Feroza Bhabha

The appellant appealed a disposition of the Ontario Review Board ordering his detention at a secure psychiatric unit with conditions allowing for community access.

The appellant sought a conditional discharge with a mandatory medication order.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, upholding the Board's finding that the appellant remained a threat to public safety, lacked insight into his paranoid schizophrenia, and would likely stop taking medication if left to his own devices.

The Court concluded that the detention order was the least onerous and least restrictive disposition appropriate in the circumstances.

The youth appellant, aged 14 at the time of the offence, was convicted of being an accessory after the fact to murder after assisting an adult in dismembering and disposing of the bodies of two victims.

The trial judge imposed a custodial sentence of six months' secure custody and two years' probation, finding it was an exceptional case under s. 39(1)(d) of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

The youth appealed the sentence.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, holding that the horrifying circumstances of the offence and the youth's substantial role made it an exceptional case where a non-custodial sentence would be inconsistent with the purpose and principles of sentencing.

The appellant, a young person, appealed the sentence imposed by the youth court judge.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario heard the appeal and reserved its decision.

The Court ultimately dismissed the appeal, noting that the case raised important issues concerning the interpretation of the Youth Criminal Justice Act, and stated that reasons for the decision would be delivered at a later date.

The appellant appealed his convictions on the ground that the trial judge failed to properly consider whether the Crown had disproved unconscious influence among the three complainants when admitting similar fact evidence.

The Court of Appeal found that the trial judge properly addressed the potential effect of contact on the probative value of the evidence and concluded that the testimony was not tainted.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant appealed his conviction for sexual touching of a child under the age of fourteen.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and ordered a new trial, finding that the trial judge misapprehended the evidence on key points and overemphasized irrelevant considerations when disbelieving the appellant.

Specifically, the trial judge incorrectly stated that the appellant did not deny the conduct, incorrectly stated that the appellant confirmed he was drinking, and appeared to engage in improper propensity reasoning based on the appellant's criminal record.

The appellants were convicted of second-degree murder and manslaughter in a gang-related shooting.

At trial, the francophone co-accused requested trials in different official languages, leading the trial judge to conduct a bilingual trial.

The trial judge also admitted out-of-court statements made by the deceased victim before his death under the principled exception to the hearsay rule.

On appeal, the Court of Appeal held that the bilingual trial was permissible under the Criminal Code and did not violate the appellants' language rights.

However, the Court found that the trial judge erred in admitting the deceased's statements by improperly relying on extrinsic evidence and mere consistencies to establish threshold reliability.

The Court also found a significant error in the jury instructions regarding reasonable doubt and the absence of evidence (the 'Miller' error).

The appeal was allowed and a new trial ordered.

The appellants appealed their convictions.

The Court of Appeal found that the verdict was not unreasonable, as there was direct evidence from the complainant identifying one of the appellants, which was confirmed by independent evidence.

However, the Crown conceded that the appeal must be allowed based on the challenge for cause procedure.

The appeals were allowed, the convictions quashed, and a new trial ordered.

The Crown appealed the sentence imposed on the respondent, arguing that the sentencing judge erred by imposing a concurrent rather than a consecutive sentence for a second set of offences committed two months after the first.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, citing the Supreme Court's decision in McDonnell, which establishes that a sentencing judge has considerable discretion in determining whether sentences should be concurrent or consecutive, and that appellate courts will generally defer to that discretion.

The respondent was acquitted of impaired driving causing bodily harm and driving 'over eighty' after the trial judge excluded breath sample results under s. 24(2) of the Charter, finding a breach of the respondent's s. 10(b) right to counsel.

The trial judge concluded the respondent was not afforded adequate privacy while speaking to duty counsel from a hospital room.

The Crown appealed.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and ordered a new trial, holding that the respondent's subjective belief that his conversation was not private was unreasonable in the circumstances, as he was left alone in a room, the officer stood 20 feet away, and the respondent never expressed any privacy concerns to the officer.

