Gary T. Trotter

The appellant appealed convictions for sexual assault, sexual interference, child luring, making and possessing child pornography, and two counts of failing to comply with a recognizance.

He also appealed his dangerous offender designation and indeterminate sentence.

The grounds of appeal included judicial bias, unfair proceedings (jury tampering, non-unanimous verdict, failure to declare mistrial), ineffective assistance of counsel, and unreasonable verdicts.

The Court of Appeal dismissed all appeals, finding no merit in the appellant's claims.

The court upheld the trial judge's discretion regarding mistrial, confirmed the jury's unanimous verdict, and found no evidence of bias or jury tampering.

The dangerous offender designation and indeterminate sentence were affirmed, as there was ample evidence of a pattern of repetitive behaviour and a substantial probability of reoffending, with no reasonable treatment plan to manage the risk.

The appellant, under the supervision of the Ontario Review Board since 2009 for serious offences, appealed the Board's disposition maintaining his detention at Ontario Shores.

He argued the detention order was not the least onerous or restrictive, seeking a conditional discharge or a rehearing.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the Board's decision reasonable, particularly its rejection of a conditional discharge due to the appellant's continued need for professional supervision and history of relapse.

The court affirmed that the Board is not required to address every piece of evidence in its reasons.

The Crown appealed an order staying proceedings against the respondent for sexual assault, based on a breach of the respondent's s. 11(b) Charter right to a trial within a reasonable time.

The application judge found that the respondent's delay in electing mode of trial was reasonable due to outstanding essential disclosure, and that the COVID-19 pandemic did not contribute to the delay.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the Crown's appeal, upholding the application judge's findings that the pre-election delay was not attributable to the defence and that the pandemic was not an exceptional circumstance in this case.

Dexter Ramsundarsingh brought a motion for the rehearing of an appeal decided by the Court of Appeal for Ontario, seeking to re-open the appeal and re-hear submissions on whether a suicide note should be construed as a codicil to a previous will rather than a valid holographic will.

The court dismissed the motion, finding that it did not meet the "high hurdle" required for re-opening an appeal before a formal order is issued, as the issue had already been identified and argued in the original appeal.

The court clarified its jurisdiction to reconsider but found no rare circumstance warranting a re-hearing.

The appellant, Oliver Ritchie, appealed his convictions for luring a child under 16 and communicating for the purpose of obtaining sexual services of a minor, and sought leave to appeal his 16-month sentence.

The convictions stemmed from an online police sting operation where a detective impersonated a 14-year-old girl.

The appellant denied sending the texts, claiming a stranger used his phone.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal from conviction, finding no errors in the trial judge's application of the law regarding age presumption, evidence assessment, or the W.(D.) analysis.

Leave to appeal sentence was granted but the appeal was also dismissed, as the sentence was not demonstrably unfit and aligned with the Supreme Court's directive in Friesen for increased sentences in child sexual offense cases.

The appellant, a real estate lawyer, appealed the dismissal of his claims of civil fraud and equitable fraud against his former real estate clerk and her husband.

The appellant alleged they used his law office to facilitate fraudulent schemes.

The trial judge dismissed the claims, finding the appellant failed to prove false representations were made to him and that there was no unconscionable conduct for equitable fraud.

The Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge's decision, finding no palpable and overriding error in the factual findings or legal application, and dismissed the appeal.

The Crown appealed the seven-year sentence imposed on the respondent for attempted murder of his pregnant intimate partner.

The Court of Appeal found that the sentencing judge erred in principle by failing to adequately apply the primary sentencing objectives of denunciation and deterrence, particularly in a domestic context, by misunderstanding the aggravating impact of planning and deliberation, and by misidentifying the appropriate sentencing range.

The Court emphasized that rehabilitation should not outweigh denunciation and deterrence in such serious cases and that sentencing ranges evolve with societal understanding of domestic violence.

The Court also found an error in the application of "Duncan" credits, which were treated as a direct reduction rather than a mitigating factor.

The appeal was allowed, and a sentence of 15 years imprisonment was substituted, less credit for time served.

The appellant appealed a conviction for child luring, arguing an honest but mistaken belief that the complainant was 18 years of age.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, upholding the trial judge's credibility findings.

The trial judge found that the complainant had explicitly told the appellant she was 14, and the Crown had proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the appellant knew the complainant was under 18.

The appellate court affirmed that the trial judge's credibility findings, which were fully explained and entitled to deference, precluded any air of reality for the appellant's defence.

This is a motion brought by Raed Jaser, an appellant in a terrorism-related conviction appeal, seeking production of a post-sentence psychiatric report pertaining to his co-accused, Chiheb Esseghaier.

Jaser argues the report is necessary to support a fresh evidence application on appeal, contending that if Esseghaier was unfit to stand trial, it could constitute a miscarriage of justice for Jaser.

The Crown opposed the production.

The Court of Appeal, applying the Trotta and McNeil factors, found that Jaser met the prima facie entitlement for production.

Given Esseghaier's privacy interests as a non-party, the court ordered the psychiatric assessment to be produced to the panel for in camera inspection, reserving the decision on full production to the parties.

This is an appeal from a pleadings motion where the Crown (Ontario) sued Sanjay Madan and his family (appellants) for fraud.

The appellants counterclaimed, alleging contributory negligence by Ontario, misuse of a Mareva injunction, vicarious liability for Sanjay's intrusion upon seclusion, and direct/vicarious negligence by Ontario.

The motion judge struck these parts of the pleadings and refused leave to amend.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, affirming that a victim's negligence is not a defence to fraud, the "clean hands" doctrine does not apply to mere carelessness, and claims related to the Mareva injunction were unsupported.

