Evan Jaymes Rotman Akriotis

The appellant challenged convictions for sexual assault, arguing the trial judge misapprehended evidence about cannabis-related perception issues, applied an improper reliability analysis, and failed to address inconsistencies in the complainant’s evidence.

The court held that any alleged misapprehension was not material to the conviction reasoning and that the trial judge identified and decided the live reliability issue correctly.

It further held that trial reasons are assessed functionally and need not expressly resolve every inconsistency, particularly those not emphasized in closing submissions.

Appellate deference applied to the trial judge’s factual reliability findings.

The appeal was dismissed.

The applicant sought bail pending conviction and sentence appeal.

Although the court accepted that the appeal was not frivolous and that surrender could be expected, it held detention remained necessary in the public interest.

Repeated breaches of release conditions, further offending while on bail, and the enforceability and public safety components of the test required continued detention.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario dismissed Melissa Hart’s motion to re-open her summary conviction appeal for assault and failure to comply with an undertaking.

The court found it lacked jurisdiction, as Hart failed to raise a question of law alone as required by section 839(1) of the Criminal Code.

The court also prohibited Hart from filing further documents regarding these convictions without written leave of the court.

The applicant, Melissa Hart, sought to re-open her application for leave to appeal a 2015 summary conviction for operating a motor vehicle with a blood alcohol concentration above the legal limit.

This was her third such application, each raising similar Charter arguments previously dismissed by the courts.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario found no material change in circumstances and dismissed the application as entirely without merit.

The court further prohibited Ms. Hart from filing any further documents regarding her 2015 conviction without written permission from a judge of the court.

The applicant, Melissa Hart, sought to reopen her application for leave to appeal a conviction for driving with a blood alcohol content over 80mg per 100ml.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario dismissed her application, finding that the Charter arguments and evidence she sought to introduce were neither fresh nor novel, as they had already been considered in previous proceedings.

The court held that there was no merit to the application and declined to consider its jurisdiction to reopen a decision not to reopen a dismissal of a leave to appeal application.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario allowed an appeal, setting aside a motion judge's order that had granted certiorari with mandamus in aid.

The motion judge had compelled a Justice of the Peace to complete a bail hearing that the Justice of the Peace had aborted due to a proposed surety's misconduct and subsequent false denial.

The Court of Appeal found that the motion judge erred by granting prerogative relief in the absence of jurisdictional error, as the Justice of the Peace's decision to abort the hearing was a discretionary exercise based on an assessment of fairness, not a jurisdictional overreach.

The appellant was convicted of multiple charges including assault, assault with a weapon, unlawful confinement, uttering a threat, and breaching release orders.

He appealed on the ground that the trial judge's reasons were insufficient for meaningful appellate review.

The Court of Appeal found that the trial judge's reasons, read functionally and contextually, adequately explained the decision, including the acquittal on one count due to complainant discrepancies and the convictions based on the complainant's candid and reliable testimony.

The appeal was dismissed.

The applicant sought to reopen her application for leave to appeal a 2015 conviction for impaired driving, which had been dismissed by the Court of Appeal in 2017.

She raised a new argument of ineffective assistance of counsel at trial, which was not raised in previous appeals.

She also sought leave to appeal her sentence, which had never been appealed.

The Court of Appeal denied the motion, finding it lacked clear jurisdiction to reopen a dismissed leave application and, even if it did, would not exercise it.

The court noted that appeals from Summary Conviction Appeal Courts are limited to questions of law alone, and the new ground was not raised below.

Furthermore, the court reiterated its reluctance to allow new grounds of appeal and confirmed it had no jurisdiction to hear a sentence appeal directly from the trial court.

The applicants, Rebecca Paredes and Matthew Stewart, faced drug and firearms charges.

They brought Charter applications under sections 8, 9, and 10(b), seeking exclusion of evidence (a loaded firearm and drugs) seized incident to their arrest.

The court found that the police lacked reasonable and probable grounds for arrest, leading to arbitrary detention (s. 9 breach).

