Erin Bartsch

The appellant appealed a judgment of the Court of Appeal for Saskatchewan.

The Supreme Court of Canada delivered an oral judgment dismissing the appeal and ordering the appellant to surrender himself into custody within 48 hours, with reasons to follow.

The appellant Crown appealed from a decision of the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal which quashed the respondent's convictions for firearms offences and possession of identity documents, holding that his arrest for simple possession of a controlled substance was unlawful because s. 4.1(2) of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act — the Good Samaritan Drug Overdose Act exemption — precluded charge and conviction and, by necessary implication, arrest for that offence.

The majority held that Parliament's purpose in enacting s. 4.1(2) was to save lives by removing disincentives to calling emergency services at the scene of a drug overdose, and that immunity from arrest is necessarily implied by the immunity from charge and conviction, since arrest and the searches incident to it would otherwise substantially undermine that legislative purpose.

The majority further held that the s. 4.1(2) immunity does not affect other existing police powers at the scene of an overdose, and that the evidence discovered through a search incident to the unlawful arrest must be excluded under s. 24(2) of the Charter.

The dissent concluded that the text, context, and purpose of s. 4.1(2) limit the exemption to charge and conviction only, and that the police did not infringe ss. 8 or 9 of the Charter.

The appellant was convicted of sexual assault at trial and appealed on the basis that the trial judge failed to provide sufficient reasons regarding factual findings about the complainant's evidence and erred in assessing the credibility and reliability of that evidence.

The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal majority dismissed the appeal and affirmed the conviction, with one justice dissenting in favour of a new trial.

On further appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, counsel for the appellant raised the same grounds of insufficient reasons and errors in law in assessing the complainant's evidence.

The Supreme Court unanimously dismissed the appeal, substantially adopting the reasoning of the majority of the Court of Appeal.

The Crown appealed a Court of Appeal decision that excluded a firearm from evidence and entered an acquittal on firearms offences.

The firearm had been discovered during a search incident to arrest for possession of stolen property.

The trial judge found Charter breaches under ss. 8 and 9 but declined to exclude the evidence, holding that police would have had reasonable suspicion to ground a lawful investigative detention and that discoverability mitigated the seriousness of the breaches.

The majority of the Court of Appeal found the trial judge erred in her reasonable suspicion analysis and conducted a fresh s. 24(2) analysis excluding the firearm.

The Supreme Court majority allowed the appeal substantially for the reasons of the dissenting Court of Appeal judge, restoring the conviction.

Moreau J. dissented, agreeing with the Court of Appeal majority that there was no clear nexus between the accused and the possession of stolen property and that the firearm would not have been discoverable absent a lawful detention.

The appellant was convicted of second degree murder by a jury.

On appeal, he argued that the trial judge erred by failing to provide a specific Hibbert-type caution to the jury regarding the frailties of in-court identification evidence by two witnesses.

The majority of the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal held that the jury instructions adequately equipped the jury to evaluate the eyewitness evidence and upheld the conviction.

The dissenting judge found that the circumstances required a specific caution about the inherent frailties of in-court identification.

The Supreme Court of Canada agreed with the dissenting judge, allowed the appeal, set aside the conviction, and ordered a new trial.

The Court allowed a criminal appeal from a Crown appeal against acquittals on sexual interference and sexual assault charges involving the mistake-of-age defence under s. 150.1(4) of the Criminal Code.

It held the trial judge made no legal error in assessing whether the accused took all reasonable steps to ascertain age, and that the appellate majority improperly recast disagreements with factual inferences as legal errors.

The Court clarified that evidence arising after the sexual activity may still be relevant where used to assess credibility or the reasonableness of pre-contact age perception, while post-contact steps themselves remain irrelevant to the statutory requirement.

It further confirmed that Crown appeals from acquittal require legal error and materiality meeting a reasonable degree of certainty.