Professor Scot Wortley

In a pre-trial motion for a first-degree murder trial, the accused sought to challenge prospective jurors for cause based on racial bias, unconscious bias, and attitudes toward illegal firearms possession.

Following the Supreme Court's decision in Chouhan, the court revised its jury selection procedures, determining that the trial judge would ask the challenge questions and pre-instruct the panel.

The court permitted revised questions on racial and unconscious bias, and allowed a narrow question regarding the jurors' ability to follow limiting instructions on the accused's admitted prior possession of illegal firearms.

However, the court rejected proposed questions inquiring into jurors' beliefs about crime rates among Black men.

The accused, awaiting trial for first degree murder, brought a pre-trial motion to challenge prospective jurors for cause based on pre-trial publicity and racial bias.

The Crown consented to the challenge but disputed the form of the questions regarding race.

The accused called expert evidence to propose new, multi-part questions to uncover racial bias.

The court rejected three purely attitudinal questions but permitted a modified version of the fourth question that incorporated the behavioural component of partiality required by law.

The applicant, a young African-Canadian man, filed a human rights complaint alleging racial profiling after being stopped by police.

The Commission and the police settled the complaint, agreeing to a limited data collection project, but the applicant sought broader systemic remedies, including data collection for pedestrian stops.

The Human Rights Tribunal dismissed the applicant's request without a full hearing, deferring to the settlement and finding it lacked jurisdiction to order remedies for pedestrian stops.

On judicial review, the Divisional Court set aside the Tribunal's decision, holding that while the summary process was procedurally fair, the Tribunal's conclusions on jurisdiction and its complete deference to the Commission's settlement were unreasonable.