Gillian Roberts

The appellant challenged the constitutionality of s. 243 of the Criminal Code, which prohibits concealing the dead body of a child whether it died before, during, or after birth, arguing the provision is impermissibly vague in its application to a child that died before birth, thereby infringing s. 7 of the Charter.

The Supreme Court unanimously dismissed the appeal, holding that s. 243 meets the minimum standard of precision required by the Charter when interpreted to apply only to a fetus that would likely have been born alive.

The Court adopted a likelihood standard from R. v. Berriman, finding the provision gives fair notice and sufficiently limits enforcement discretion.

The matter was remitted for a new trial.

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 Crown appealed the acquittals of the respondent on charges of accessing and possessing child pornography.

The trial judge had excluded statements made by the respondent to the police, finding the Crown had not proven they were voluntary due to an incomplete and inaccurate record and the lack of credibility and reliability of the police officers' evidence.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no basis to interfere with the trial judge's determinations on voluntariness.

The appellant challenged convictions arising from two school-based sexual touching allegations involving young complainants and eyewitnesses whose accounts contained significant conflicts and evidence of pre-disclosure discussions among the girls.

The Court of Appeal held that the trial judge's reasons were inadequate because they did not explain how the possibility of collusion affected the admission and use of similar fact evidence, nor how conflicting evidence and reasonable doubt were assessed.

Applying the adequacy-of-reasons framework and the principles governing similar fact evidence and credibility findings, the court found that meaningful appellate review was not possible.

The convictions were set aside and a new trial was ordered.

The appellant appealed his convictions for first degree murder and kidnapping, arguing that the Crown and police engaged in improper jury vetting.

The Crown had requested police to conduct extensive background checks on prospective jurors, including traffic violations and police contacts, and to provide comments on their suitability.

This information was used by the Crown in exercising peremptory challenges but was not disclosed to the defence.

The Court of Appeal found that the extent of the jury vetting, the violation of privacy legislation and Crown policy, and the failure to disclose the information disrupted the balance in the jury selection process.

This created an appearance of unfairness amounting to a miscarriage of justice.

The appeal was allowed and a new trial ordered.

The appellant was convicted of first degree murder following a fatal stabbing.

He appealed the conviction, arguing the trial judge erred in failing to give instructions on post-offence conduct, a Vetrovec warning, the defence of accident, the elements of manslaughter, causation, and the victim's reputation.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no errors in the jury instructions and noting that the defence counsel at trial had not requested the omitted instructions or objected to the charge.

The court addressed sentencing for breaches of long-term supervision orders by Indigenous long-term offenders and reaffirmed the mandatory application of Gladue principles in every such case.

It held that sentencing judges must consider systemic and background factors and craft proportionate, individualized sanctions even for serious breaches tied to risk management.

In the first appeal, errors in principle required intervention and the custodial term was reduced to one year.

In the second appeal, the one-year sentence imposed by the appellate court was upheld.

The Crown appealed a decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal that had set aside the accused's conviction for first degree murder and substituted a conviction for second degree murder.

The Supreme Court of Canada allowed the appeal and restored the first degree murder conviction, adopting the dissenting reasons of MacPherson J.A. at the Court of Appeal, which found that the trial judge had properly instructed the jury on the relationship between planning and deliberation and murder.

The appellant was convicted of manslaughter following a stabbing during a fight.

He appealed his conviction on four grounds, including an improper closing address by the Crown, misleading jury instructions regarding expert pathology evidence, an unreasonable verdict, and systemic underrepresentation of aboriginal on-reserve residents in the jury roll.

The Court of Appeal split the appeal into two parts.

The Court dismissed the first three grounds, finding the trial was fair, the jury instructions were adequate, and the verdict was reasonable.

The Court adjourned the appeal to hear submissions on the discrete issue of the jury roll composition.

The appellant appealed his conviction for second degree murder after stabbing his friend during a drunken altercation.

He argued the trial judge erred by failing to give a limiting instruction on bad character evidence and by improperly instructing the jury on mens rea and intoxication.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no realistic possibility that the bad character evidence was used improperly and concluding that the jury instructions, while containing errors, adequately conveyed the necessary legal principles regarding intent and intoxication.

The appellant was convicted of second-degree murder in 1995 for the death of her two-and-a-half-year-old son, based largely on the flawed pathological evidence of Dr. Charles Smith, who testified the child died of asphyxia.

Following a reinvestigation of Dr. Smith's cases, the Supreme Court of Canada remanded the matter to the Court of Appeal to consider fresh evidence.

