Erin Dann

J.G., a young person with significant cognitive disabilities, sought an extension of time to appeal a 2005 finding of not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder (NCR).

The court granted the application, finding that J.G. had a bona fide intention to appeal, a reasonable explanation for the 13-year delay (lack of understanding of NCR consequences and appeal rights due to cognitive limitations), and a meritorious proposed appeal (the NCR verdict was potentially unreasonable given the evidence of impulse control issues rather than an inability to appreciate the physical consequences of his actions).

The court emphasized that the interests of justice strongly favoured granting the extension due to the profound and indefinite deprivation of liberty resulting from the NCR finding for relatively minor offences.

The appellant was convicted of unlawful confinement, sexual assault causing bodily harm, and uttering a death threat following a jury trial.

Approximately three years later, he was declared a dangerous offender and sentenced to an indeterminate period of incarceration.

His appeal was initially abandoned but subsequently reopened.

On appeal, the appellant challenged both his conviction and sentence.

The conviction appeal was dismissed as the trial Crown's closing remarks, while potentially problematic, did not cause a substantial wrong or miscarriage of justice.

However, the sentence appeal was allowed on the basis that the trial judge violated procedural fairness by denying the appellant the right to make oral submissions during the dangerous offender hearing, instead requiring written submissions only.

A new dangerous offender hearing was ordered.

The appellant was convicted of two counts of criminal harassment by threatening conduct based on her legal name change to that of Mark McBride, with whom she had been obsessed for over a decade.

The trial judge found her not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder (NCRMD) due to Delusional Disorder, Erotomanic Type.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, finding the NCRMD verdict was tainted by legal error.

The trial judge had conflated the issues of whether the appellant knew her act was wrong with whether her mental disorder rendered her incapable of knowing it was wrong.

The court substituted convictions and imposed a conditional discharge with one year probation.

An appeal from an Ontario Review Board disposition finding that an NCR accused continues to pose a significant threat to public safety and ordering a conditional discharge rather than an absolute discharge.

The appellant, found not criminally responsible in 2002 for serious violent offences including aggravated assault, kidnapping, and assault with a weapon, argued the Board's finding was unreasonable.

The Court of Appeal upheld the Board's decision, finding sufficient evidence to support the conclusion that the appellant poses a significant threat within the meaning of the Criminal Code, based on his serious index offences, ongoing psychiatric symptoms including paranoid delusions, lack of insight into his mental illness, substance abuse, and stated intention to discontinue medication if absolutely discharged.

An appeal under Part XX.1 of the Criminal Code against the Ontario Review Board's disposition dated June 30, 2017.

The appellant did not contest the Board's finding that he remained a significant threat to public safety or the disposition that he remain detained at the General Forensic Unit at CAMH.

However, he contended the Board acted unreasonably by not including a delegation of authority permitting community living in supervised accommodation when the Hospital deemed it appropriate, as had been included in the previous 2016 disposition.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the Board's decision was reasonable and entitled to deference, as the evidence clearly showed the appellant was not ready for community living at the time of the hearing.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation sought to vary a sealing order made at trial to gain access to DVD audio recordings of an undercover operative for journalistic purposes.

The trial judge had sealed the recordings to protect the identity of the undercover agent.

The Crown opposed the motion, arguing that the circumstances justifying the original sealing order remained unchanged.

The appellate court applied the Dagenais/Mentuck test and found that the sealing order was no longer necessary because reasonable alternative measures—specifically, voice and facial alterations—could adequately protect the operative's identity while allowing media access.

The court granted the motion subject to conditions regarding alteration of the recordings.

The appellant appealed both his conviction for drug trafficking and his sentence of 12 months imposed by the trial judge.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding that the evidence fully justified the conclusion that crack cocaine in the possession of a third party came from the appellant through an intermediary.

However, the court allowed the sentence appeal, finding that the trial judge erred in law by failing to consider that this was a one-off transaction for a minimal amount of crack cocaine with no profit motive, and by failing to adequately weigh the appellant's rehabilitation efforts and significant immigration consequences.

The sentence was reduced to 160 days, which the appellant had already served through pre-sentence custody.

The appellant, a lawyer, appealed his conviction for fraud in the amount of approximately $1.9 million and his sentence of three and one-half years imprisonment.

The central issue on the conviction appeal was whether the appellant knew that his purported client did not exist.

The trial judge found, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the appellant was a knowing participant in the fraudulent scheme.

The Court of Appeal upheld the conviction, finding no reversal of the burden of proof and that the inferences drawn by the trial judge were reasonably available on the evidence.

The sentence appeal was also dismissed, with the court finding that the additional six months imposed on the appellant compared to his co-accused was justified by his status as a lawyer and the aggravating role that status played in the commission of the offence.

The defendants, Gerald Lougheed Jr. and Patricia Sorbara, were charged with corruptly promising employment or appointment to Andrew Olivier to induce him to withdraw his candidacy or refrain from becoming a candidate in the Sudbury by-election, contrary to section 96.1(e) of the Election Act.

Sorbara was also charged with agreeing to employ two of Glenn Thibeault's staff to induce Thibeault to become a candidate.

Following a directed verdict application at the end of the Crown's case, the court found that Olivier was not a "candidate" under the Election Act as he was only seeking the Liberal Party nomination, not running in an election to the Legislative Assembly.

The court also found that once Thibeault committed to running, it became impossible for Olivier to become the Liberal candidate, and therefore the defendants could not be convicted of inducing him to refrain from becoming one.

Regarding the Thibeault count, the court found that the agreement to employ campaign staff did not constitute bribery as defined in the Act and did not offend the Act's purpose of ensuring fair elections.

