Hussein Aly

The offender pleaded guilty to manslaughter after shooting the victim in self-defence.

The guilty plea was based on the offender intentionally bringing a firearm to a party and provoking a conflict with the victim.

The court considered the offender's youth, lack of prior record, and the extremely harsh conditions of his pre-sentence custody at the Toronto South Detention Centre.

The court imposed a sentence of five years' imprisonment, leaving 129 days to serve after applying enhanced credit for pre-sentence custody.

The Crown brought a pre-trial motion to admit out-of-court text and Snapchat communications between alleged co-conspirators against the respondent, who is charged with first-degree murder.

The respondent argued the statements did not meet the necessity requirement because the declarants were available to testify.

The court granted the application, finding that the contemporaneous written communications were the best evidence available, the declarants were unlikely to be cooperative witnesses, and the statements met the threshold reliability and necessity requirements under the Carter test and the principled approach to hearsay.

The respondent is charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder.

The Crown brought an application to admit discreditable conduct evidence, specifically photographs and videos of the respondent with firearms, as well as firearms and ammunition seized from two residences.

The court applied the Handy framework, balancing the probative value of the evidence regarding means, opportunity, and identity against its prejudicial effect.

The court admitted several photos and videos connecting the respondent to 9mm ammunition and handguns similar to the unrecovered murder weapon, but excluded highly prejudicial images, including those depicting an Uzi and apparent drugs.

The applicant, charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder, brought a facial challenge to the Information to Obtain (ITO) a search warrant for his residence, alleging a breach of his s. 8 Charter rights.

He argued the ITO lacked reasonable grounds to implicate him or to believe evidence would be found at his home.

The court dismissed the application, finding that the ITO, viewed holistically, contained sufficient credible and reliable evidence—including witness descriptions matching the applicant, his association with co-conspirators, and evidence of prior conflict with the victim—upon which the authorizing justice could have reasonably issued the warrant.

The court sentenced Tahir Ul-Haq for trafficking fentanyl, after he sold what he believed to be cocaine to a friend, resulting in one death and one serious injury.

The court found that Mr. Ul-Haq was not a commercial trafficker, did not know the substance was fentanyl, and sold it as a favour without profit.

The sentence imposed was a conditional sentence of two years less a day, followed by probation, with ancillary orders.

The decision carefully weighs aggravating and mitigating factors, including the tragic consequences, Mr. Ul-Haq’s personal circumstances, and the collateral immigration consequences of conviction.

The accused, Salman Jogiyat, was acquitted of first-degree murder but pleaded guilty to contempt of court for refusing to disclose the identities of other individuals involved in the circumstances surrounding the murder during his trial testimony, despite being ordered to do so by the court.

The court considered the fundamental purpose and principles of sentencing, including deterrence and denunciation, as well as the accused's personal circumstances, including a Mild Intellectual Disability and a significant criminal record.

The Crown sought a four-year penitentiary term, while the defence suggested 24 to 30 months.

The court imposed a three-year term of penitentiary imprisonment, finding it proportionate and necessary for deterrence and denunciation, aligning with the established sentencing range for such contempt.

The Crown sought to admit ante-mortem statements made by the deceased, Sangita Sharma, in a murder trial against three defendants.

The statements concerned Ms. Sharma's business dealings and disputes with an alleged orchestrator of her contract killing, Mian Afzalaqif.

The court ruled on the admissibility of these statements under traditional hearsay exceptions (state of mind, statement of intention) and the principled approach to hearsay (necessity and threshold reliability).

The court found the statements admissible, deeming them relevant to motive and identity, and satisfying the reliability criteria despite defence concerns regarding the witness's credibility.

Thomas Patrick Sliwinski pleaded guilty to manslaughter, unauthorized possession of a loaded restricted firearm, and pointing a firearm.

The charges stemmed from a campaign of intimidation and violence against a civil litigation lawyer, Lisa Carr, including an attempted shooting, and involvement in the fatal shooting of Soheil Rafipour.

The court accepted a joint submission for a global sentence of 12 years imprisonment, emphasizing denunciation, deterrence, and protection of society given the planned nature of the crimes, their impact on victims, and the attack on the administration of justice.

The accused, Kevin Barreau, was charged with five Criminal Code offences related to human trafficking and procuring.

The trial involved complex procedural issues, including an application to excuse a witness (P.C. Rice) due to PTSD and a Charter application for a stay of proceedings based on alleged police misconduct, including racial slurs and denial of counsel.

The court found the accused guilty of human trafficking, receiving material benefit from human trafficking, procuring, and advertising sexual services.

The charge of facilitating another offence was acquitted.

The Charter application for a stay was dismissed, but a s. 10(b) breach (denial of counsel) was found, entitling the accused to sentencing credit.

The appellant was one of 104 people arrested as part of Project Raphael, an online police investigation targeting buyers in the juvenile sex work market.

The appellant responded to an advertisement on Backpage.com and, after the undercover officer disclosed being underage, attended a hotel room and was arrested.

He was convicted by jury on child luring and communicating to obtain sexual services from a minor.

The appellant sought a stay of proceedings on the basis of entrapment, arguing both opportunity-based entrapment (no bona fide inquiry, no personal reasonable suspicion) and inducement-based entrapment (personal vulnerability from undiagnosed Asperger's Syndrome).

