Dr. Orchard

A status review application under Part III of the Child and Family Services Act concerning two young children (ages 4 and 5) who had been apprehended and placed in foster care.

The Windsor-Essex Children's Aid Society sought a finding that the children remain in need of protection and sought a Crown wardship order without access.

The respondent mother sought to have the children returned to her care subject to society supervision.

The court found that the children remain in need of protection due to the mother's inability to consistently manage the children's complex behavioural and emotional needs despite participating in numerous parenting programs over three years.

The court ordered Crown wardship with no access, finding that the children's best interests were served by remaining in their stable foster placement with Ms. Ba., where their emotional and behavioural needs were being appropriately met.

The appellant appealed his first-degree murder conviction, arguing the trial judge failed to adequately instruct the jury on how his alcohol consumption related to the issue of planning and deliberation.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, noting that alcohol consumption was a minor feature of the defence's case, which primarily relied on expert evidence regarding a major depressive episode.

The court found that the trial judge had referred to the alcohol evidence several times in the charge, and the lack of objection from experienced trial counsel indicated the instructions were fair.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant was convicted of manslaughter in the death of his intimate partner and sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment.

He appealed the sentence, arguing the trial judge failed to give him the benefit of the doubt regarding the jury's verdict, improperly relied on an excluded statement, and failed to consider mitigating factors and pre-trial custody.

The Court of Appeal agreed, finding the trial judge's reasons lacked clarity on the use of the excluded statement and failed to apply the benefit of the doubt principle.

The Court allowed the appeal, factored in mitigating circumstances and pre-trial custody, and reduced the sentence to 7 years' imprisonment.

The accused appealed from a Court of Appeal order setting aside his jury acquittal for first degree murder and directing a new trial.

The Supreme Court held that the trial judge seriously misdirected the jury by inviting application of the reasonable doubt standard to individual pieces of evidence rather than to the ultimate issues on the whole of the evidence, while recognizing a limited exception in credibility instructions.

The Court further held that psychiatric evidence elicited from a defence expert, tending only to place the accused within an abnormal group capable of the offence, was not admissible on identity because it lacked sufficiently distinctive traits and its prejudicial propensity effect predominated.

Although the Court found the Court of Appeal erred on the psychiatric evidence issue, it concluded the Crown met the stringent burden applicable on an appeal from acquittal by showing the verdict would not necessarily have been the same absent the misdirection.

The appeal was therefore dismissed and the order for a new trial stood.

The appellant struck a fellow student with a rock after reading a letter in which she referred to him as a 'nothing'.

At trial, he advanced the defence of non-insane automatism, arguing he was in a dissociative state caused by a psychological blow.

The trial judge acquitted him, finding he was not insane and had acted in a state of automatism brought about by an external cause.

The Court of Appeal reversed the acquittal, holding that the psychological blow was not an externally originating cause and that the dissociative state constituted a disease of the mind.

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the appeal, affirming that the ordinary stresses and disappointments of life do not constitute an external cause, and that the appellant's condition was a disease of the mind.