The appellant appealed his conviction, arguing that the trial judge erred in her jury instructions regarding the defence of honest but mistaken belief in consent and recklessness.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the instructions, read as a whole, did not invite the jury to apply an objective standard nor did they place the onus of proof on the appellant.

The appellant appealed convictions including being masked with intent to commit an indictable offence.

The Crown conceded that the masked with intent conviction was not supportable, and the Court of Appeal quashed it.

The appeals against the remaining convictions were dismissed as there was ample evidence to support them.

The appellant appealed a sentence imposed by the trial judge, who had departed from a joint submission by refusing to grant credit for pre-trial custody due to the appellant's criminal record.

The Court of Appeal held that the trial judge erred in law, as the proposed sentence in the joint submission was not contrary to the public interest and would not bring the administration of justice into disrepute.

The appeal was allowed, and the sentence was varied to three years minus 106 days of pre-trial custody credit.

The Crown appealed the sentence imposed on the respondent for a home invasion and an assault on a taxi driver.

The Court of Appeal found the sentence for the home invasion was fit, but agreed with the Crown that the six-month sentence for the unrelated assault on the taxi driver should be served consecutively.

The appeal was allowed to make the sentences consecutive.

The appellant appealed a sentence of 18 years imprisonment (effectively 20.5 years) for extremely serious offences.

The Court of Appeal found that while a substantial penitentiary sentence was warranted given the appellant's background, the sentence imposed was outside the range for like offenders in like circumstances.

The court granted leave to appeal and varied the sentence to 13.5 years, representing a total sentence of 16 years less 2.5 years for time served.

The appellant appealed his conviction and sentence imposed by the Ontario Court of Justice.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario found no error in principle in the sentence imposed.

Leave to appeal was granted, but the appeal was dismissed.

The appellant was convicted of second degree murder.

Following his arrest, he asserted his right to counsel but was unable to reach his lawyer.

Before he could consult counsel, police introduced an undercover officer to him and played a tape of his intercepted confession, prompting him to make incriminating remarks.

The trial judge admitted the statements, finding no s. 10(b) Charter breach.

The Court of Appeal held the trial judge applied the wrong test.

Applying a causal link approach, the Court found the police conduct amounted to elicitation in violation of s. 10(b).

The statements were excluded under s. 24(2), the curative proviso was not applied, and a new trial was ordered.

The appellant challenged convictions for multiple sexual offences against nine child complainants spanning three periods over three decades, arguing that evidence from earlier family-based abuse should not have been admitted as similar fact evidence on later allegations involving unrelated children.

The court held that similar fact evidence need not show striking similarity where identity is not in issue and credibility is central.

In the context of a multi-count indictment, the trial judge was entitled to find a sufficient pattern of opportunistic sexual predation and distinctive sexual conduct to give the evidence significant probative value outweighing prejudice.

The limiting instruction properly guarded against prohibited bad character reasoning.

The conviction appeal and the related dangerous offender appeal were dismissed.

The appellant was convicted of theft and possession of stolen property after $120,000 went missing from an armoured car driven by her common-law partner.

She appealed her conviction and 12-month sentence, arguing errors in the jury charge regarding an unsavoury witness, the defence theory, reasonable doubt, and out-of-court statements, as well as seeking a conditional sentence.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding no reversible errors in the jury instructions.

The sentence appeal was also dismissed, as the offences involved a serious breach of trust and a conditional sentence would be unfit.

The accused was charged with first degree murder.

At the preliminary inquiry, the Crown presented circumstantial evidence, while the accused called witnesses providing arguably exculpatory evidence.

The preliminary inquiry judge committed the accused to trial for second degree murder, refusing to weigh the evidence.

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the accused's appeal, holding that while a preliminary inquiry judge must engage in a limited weighing of the whole evidence when the Crown relies on circumstantial evidence, the judge in this case properly considered the evidence as a whole and did not err in committing the accused to trial.

Supplementary reasons adjusting the specific counts of the indictment on which the appellant was convicted, in order to reduce the totality of the sentences to five years imprisonment.

The court varied the sentences to two years concurrent on most counts, with three one-year consecutive sentences for use of a firearm, as agreed upon by counsel.