and two counts of threatening to use a weapon, alleging ineffective assistance of counsel.

He claimed trial counsel usurped his right to elect the mode of trial and his right to testify.

The Court of Appeal rejected the election claim, finding the appellant had not established the factual foundation and had not shown a reasonable probability he would have elected differently.

However, the court allowed the appeal on the right-to-testify ground, finding trial counsel failed to make clear that the decision to testify was the appellant's to make, failed to obtain written instructions, and that the police interview was not a functional equivalent of in-court testimony.

A new trial by judge and jury was ordered.

The accused, Tsung Ong, was charged with two counts of sexual assault.

The first count was dismissed by Crown concession.

The second count, arising from an incident at the accused's birthday party, involved the complainant alleging the accused sexually assaulted her by pressing his face into her crotch area.

The central issue was witness credibility and the Crown's burden of proof.

The court found the complainant's testimony emotionally difficult but credible, yet noted inconsistencies and lack of detail regarding the alleged incident's mechanics and surrounding events.

The defence witnesses' evidence, while not ruling out the incident, supported the accused's general practice.

Ultimately, the court found that while the accused's testimony could not be accepted as true to the exclusion of other evidence, a reasonable doubt remained regarding the reliability of the complainant's account.

Consequently, the second count was also dismissed.

The appellant, a youth, appealed his conviction for sexual assault, raising three grounds: ineffective assistance of trial counsel, erroneous dismissal of a s. 278.3 Criminal Code application for production of the complainant's therapeutic records, and improper curtailment of cross-examination.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the appellant failed to establish a miscarriage of justice due to counsel's performance, that the trial judge correctly dismissed the s. 278.3 application as the records were not shown to be "likely relevant" with case-specific information, and that cross-examination was not improperly curtailed.

The court upheld the trial judge's finding of non-consensual sexual contact and the inapplicability of the honest but mistaken belief in consent defence.

In this omnibus Charter application arising from a human trafficking and sexual assault prosecution, the applicants challenged multiple search warrants, production orders, arrests, detentions, right to counsel breaches, delayed bail appearances, alleged racial bias, negligent investigation, and disclosure failures.

The court found several serious Charter breaches, including invalid judicial authorizations relating to one dwelling, one phone, and one production order, unreasonable manner of search at one residence, multiple right to counsel breaches, and unlawful delay in bringing two accused before a justice.

A stay of proceedings was granted to one applicant because cumulative and partly systemic misconduct would further prejudice the integrity of the justice system if the prosecution continued.

Another applicant obtained exclusion of his police statement and cellphone evidence under s. 24(2), while the remaining applications for a stay were dismissed.

The three accused were charged with various offences related to the human trafficking and sexual exploitation of an 18-year-old complainant.

The Crown alleged that one accused recruited the complainant into the sex trade, acted as her pimp, and exploited her while she suffered from a severe cocaine addiction.

The other two accused were alleged to have participated in her exploitation, sexual assault, and procuring.

The court carefully assessed the complainant's credibility, noting her memory was affected by trauma and heavy drug use, but found her core allegations against the primary accused were corroborated by digital evidence and the recovery of firearms she disposed of on his behalf.

The primary accused was found guilty of human trafficking, procuring, receiving material benefits, advertising sexual services, unauthorized possession of a firearm, and uttering threats.

The second accused was found guilty only of receiving a material benefit from sexual services (selling her cocaine), and acquitted of the other charges due to reasonable doubt.

The third accused was acquitted of all charges due to the unreliability of the complainant's evidence against him.

A defence application for a stay of proceedings based on lost police cruiser video and unrecorded interviews was dismissed.

The accused was found guilty of manslaughter following an armed home invasion that resulted in the fatal shooting of an unarmed victim.

The court found the accused was a party to the robbery and had subjective foresight that a loaded gun would be used, though it was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that he was the shooter.

Weighing the significant aggravating factors of an armed home invasion against the accused's youth, first-time adult offender status, and harsh pre-sentence custody conditions due to lockdowns and COVID-19, the court imposed a sentence of 8.5 years.

After applying Summers and Duncan credits, the remaining sentence to serve was 39 months.

The applicant sought judicial review of a university adjudicator's decision regarding her sexual assault complaint against another student.

The adjudicator had deferred the outcome of the university's disciplinary appeal to the result of the respondent's pending criminal trial.

The Divisional Court granted the application, finding that the adjudicator unlawfully delegated his decision-making authority and improperly imported the criminal standard of proof into an administrative proceeding.

The decision was quashed and remitted to a different adjudicator.

Staff of the Ontario Securities Commission sought an inter-jurisdictional enforcement order against the respondent under s. 127(10) of the Securities Act, following his criminal conviction for fraud over $5,000.

The respondent, who had misappropriated investor funds raised for a diamond mining company, consented to the requested order.

The Commission found that the conviction arose from a course of conduct related to securities and that it was in the public interest to permanently prohibit the respondent from participating in Ontario's capital markets, subject to limited exceptions for personal trading.

The appellant, a young racialized man, was gathered with four others in a private backyard at a Toronto housing co-operative when three police officers entered without warrant, consent, or warning and immediately questioned the men, demanding identification.

The appellant fled when asked what was in his satchel and was arrested in possession of a firearm, drugs, and cash.

The majority held that the arbitrary detention crystallized the moment police entered the backyard, not merely when they asked about the satchel, applying the Grant framework with particular attention to the racialized context and private-property setting; the resulting s. 9 breach was serious and the evidence was excluded under s. 24(2).

The dissent would have found the detention began only when the officer directed inquiry at the appellant, and in any event would have admitted the evidence given the trial judge's unchallenged findings that the police acted in good faith with legitimate investigatory purposes and the seriousness of the offences.

The accused pleaded guilty to ten property and violent offences committed between February 8 and March 13, 2016, including theft of a motor vehicle, five robberies armed with a knife, aggravated assault, assault with a weapon, and administering a noxious substance.

The offences formed a crime spree in west-end Toronto.

The accused has an extensive criminal record with 21 prior sentencing events and 18.5 years of incarceration.

The court considered the accused's Aboriginal heritage (West Moberly First Nation), previously undisclosed due to fear of racism, along with systemic factors including childhood trauma, family violence, substance abuse, mental illness (multiple personality disorder and schizophrenia), and lack of support upon release from custody.

The court imposed a sentence of two years less a day in a reformatory facility plus three years probation, with credit for 27 months and one week of time served, resulting in an effective sentence of approximately four years and three months.

The appellant appealed a criminal conviction on the basis that identity had not been proven.

The court held that witnesses merely looking at the accused in the courtroom had no evidentiary value as identification, particularly where the Crown had not sought any in-dock identification and had conceded at trial that there was no evidence of identification.

The circumstantial evidence also did not permit a reasonable finding that the appellant was the assailant.

The conviction was quashed and an acquittal entered.

In a criminal appeal subject to a continuing publication ban, the appellant challenged convictions arising from historical sexual abuse allegations by multiple complainants.

The court held that the jury trial was rendered unfair by the admission of inadmissible hearsay, bad character, extrinsic misconduct, opinion, and some prior consistent statement evidence, together with inadequate limiting and curative instructions.

Although some relationship and narrative evidence was admissible for limited purposes, the charge failed to prohibit propensity reasoning and failed to properly confine the jury’s use of several categories of evidence.

Given that the case turned centrally on credibility and reliability, the errors were not harmless and could not be cured by the proviso.

The appeal from conviction was allowed, the verdicts were set aside, and a new trial was ordered.