Frank Addario

The applicant sought review of a detention order pending an extradition hearing arising from United States drug trafficking allegations involving substantial quantities of cocaine and MDMA.

The court applied the deferential extradition bail review standard, requiring demonstration of an error in principle by the application judge.

It held that the judge was entitled to find a serious primary-ground flight risk in light of the strength of the foreign case, the prospect of a very lengthy sentence, the scale of the alleged trafficking operation, and the limits of the proposed surety and monitoring plan.

The application was dismissed.

The defendants were charged with creating an unauthorized security interest in a credit union contrary to the Credit Unions and Caisses Populaires Act.

They brought a motion to quash the Information, arguing it was laid outside the two-year statutory limitation period.

The court found that the regulatory agency had knowledge of the material facts more than three years before the charge was laid, and that the failure to share this information with the Superintendent in a timely manner frustrated the limitation period.

The motion was granted, the Information was quashed, and the charges were dismissed.

The Crown appealed a stay of proceedings that prevented a fourth trial of the respondent for first degree murder.

The respondent's first trial resulted in a conviction that was overturned on appeal, and his second and third trials ended in hung juries.

At the second and third trials, the judge excluded evidence that a 911 call containing details known only to the killer had been traced to a payphone near the respondent's workplace.

The Court of Appeal held that the 911-trace evidence should have been admitted under the principled approach to hearsay, as it met the requirements of necessity and threshold reliability.

Because the Crown was denied a full opportunity to present its case due to the erroneous exclusion of this highly probative evidence, the Court found that a fourth trial would not constitute an abuse of process.

The stay was set aside and a new trial ordered.

The accused pleaded guilty to five counts involving the sexual exploitation of a minor: invitation to sexual touching, sexual interference, possession of child pornography, making available sexually explicit material to a child, and luring a child.

Over a three-week period, the 30-year-old accused engaged in online contact with a 15-year-old victim, misrepresenting his age, coercing her to create explicit images and videos, and ultimately forcing her to perform oral sex.

A search of his electronic devices revealed 76 images of child pornography and 26 images of child nudity.

The court imposed a global sentence of three years imprisonment with enhanced credit for pre-trial custody, along with DNA, SOIRA, and prohibition orders.

The appellant pled guilty to multiple charges arising from a series of robberies and break and enters, including robbery with a firearm, unlawful confinement, and use of a firearm in the commission of unlawful confinement.

On appeal, he argued that the Kienapple principle precluded multiple convictions for these offences arising from the same incidents.

The Court of Appeal held that while the unlawful confinement convictions could stand, the convictions for using a firearm in the commission of unlawful confinement must be stayed, as they punished the same criminal wrong as the robbery with a firearm convictions.

The court varied the sentences on the armed robbery convictions to maintain the total sentence of seven years and nine months' imprisonment.

The person sought in extradition proceedings applied for disclosure of the United States indictment at the committal stage.

The Attorney General argued that disclosure was premature because extradition judges determine committal based solely on the record of the case and the indictment would be disclosed later at the surrender stage.

The court held that while jurisprudence does not require disclosure of the indictment at the committal phase, it does not prohibit it.

Because the indictment was necessary for the person sought to understand the full jeopardy faced in the requesting state and to make informed decisions about consenting to committal, surrender, or waiving extradition under the Extradition Act, withholding it would undermine those statutory rights and violate principles of fundamental justice under s. 7 of the Charter.

The Attorney General was ordered to disclose the indictment with the condition that it not be used to challenge committal.

The appellant appealed two first degree murder convictions arising from a motel room shooting, arguing that the principal eyewitness identification evidence should have been excluded, that defence expert evidence on identification frailties should have been admitted, and that the jury charge on identification was inadequate.

The court held that the eyewitness evidence was fully testable through the adversarial process and did not create the kind of prejudice that would justify exclusion.

The court declined to revisit existing authority limiting general expert evidence on the frailties of eyewitness identification and upheld the trial judge’s conclusion that the proposed opinion evidence was unnecessary.

Reading the charge as a whole, the court found the jury was adequately cautioned about the dangers of identification evidence, including the limits of witness confidence, and the appeal was dismissed.

The appellants, a real estate agent and his co-accused, were convicted of conspiracy to produce marijuana and related offences.

During the trial, the trial judge interrupted the Crown's cross-examination of the real estate agent to ask if he knew what perjury was and suggested his counsel advise him on its consequences.

The appellants appealed, arguing this intervention created a reasonable apprehension of bias.

The Court of Appeal agreed, finding the trial judge's comments indicated he had prejudged the accused's credibility before hearing all evidence, fatally compromising the fairness of the trial for both accused.

The appeals were allowed and new trials ordered.

In a criminal appeal concerning workplace computer privacy, the Court held that an employee may retain a reasonable, though diminished, expectation of privacy in personal information stored on an employer-issued laptop where personal use is permitted or reasonably expected.

The police breached section 8 by conducting warrantless searches of computer data received from a school board, because the employer's authority to search for workplace purposes did not transfer to police for criminal investigation.

The majority concluded exclusion under section 24(2) was not warranted after balancing police conduct, privacy impact, and trial truth-seeking interests.

The appeal was allowed and a new trial order remained in place.

A dissent would have excluded the evidence due to serious disregard of warrant requirements.

The appellant appealed his convictions for sexual assault and invitation to sexual touching involving a minor.

He argued the trial judge misapprehended evidence regarding the timing of the assaults, failed to properly apply the W.(D.) test, ignored evidence about his apparel, and misapprehended video evidence.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the trial judge's credibility assessments and application of the W.(D.) test were sufficient and supported by the evidence.