The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal, holding that Project Raphael was a bona fide inquiry per the companion case R. v. Ramelson, 2022 SCC 44, and that the inducement framework revision argument was better left for another case as no error in the findings below was demonstrated.

The defendant, Jehangir Khan, was charged with sexual assault.

The case hinged on the credibility of the complainant and other witnesses versus the defendant's testimony.

The court applied the principles of R. v. W.(D.) and found the defendant's evidence credible and reliable, corroborated by a third-party witness (PW).

The complainant's testimony was deemed untrustworthy due to altered text messages, evasiveness, internal inconsistencies, and collaboration with other witnesses to craft a false narrative.

The Crown failed to prove the charge beyond a reasonable doubt, leading to an acquittal.

Three offenders pleaded guilty to multiple firearms offences, including aggravated assault and reckless discharge of a firearm, following a planned shooting at a taxicab that wounded one passenger.

One offender also pleaded guilty to possession of fentanyl for the purpose of trafficking.

The court considered the serious aggravating factors of the public shooting alongside mitigating factors, including guilty pleas, youth, and exceptionally harsh pre-sentence custody conditions exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Global sentences of 6 years were imposed for two offenders and 7.5 years for the third, before applying enhanced credit for pre-sentence custody.

During a jury trial for importing a controlled substance, the accused brought a Corbett application to prevent the Crown from cross-examining her on a prior conviction for unlawful possession of an identity document.

The court weighed the factors, noting the prior conviction was a crime of dishonesty highly relevant to credibility, not overly remote, and dissimilar to the current charge.

The court dismissed the application, finding the probative value outweighed the prejudicial impact, and held that a limiting instruction to the jury would adequately protect the accused's right to a fair trial.

The court sentenced the offender for a sexual assault committed against a co-worker who had driven him home after a work shift.

The assault involved persistent sexual advances, forced kissing, and digital vaginal penetration in the complainant's car, and the court treated breach of trust, degradation of sexual integrity, and the need for denunciation and deterrence as significant sentencing factors.

Although the offender had later been convicted of other sexual offences connected to the same workplace, the court held under the Coke principle that those later convictions could not be used as aggravating factors for this offence.

Applying the totality principle in light of the offender's existing consecutive penitentiary sentences, the court imposed a further consecutive sentence of 15 months, three years' probation, a lifetime SOIRA order, and a DNA order.

The applicants sought certiorari to quash an order committing them to stand trial for attempted murder and related offences concerning an unidentified passenger in a taxi.

They conceded there was sufficient evidence to commit them regarding the identified passenger, but argued there was no evidence they targeted the unidentified passenger.

The reviewing court found that circumstantial evidence, including a plural racial slur and continued shooting after the identified passenger was hit, provided the requisite scintilla of evidence to support the committal.

The application was dismissed.

In a judge-alone sexual assault trial involving two co-worker complainants, the Crown sought admission of extrinsic similar fact evidence from two other incidents and also sought count-to-count use of the complainants' evidence.

Applying the similar fact framework from *Handy*, the court excluded the extrinsic incidents because their probative value did not outweigh prejudice, but allowed count-to-count use of the two charged incidents based on their persuasive degree of connection.

On the merits, the court found the accused's evidence concerning one complainant incredible and accepted that complainant's account beyond a reasonable doubt, resulting in a conviction on one count.

The court was left with a reasonable doubt on the second count because of material credibility and reliability concerns affecting that complainant's evidence, and entered an acquittal on that count.

The offender pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine, obstructing a police officer, and breach of recognizance after a traffic stop where he gave a false name and was found with 25 grams of cocaine.

The Crown sought 10 months' custody, while the defence sought time served based on pre-trial custody and strict bail conditions.

The court sentenced the offender to four months' custody, credited as time served, plus 12 months of probation, noting his rehabilitation efforts and guilty plea.

The accused brought a Charter application to exclude a loaded handgun found in his satchel during an investigative detention.

The detention occurred in the hallway outside an apartment where police were executing a search warrant.

The police claimed they had grounds to detain the accused because an occupant of the apartment yelled at the accused's companion.

However, elevator video evidence contradicted the police timeline, showing the accused was detained within seconds of exiting the elevator.

The court found the police officers colluded and fabricated evidence to justify the unlawful detention.

The court found breaches of ss. 8, 9, and 10(a) of the Charter and excluded the firearm under s. 24(2).

Following a jury verdict finding the applicant guilty of firearms and drug offences, the applicant brought a post-verdict application for a stay of proceedings under s. 7 and s. 24(1) of the Charter.

The applicant alleged that a police officer breached an order excluding witnesses and lied about it, amounting to an abuse of process.

The court dismissed the application, holding that it lacked jurisdiction to entertain the application post-verdict because the alleged conduct engaged trial fairness concerns and should have been raised before the verdict.

In the alternative, the court found as a fact that the officer did not breach the order or lie.

The accused was convicted of multiple firearms and drug offences, including selling firearms to an undercover officer and possessing significant quantities of fentanyl and crack cocaine for the purpose of trafficking.

The court emphasized denunciation and deterrence, noting the danger of guns and fentanyl in the community.

Applying the principle of totality, the court imposed a global sentence of 11 years' imprisonment, less credit for pre-sentence custody and strict bail, resulting in 10 years and 140 days remaining to be served.