The Court further held that Ontario could not be vicariously liable for Sanjay's intrusion upon seclusion as there was no nexus between his employment and the privacy violation, and that Crown liability in tort is vicarious, not direct, requiring proximity to identified Crown employees for negligence claims.

The Crown appealed a conditional sentence imposed on the respondent for a third child pornography conviction.

The Court of Appeal found that the sentencing judge erred by failing to apply the two-stage Proulx framework, specifically by not determining an appropriate sentence of less than two years and by not assessing the danger to the community or consistency with sentencing principles (denunciation and deterrence).

Given the respondent's repetitive conduct and lack of genuine rehabilitation, the conditional sentence was deemed manifestly unfit.

The appeal was allowed, and a three-year penitentiary sentence was substituted, with credit for pre-sentence custody, time on house arrest bail, and time served on the conditional sentence.

The appellant, Shawn Tedder, appealed his 2018 conviction for marijuana trafficking and his sentence.

He primarily argued that his s. 11(b) Charter right to be tried within a reasonable time had been breached.

The Court of Appeal found no errors in the motions judge's conclusion that the appellant had expressly waived an 8-month period of delay, resulting in a net delay of 29 months, which fell below the 30-month presumptive ceiling set in R. v. Jordan.

The court also found no basis to interfere with the sentence, which had proceeded as a joint submission.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant, Christian Walters, appealed his convictions for unauthorized possession of a firearm, possession of a loaded restricted firearm, possession of a restricted weapon without a licence, possession of prohibited devices, careless storage of a firearm, and unlawful possession of cocaine, as well as his sentence of 38 months' imprisonment.

The convictions stemmed from items found during a search warrant execution at an apartment he frequented.

The trial judge found Walters had knowledge and control of the items based on circumstantial evidence, including his association with a shooting suspect and the location of his personal items near the seized contraband.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding the trial judge's reasoning on possession was sound and the verdicts were not unreasonable, nor inconsistent with the co-accused's acquittal.

The sentence appeal was also dismissed, as the court found the sentence was appropriate given the serious nature of the offences involving both firearms and drugs, and the appellant's moral culpability.

The appellant, Gilbert Ryan Wilson, appealed a seven-year sentence for aggravated assault and unlawfully being in a dwelling house with intent to commit an indictable offence.

The appellant, along with two accomplices, received the same sentence for a brutal attack.

The appellant argued for a lesser sentence, asserting that his criminal record lacked prior violent offences, unlike his co-accused.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario granted leave to appeal but dismissed the appeal, finding no error in the sentencing judge's holistic analysis, which properly considered all relevant factors, including the appellant's mitigating circumstances and the Gladue factors applicable to his accomplices, in arriving at a proportionate sentence for all equally responsible offenders.

This appeal addresses whether Canadian law recognizes an Islamic bare talaq divorce, performed in Ontario and subsequently registered with Egyptian governmental agencies.

The Court of Appeal found that the motion judge erred in recognizing the divorce under s. 22(3) of the Divorce Act.

The Court clarified that administrative registration of a divorce does not equate to the "granting" of a divorce by a competent authority, as required by the Act.

Furthermore, the Court held that the parties lacked a real and substantial connection to Egypt at the time of the divorce, and that recognizing such a divorce would be contrary to Canadian public policy, particularly due to its unilateral nature and the potential for forum shopping.

The appeal was allowed, setting aside the lower court's order and allowing the appellant's spousal support claim to proceed.

The appellant, Antonio Duscio, appealed a 16-month imprisonment sentence for contempt of court, which was imposed shortly after a previous 12-month contempt sentence.

The Court of Appeal found no error in the sentencing judge's analysis of relevant legal principles or extensive factual findings.

The court noted that the appellant could secure early release by purging his contempt or providing a complete accounting of dissipated funds and assets.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant appealed the length of his conditional sentence order (CSO) after it was partially collapsed due to a breach involving contact with his former intimate partner.

He sought to reduce the CSO length so that time spent detained could be credited as pre-sentence custody on a new, related criminal harassment charge.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the original CSO length appropriate and holding that any credit for pre-sentence custody must be determined by the sentencing judge on the new charge.

The appellant sought leave to appeal a summary conviction.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario considered an identified error by the summary conviction appeal court judge regarding consent versus capacity to consent.

However, the court found this error inconsequential given the trial judge's thorough analysis of the evidence.

Leave to appeal was refused.

The appellant, Mr. Berhe, sought leave to appeal from three orders made by the Summary Conviction Appeal Court Judge (SCACJ) relating to four summary conviction appeals.

Two applications (C63256, M49551) concerned his awareness of immigration consequences when entering guilty pleas, and one (M49552) challenged a conviction for harassing communications.

The Court of Appeal refused leave to appeal for the harassing communications conviction (M49552), finding no error of law in the SCACJ's decision to dismiss the appeal as abandoned and no merit to the proposed grounds, including the interpretation of "person" under s. 372(3) of the Criminal Code.

For the immigration-related appeals (C63256, M49551), leave was granted, but the appeals were dismissed.

The court found that the appellant had sufficient knowledge of the negative immigration implications of his guilty pleas, given his extensive history with the immigration system, and that his claim of subjective prejudice was not supported by objective circumstances, as the Crown's case was overwhelming.

The appellant, S.F., appealed convictions for three counts of assault and one count of sexual assault against his wife, alleging errors in the trial judge's credibility assessment and misapprehension of evidence.

The Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge's findings, affirming that the judge was entitled to accept the complainant's evidence despite initial non-disclosure (attributed to fear of retaliation) and minor inconsistencies.

The court found no material misapprehension of evidence and deferred to the trial judge's careful assessment of the complainant's testimony.

The appeal was dismissed.