The accused, a grade 8 teacher, was charged with sexual assault and sexual interference alleged to have occurred in the mid‑1990s against a student.

The complainant described repeated sexualized conduct including kissing and masturbation during tutoring sessions and other interactions, while the accused denied any sexual contact.

The court accepted that certain inappropriate conduct occurred, including hand‑holding and expressions of affection, but identified reliability concerns in the complainant’s evidence, including inconsistencies, lack of corroboration, and the role of therapy‑recovered memories.

Applying the criminal standard of proof and the W.(D.) credibility framework, the court concluded the evidence did not establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

The accused was acquitted.

The accused, a former elementary school teacher, was charged with sexual assault and sexual interference of a student during the 1994-95 school year when the complainant was 13-14 years old.

The complainant alleged that the accused engaged in inappropriate sexual contact including kissing, hand-holding, and masturbation over several months.

The accused denied all allegations, claiming his conduct was limited to appropriate academic support and encouragement.

The trial judge found significant reliability concerns with the complainant's evidence, particularly regarding recovered memories obtained through therapy and the provenance of an Italian pendant allegedly given as a gift.

Although the judge found the complainant's testimony generally credible and preferred it over the accused's evidence, the judge concluded that the Crown had not proven guilt beyond a reasonable doubt due to these reliability concerns and reasonable doubt arising from the accused's testimony.

The appellant lawyer appealed a decision of the Law Society's Appeal Panel upholding the revocation of his license to practice law following criminal convictions for sexual exploitation of two minors.

The appellant argued the penalty was too harsh given his prior good character and cooperation, and that the panels erred in assessing remorse and character evidence.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, finding the panels' decisions reasonable and that revocation was an appropriate penalty for sexual misconduct involving a breach of trust with young persons.

The Crown appealed an acquittal entered after the trial judge excluded evidence under s. 24(2) of the Charter.

The trial judge found that an untested informant tip and a brief, neutral observation of a meeting in a vehicle did not provide reasonable grounds for arrest.

The Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge's findings that the arrest, subsequent searches of the respondent, his vehicle, and his residence, as well as a breach of the right to counsel, were unconstitutional.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant was convicted of multiple offences relating to the attempted exportation of restricted pressure transducers to Iran, including violations of the United Nations Act, Customs Act, and Criminal Code.

On appeal, he challenged the trial judge's interpretation of the technical specifications for the restricted goods and the reasonableness of the verdict.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding the trial judge correctly interpreted the specifications and reasonably concluded the appellant knowingly attempted to supply the goods to a person in Iran.

However, the Court allowed the sentence appeal in part, reducing the sentence on the UN offence because the trial judge erred in treating an unproven link to Iran's nuclear enrichment program as an aggravating factor.

The appellant, a high school teacher, was charged with possession of child pornography after a school computer technician found explicit images of a student on his work laptop.

The principal seized the laptop and copied the images, and the school board later copied temporary Internet files before handing everything to the police, who searched the laptop without a warrant.

The Court of Appeal held that the appellant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in his personal files on the work computer, though modified by the technician's right to maintain the network.

While the school officials did not breach the Charter, the warrantless police search of the laptop and temporary Internet files violated section 8.

Applying the Grant framework, the Court excluded the laptop and temporary Internet files under section 24(2), but admitted the disc containing the images of the student.

The appellant, a police officer, appealed his convictions for assault causing bodily harm and uttering a threat against an intoxicated person in custody.

At trial, the parties agreed that a crucial portion of an audio surveillance recording was inaudible, and the appellant testified to what he had said.

During deliberations, the trial judge re-listened to the recording, concluded the appellant had said something materially different, and used this finding to reject his credibility and convict him without reopening the trial.

The Court of Appeal held that this denied the appellant the opportunity to make full answer and defence, constituting a denial of natural justice.

The appeal was allowed and a new trial ordered.

The applicant, awaiting a retrial for first-degree murder, had his bail revoked after failing to report to police on Christmas Eve.

He applied for a review of the revocation order under s. 680 of the Criminal Code.

The Court of Appeal admitted fresh evidence showing the applicant had been acquitted of the failure to comply charge because he simply forgot to report.

Finding the failure was not deliberate, the Court set aside the revocation order and reinstated the applicant's bail on the original conditions.

The appellant challenged firearms convictions arising from a street encounter with police, alleging arbitrary detention and breach of the right to counsel before he disclosed possession of a firearm.

The Court held that a psychological detention had crystallized during the encounter, that the detention was arbitrary under s. 9, and that the failure to advise of counsel breached s. 10(b).

The Court reformulated the legal framework for detention and established a revised three-part approach to exclusion of evidence under s. 24(2), ultimately admitting the firearm because the police conduct, though unconstitutional, was not egregious and the evidence was highly reliable and essential.

The Court also held that simple movement of a firearm from place to place did not constitute a 'transfer' for the purpose of the weapons trafficking offence, and entered an acquittal on that count.

The appellant appealed his convictions for possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking and simple possession of cannabis resin, arguing that the police lacked reasonable and probable grounds to arrest him following a controlled delivery of a package containing cocaine.

The Court of Appeal found that the police had both subjective and objective reasonable grounds to arrest the appellant after he received the package and left the residence shortly after with a bag capable of carrying it.

The court upheld the trial judge's finding of no Charter breaches under sections 8 and 9.

However, the court quashed the appellant's summary conviction for simple possession of marijuana on consent, as it should not have been tried together with exclusively indictable offences.