Directed verdicts of acquittal were entered for both defendants on all counts.

The appellant appealed the Ontario Review Board's disposition dated December 21, 2016, which ordered his continued detention in maximum security at Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care.

The appellant had previously been detained at Ontario Shores with community privileges.

He advanced two grounds of appeal: first, that the Board misapprehended evidence regarding when he decompensated after being moved to the minimum-security unit; and second, that the Board failed to address the impact of a medication change on his behaviour.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no misapprehension of evidence and confirming that the Board was aware of and properly considered the medication change in its decision.

The appellant, convicted of first-degree murder for the sexual assault and murder of a 70-year-old woman committed when he was 15 years old, appealed his sentence.

The Crown had sought and obtained an adult sentence rather than a youth sentence.

The appellant challenged the sentencing judge's decision on three grounds: failure to consider whether the presumption of diminished moral blameworthiness was rebutted, use of the appellant's testimony and denial of guilt as aggravating factors, and failure to properly weigh rehabilitation and integration principles.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that although the sentencing judge erred in using the appellant's testimony as an aggravating factor, the error had no impact on the sentence and an adult sentence remained fit given the heinous nature of the crime.

The offender was convicted of second degree murder for stabbing a 16-year-old victim to death and attempted murder for stabbing a 17-year-old victim.

The Crown sought a 16-year parole ineligibility period, while the defence sought 12 to 14 years.

The court considered the offender's lengthy and violent criminal record, his non-compliance with court orders, and the vicious, unprovoked nature of the attack on unsuspecting victims.

The court set the period of parole ineligibility at 15 years.

An appeal under Part XX.1 of the Criminal Code against a disposition of the Ontario Review Board dated November 29, 2016.

The appellant sought a hybrid order, but the Board imposed secure detention.

The Court of Appeal upheld the Board's decision, finding that the Board acted reasonably in rejecting the hybrid order request based on evidence from the treatment team and the hospital that secure detention was the necessary and appropriate disposition.

The Board retained discretion to determine when the appellant would be ready for transfer to a less secure setting.

The appellant, a half-sibling of the complainant, appealed a conviction for sexual abuse.

The trial judge found it dangerous to convict on most of the complainant's allegations but convicted on one incident (the basement incident) where the complainant provided detailed testimony corroborated by the parents' observations.

The appellant challenged the conviction on two grounds: first, that the parents' evidence contained inconsistencies with the complainant's account, and second, that the conviction was unreasonable given witness inconsistencies.

The Court of Appeal upheld the conviction, finding the trial judge properly assessed the evidence and was entitled to accept the complainant's detailed account despite minor inconsistencies attributable to the passage of eight years.

The Crown appealed a sentencing judge's decision dismissing its application to designate the respondent as a dangerous offender under section 753(1)(a) of the Criminal Code.

The sentencing judge instead designated the respondent as a long-term offender and imposed a determinate sentence of two years less one day, followed by a five-year long-term supervision order.

The Court of Appeal upheld the sentencing judge's decision, finding that there was sufficient evidence of treatability and a reasonable possibility of eventual control of the respondent's risk in the community through a graduated release plan involving psychiatric treatment and community supervision.

The appellant was convicted by jury of second degree murder in the shooting death of a drug dealer.

He appealed on two grounds: (1) that the trial judge erred in rejecting evidence regarding an alternate suspect, and (2) that the trial judge erred in instructing the jury on party liability through aiding.

The Court of Appeal upheld the conviction, finding that the trial judge properly excluded the alternate suspect evidence as lacking sufficient probative value, and that while references to aiding may have been unnecessary, the jury charge read as a whole would not have misled the jury regarding the requirement that the appellant be a principal or joint principal with the requisite mental state.

The appellant appealed a disposition of the Ontario Review Board that continued his conditional discharge from the North Bay Regional Health Center.

The appellant argued that the Board failed to focus on whether he posed a significant risk of serious harm to the public as required by s. 672.54 of the Criminal Code, and that the Board erred in failing to consider whether a community treatment order under the Mental Health Act could mitigate residual risk.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the Board's decision was reasonable given the appellant's schizoaffective disorder, his history of violence, and the evidence that he would discontinue medication if absolutely discharged.

The appellant was convicted of attempted murder and first degree murder following a street altercation in Barrie, Ontario in which two members of an opposing group were stabbed.

The appellant appealed on four grounds: (1) erroneous jury instructions on after-the-fact conduct; (2) one-sided jury charge on planning and deliberation; (3) insufficient instructions on intent for murder; and (4) failure to redact references to the appellant being bipolar.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal on all counts but substituted a conviction for second degree murder for the first degree murder conviction, finding the trial judge's charge on planning and deliberation was heavily weighted toward inculpatory evidence and omitted significant exculpatory evidence.

The appellant appealed his convictions for dangerous driving causing death, dangerous driving causing bodily harm, and failure to remain at the scene of an accident.

He argued that the trial judge misapprehended material evidence regarding circumstantial identification and that the verdict was unreasonable.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no material misapprehensions of evidence and concluding that a properly instructed jury could have found the appellant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt based on the totality of the evidence.

The appellant, detained under the Ontario Review Board for over 30 years, appealed the Board's disposition continuing his detention at St. Joseph's Healthcare.

He argued the Board erred in refusing an adjournment, relying on hearsay evidence, failing to address his sleep deprivation, and refusing a conditional discharge.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the adjournment issue moot and no basis to interfere with the Board's substantive decisions, though it noted the Board erred in its approach to the adjournment request and urged it to address the sleep deprivation issue at the next review.