The fresh expert evidence demonstrated that the cause of death was unascertained and that Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP) could not be excluded.

The Court of Appeal admitted the fresh evidence, found the conviction constituted a miscarriage of justice, allowed the appeal, and ordered a new trial.

The appellant pleaded guilty in 1992 to criminal negligence causing the death of his infant son, based on flawed expert evidence from Dr. Charles Smith regarding Shaken Baby Syndrome.

Following the Goudge Inquiry, fresh expert evidence revealed that the infant's death was likely caused by natural disease processes or birth trauma, and that the triad of symptoms relied upon by Dr. Smith was not diagnostic of non-accidental head injury.

The Crown conceded the appeal.

The Court of Appeal admitted the fresh evidence, set aside the guilty plea to prevent a miscarriage of justice, quashed the conviction, and entered an acquittal.

The appellants appealed their convictions for first-degree and second-degree murder arising from a fatal group assault in a mall parking lot.

The Court of Appeal allowed the first appellant's appeal in part, finding the trial judge failed to adequately instruct the jury on the relationship between planning and deliberation and the mental element for murder under s. 229(a)(ii) of the Criminal Code.

A conviction for second-degree murder was substituted.

The second appellant's appeal was dismissed, as the trial judge did not err in his instructions regarding the pathologist's evidence, the voluntariness of police statements, or the reasonableness of the verdict.

The accused was charged with concealing the dead body of a child.

The trial judge found that the words 'died before . . . birth' in the Criminal Code were unconstitutionally vague and severed the word 'before', leading to the accused's acquittal.

The Crown appealed.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, holding that the provision is not unconstitutionally vague when interpreted using the common law 'chance of life' standard, which provides fair notice and limits law enforcement discretion.

A new trial was ordered.

The appellants, two youthful aboriginal offenders, were convicted of offences arising from a home invasion and sentenced to four years' imprisonment.

On appeal, they argued the trial judge failed to properly apply the Gladue principles and erred in treating the sentencing range for home invasions as a mandatory minimum.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeals, finding the trial judge gave insufficient weight to restorative justice objectives and the recommendations of a sentencing circle.

The court varied Jacko's sentence to two years less a day conditional, given his extraordinary rehabilitative efforts, and varied Manitowabi's sentence to two years less a day in jail followed by probation.

The appellant appealed a decision of the Ontario Review Board denying him an absolute or conditional discharge.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the Board's decision was not unreasonable given the appellant's non-compliance and recent elopement.

However, the Court cautioned the institution and the Board to focus on the objective of the appellant's ultimate reintegration into the community to avoid a situation of impasse.

The appellants were convicted of multiple counts of fraud and laundering proceeds of crime arising from a large-scale advance fee scheme operated out of a condominium.

On appeal, they challenged the admission of evidence obtained from a search of the condominium, arguing breaches of section 8 of the Charter based on information provided to police by building management following a flood.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeals, finding no reasonable expectation of privacy in the information and no state agency by the building staff.

The sentence appeals were also dismissed, upholding the penitentiary sentences as appropriate for large-scale fraud.

The appellant was convicted of extortion and appealed based on a dissent in the Court of Appeal regarding the adequacy of the trial judge's review of the evidence in the jury charge.

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the appeal, finding that the trial judge's succinct review of the evidence was adequate given the short duration of the trial, the limited number of witnesses, and the full review of evidence by counsel prior to the instruction.

The Court held that the jury instruction conveyed a sufficient understanding of the evidence and how it related to the issues raised by the defence.

The appellant appealed his conviction for first degree murder on three grounds: the admission of drop cloths and a shovel as evidence of planning and deliberation, the use of evidence regarding a gun from a prior home invasion, and the admission of evidence found in his vehicle despite an error in the search warrant.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal.

The court found that the physical evidence had sufficient probative value, the gun evidence was properly admitted for motive and identity with appropriate limiting instructions, and the search warrant error was a minor technical breach that did not warrant exclusion of the evidence under the Charter.

The appellant appealed the 14-year period of parole ineligibility imposed following his conviction for second-degree murder.

The appellant argued that the trial judge erred in describing the location of the murder, improperly treated his sexual promiscuity as an aggravating factor, and failed to consider mitigating factors.

The Court of Appeal found no errors in the trial judge's thorough reasons, noting the murder was brutal and the sentence was within the appropriate range.

Although the Court commended the appellant's rehabilitative efforts presented as fresh evidence, it found no basis to interfere with the sentence.

The appeal was dismissed.