Fady Mansour

The appellant, Patience Meadows, appealed his conviction for Assault Causing Bodily Harm.

The trial judge had found Meadows guilty, relying significantly on an utterance made by Meadows as circumstantial evidence of an intent for "payback" inconsistent with self-defence.

On appeal, the court upheld the trial judge's finding that Meadows made the utterance and that the Crown's failure to cross-examine on it did not breach the rule in Browne v. Dunn.

However, the appellate court found that the trial judge erred by concluding that the utterance had no other reasonable inference than an intent for physical retribution.

The court identified alternative reasonable inferences, such as an intent to pursue legal action or an expression of anger, which were consistent with innocence.

As the Crown failed to neutralize these alternative interpretations, the conviction could not stand beyond a reasonable doubt.

The appeal was allowed, and the conviction was set aside.

The appellant appealed his conviction, arguing the trial judge erred in dismissing his Garofoli application.

The core issue was the credibility of a first-time confidential informant whose information was corroborated by police surveillance and other evidence.

The Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge's decision, finding no error in the assessment of the informant's credibility or the overall reliability of the Information to Obtain (ITO).

The court rejected an overly granular approach to assessing informant credibility factors, emphasizing a holistic assessment.

The appellant was convicted of sexual touching, invitation to sexual touching, sexual touching while in a position of trust, and uttering a death threat against his stepdaughter.

He appealed his conviction, arguing the trial judge erred in using a statement he made to the police.

Specifically, he contended the judge improperly inferred prior sexual activity from an admission of later consensual sexual activity (propensity reasoning/stereotypical assumptions) and failed to properly analyze the statement's exculpatory aspect under R. v. W.(D.).

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the trial judge's use of the statement was a permissible evidence-based credibility assessment, not based on prohibited reasoning.

The court also found the W.(D.) analysis was properly conducted, as the trial judge recognized the statement's partially exculpatory nature but gave it little weight due to its lack of spontaneity and its character as an "alternate narrative" rather than a denial.

The appellants, Joshua and Jordan Powell, appealed their convictions for assault causing bodily harm and mischief (Jordan only) stemming from a group altercation.

They raised five grounds of appeal, including unreasonable verdicts, misunderstanding of mens rea, deficient reasons, improper rejection of exculpatory police statements, and erroneous rejection of a witness's testimony based on unraised bias.

The Court of Appeal dismissed both conviction appeals, finding that the trial judge's verdicts were reasonable, the mens rea for assault causing bodily harm was correctly applied, the reasons were sufficient, and the handling of exculpatory statements and witness credibility did not infringe the appellants' rights or legal principles.

This consolidated appeal addressed the admissibility of evidence obtained through a wiretap authorization granted in 2016 for a 2009 murder investigation.

The Court of Appeal found that the authorization was improperly granted due to a lack of reasonable and probable grounds, as the affidavit failed to establish a credible-based probability that interceptions would yield evidence of the long-dormant homicide or that other investigative procedures were unlikely to succeed.

The court emphasized that a generic investigative plan and unsupported inferences of continued association among targets after several years were insufficient.

Consequently, the interceptions constituted a serious breach of Charter s. 8 rights.

Applying the Grant framework, the court upheld the exclusion of the evidence under Charter s. 24(2) due to the seriousness of the state conduct and the significant impact on privacy interests.

The appeals from conviction were allowed, and acquittals were entered, while the appeals from acquittal were dismissed.

The appellant, Ali Fahad, appealed his conviction for refusing to provide a breath sample contrary to s. 254(5) of the Criminal Code.

The appellant argued that the trial judge erred in finding that the Crown proved a lawful Approved Screening Device (ASD) demand, given the absence of evidence regarding the exact words used by the officer and errors in police notes and advice.

The court found that while exact words are not always necessary, the absence of evidence of the demand's content, coupled with the officer's errors, rendered the conviction unreasonable.

The appeal was allowed, the conviction was set aside, and a new trial was ordered.

The Crown appealed the acquittal of Mr. Mtonga on a charge of refusing to provide a breath sample contrary to s. 254(5) of the Criminal Code.

The appeal raised three issues: misapprehension of evidence by the trial judge, insufficient reasons for reasonable doubt, and application of an incorrect mens rea test.

The court dismissed the appeal, finding that the trial judge did not misapprehend the officer's evidence, provided sufficient reasons by considering the accused's request for a "last chance" to provide a sample, and correctly applied the subjective mens rea test requiring proof of intent to refuse or fail on purpose.

The court emphasized that the accused's request for a further attempt, combined with incomplete officer notes, created a reasonable doubt as to his intent, distinguishing the case from others where such a request was absent.

The applicants, charged with robbery, assault, and weapons offences, brought a pre-trial application to exclude evidence obtained through intercepted communications.

The court previously found that the wiretap authorization was issued without reasonable and probable grounds, violating the applicants' s. 8 Charter rights.

Applying the Grant framework under s. 24(2) of the Charter, the court found the state conduct to be at the more serious end of the spectrum and the impact on the applicants' privacy rights to be significant.