It also found a s. 10(b) breach for Paredes due to delayed access to counsel, but not for Stewart.

The s. 8 strip search claim for Paredes was dismissed.

Applying the R. v. Grant factors, the court concluded that the serious s. 9 breach and its significant impact on the applicants' liberty, coupled with the police conduct, warranted the exclusion of the evidence to maintain the administration of justice's reputation, despite the societal interest in a trial on the merits for serious charges.

The accused, Adib Ibrahim, was found guilty of manslaughter after intentionally driving his taxi into a skateboarder, Ralph Bissonnette, causing his death.

This decision addresses the sentencing.

The Crown sought a four-year penitentiary term, DNA order, weapons prohibition, and driving prohibition.

The defence requested a conditional sentence, citing the accused's lack of criminal record, family support, health issues, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The court emphasized general deterrence and denunciation, finding a high degree of moral blameworthiness due to the intentional aggressive act.

The accused was sentenced to 3 years and 11 months incarceration, a DNA order, and a 10-year weapons prohibition.

A further driving prohibition was declined given existing bail conditions and the term of incarceration.

The accused was charged with firearms and drug trafficking offences following a search of his apartment.

The trial proceeded as a Charter application to exclude evidence under section 24(2) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Three primary issues were raised: (1) whether the search warrant was validly issued based on confidential informant information; (2) whether covert pre-warrant entries into the apartment building constituted unlawful trespasses and section 8 violations; and (3) whether the accused's section 10(b) rights to counsel were violated when police failed to facilitate access to counsel following arrest.

The court found that while the warrant was validly issued and the pre-warrant entries constituted only minor section 8 breaches, the failure to facilitate access to counsel was a serious and gross violation of the accused's Charter rights.

The evidence was excluded under section 24(2).

The accused was charged with sexual assault simpliciter and being a person in authority to touch a young person for a sexual purpose.

The complainant, a 16-year-old high school student, alleged that the accused, her employer at a pharmacy, grabbed her buttocks over her skirt during her first day of work.

The accused denied the allegation, claiming the complainant fabricated the charge after he terminated her employment due to a disturbance caused by her boyfriend.

The court found that while the complainant's evidence was generally well-delivered, there were inconsistencies regarding the boyfriend's presence in the pharmacy.

The accused's evidence, though at times unusual, raised reasonable doubt.

The court acquitted on all charges.

The accused was tried on two counts of attempted fraud over $5,000, two counts of possession of property obtained by indictable offence, and four counts of breaching recognizance conditions.

The Crown alleged the accused knowingly participated in a scheme to deposit stolen cheques into a trust account.

The accused maintained he did not know the cheques were stolen and was not involved in any fraudulent scheme.

The court found reasonable doubt regarding the fraud and possession charges, acquitting on counts 1-4.

The court found the accused guilty of breaching recognizance conditions related to possession of financial instruments (counts 7-8), but acquitted on the house arrest breach charges (counts 5-6) as the bank visits fell within the work exemption.

The defendant was charged with impaired driving and driving with excess blood alcohol following a collision at a gas station.

The Crown's case relied on observations of impairment before and after arrest, breath sample analysis, and toxicological evidence.

The defendant raised multiple Charter applications challenging the lawfulness of the arrest, the demand for breath samples, interpretation services, and the right to counsel.

The court found the defendant guilty on both counts after rejecting all Charter challenges and finding compelling evidence of impairment based on the totality of circumstances.

The applicant brought a motion for a stay of proceedings alleging unreasonable delay under s. 11(b) of the Charter.

The charge involved operation of a motor vehicle with excess blood alcohol following a single-vehicle collision.

The total delay from charge to trial exceeded the eighteen-month presumptive ceiling established in Jordan by approximately two weeks.

The Crown argued that a four-week delay attributable to defence requests for additional disclosure should be excluded from the calculation.

The court found that the defence request for radio communications was reasonable and necessary, and that the delay was primarily attributable to police failure to provide timely disclosure.

The court granted the stay of proceedings, finding the delay unreasonable both under the new Jordan framework and under the former Morin framework.