The court concluded that admitting the evidence would bring the administration of justice into disrepute and ordered the intercepted communications excluded.

The applicants brought a pre-trial application challenging a wiretap authorization, alleging a breach of their s. 8 Charter rights.

The authorization was sought in the investigation of a homicide that occurred 7.5 years prior.

The court conducted a facial inquiry of the supporting affidavit and found that it failed to establish reasonable and probable grounds that the wiretap would afford evidence of the homicide.

Specifically, there was no credible evidence or reasonable inference that the targets maintained contact or would communicate about the homicide after such a significant passage of time.

The court rejected the Crown's argument that judicial notice could be taken of ongoing communication, distinguishing the facts from cases involving active criminal organizations.

The sub-facial inquiry, which examined the Project Proposal, did not undermine the affidavit's veracity regarding the primary purpose of the investigation.

Consequently, the court found that the evidence obtained through intercepted communications was obtained in violation of the applicants' s. 8 Charter rights.

The application was scheduled to continue for argument on the exclusion of evidence under s. 24(2) of the Charter.

The applicant, Tamara Bahlawan, brought a Garofoli application seeking to exclude evidence seized during a search of her residence, arguing that the search warrant breached her s. 8 Charter rights.

The warrant was issued based on an Information to Obtain (ITO) that relied on confidential informers (CIs) and police surveillance.

The court found four material misrepresentations in the ITO regarding CI statements, which were corrected or excised.

However, the court determined that police surveillance sufficiently corroborated the CIs' tips, distinguishing the case from R. v. Liu.

The court also found that the information provided was sufficient for the issuing judge to assess the CIs' reliability, despite some boilerplate language and a preference for full disclosure of one CI's criminal record.

Ultimately, the reviewing judge concluded that a search warrant could reasonably have been issued on the corrected ITO.

The application to quash the warrant and exclude the evidence was dismissed.

The defendant sought to qualify Mark Paquette as an expert witness in forensic collision reconstruction in a criminal negligence and dangerous driving causing death case.

The court declined to qualify him as an expert in forensic collision reconstruction but accepted that he should be qualified as an expert in the narrower field of preparing computer-generated graphic representations of accident reconstructions.

The court found that while the blind spot analysis methodology did not require expert assistance to understand, the computer-aided generation of graphic representations overlaid on scale diagrams required specialized knowledge beyond the trier of fact's ken.

The Crown sought to qualify Detective Alain Boucher as an expert witness in collision reconstruction in a trial for criminal negligence causing death and dangerous driving causing death.

The accused was charged in connection with a fatal collision involving a truck and a cyclist in downtown Ottawa.

The court declined to qualify the detective as an expert, finding that while the detective was impartial, independent, and unbiased, the evidence was primarily narrative and factual in nature and did not meet the necessity threshold for expert evidence.

The court determined that the trier of fact did not require expert assistance to understand the collision analysis report, surveillance video, re-enactment video, and other materials, as these could be understood by examining the totality of the evidence without specialized knowledge.

The Crown sought to admit an audio-recorded statement made by the accused to a detective investigating a fatal motor vehicle collision.

The defence challenged the admissibility of the statement on the basis that the Crown had not proven the "operating mind" component of the common law voluntariness test, specifically arguing that the accused was not aware of the specific criminal charges he might face at the time he made the statement.

The court found that while the accused was not aware of the specific charges, he was aware of the general consequences of speaking to police, including the possibility of jail or fines under either the Criminal Code or the Highway Traffic Act.

The court admitted the statement as voluntary.

The Crown brought a motion for summary dismissal of the defendant's Charter s. 11(b) application alleging unreasonable delay, based on the defence's failure to comply with the Criminal Rules of the Ontario Court of Justice regarding timelines for filing and serving pre-trial applications.

The defence had failed to file materials by the required deadline of March 28, 2018, instead filing on June 18, 2018, just days before trial.

The court dismissed the Crown's motion, finding that although the defence was in clear violation of the Rules, the application met the viability threshold, no prejudice had been caused to the Crown, and constitutional rights should not be easily displaced by procedural non-compliance.

The applicant, charged with drug trafficking, brought a second application for a stay of proceedings under s. 11(b) of the Charter.

The net delay of 37.5 months exceeded the 30-month Jordan ceiling.

The court applied the transitional exception and the Morin framework to assess whether the delay was justified.

Weighing the serious nature of the charges against the prejudice suffered by the applicant, the court found the delay was justified and dismissed the application.

The Crown brought an application under s. 653.1 of the Criminal Code to preserve a prior ruling dismissing the accused's s. 11(b) Charter application.

The original judge had recused himself due to a reasonable apprehension of bias arising from his post-decision comments regarding a factual error he made in the ruling.

The court held that s. 653.1 applies purposively to pre-trial rulings even if no formal mistrial was declared.

However, the court found that it was in the interests of justice to allow the accused to relitigate the prejudice aspect of the s. 11(b) application with fresh evidence, while preserving the original judge's findings on the allocation of delay.