James C. Martin

The appellant was convicted of first degree murder following a trial in which the key witness refused to testify.

The trial judge admitted the witness's prior statements as hearsay under the principled approach, finding that threshold reliability had been established.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal.

Applying R. v. Bradshaw, 2017 SCC 35, a majority of the panel dismissed the appeal largely for the reasons of Dickson J.A., while Karakatsanis and Brown JJ. would have allowed the appeal substantially for the reasons of Bennett J.A. The appeal was dismissed and the first degree murder conviction upheld.

The Crown appealed a decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal which set aside the respondent's conviction for possessing marijuana and cocaine for the purposes of trafficking and ordered a new trial.

The central issue was whether a drug purchase call intercepted by police on the accused's cell phone constituted admissible evidence or inadmissible hearsay.

The Court held that implied assertions tendered for the truth of their contents are subject to the hearsay rule, just as express assertions are.

On a principled analysis, the single drug purchase call failed to meet the requirements of necessity and reliability, as no effort was made to locate the caller despite having his address, and the call lacked sufficient indicia of reliability.

The appeal was dismissed and a new trial ordered.

This criminal appeal considered whether a roadside detention in a police cruiser and a related pat-down search violated Charter protections against arbitrary detention and unreasonable search.

A majority found the pat-down search unconstitutional because securing the accused in the cruiser was not reasonably necessary in the circumstances.

The majority nevertheless admitted the cocaine evidence under section 24(2) based on good-faith conduct and evolving detention-law context.

The conviction for possession for the purpose of trafficking was upheld.

The appeal was dismissed with dissenting reasons favouring exclusion and acquittal.

The appellant was driving a rented SUV when he was pulled over by a police officer who mistakenly believed the vehicle required a front licence plate.

Despite realizing his error, the officer continued the detention, discovered the appellant's licence was suspended, arrested him, and searched the vehicle, finding 35 kg of cocaine.

The trial judge found breaches of ss. 8 and 9 of the Charter but admitted the evidence under s. 24(2).

The Court of Appeal upheld the conviction.

The Supreme Court of Canada allowed the appeal, applying the revised s. 24(2) framework from R. v. Grant.

The Court held that the police conduct was a brazen and flagrant disregard for Charter rights, aggravated by misleading testimony, and that admitting the evidence would bring the administration of justice into disrepute.

The evidence was excluded and an acquittal entered.

The appeal concerned an accused’s attempt to obtain police disciplinary records and criminal investigation files relating to the Crown’s principal police witness after conviction on drug charges.

The Court held that the common law O’Connor regime is the general mechanism for production of third party records and is not confined to cases involving a proven reasonable expectation of privacy.

It further held that privacy in criminal investigation files and police disciplinary records is contextual, not categorical.

The Court clarified that the investigating police force stands on the same first party footing as the Crown for disclosure purposes and must provide records of serious police misconduct where the misconduct is related to the investigation or could reasonably affect the case against the accused.

Because the underlying application had become moot, the appeal was allowed, the order below was set aside, and no further order was made.

The appellant appealed her conviction for possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking.

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the appeal from the bench, adopting the reasons of the majority of the Court of Appeal for Ontario.

The appellant was acquitted at trial of possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking after the trial judge excluded the drug evidence under s. 24(2) of the Charter, finding violations of ss. 8, 9, and 10(b).

The Court of Appeal set aside the acquittal and entered a conviction, concluding only s. 10(b) was violated and exclusion was unwarranted.

The Supreme Court of Canada allowed the appeal and restored the acquittal, holding that the Court of Appeal impermissibly substituted its own findings of fact for those of the trial judge, who made no reviewable error in finding the cumulative Charter violations warranted exclusion of the evidence.

The appellant appealed a decision of the Newfoundland and Labrador Court of Appeal, which had set aside his acquittal on a charge of possession of a controlled substance for the purpose of trafficking.

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the appeal, agreeing with the majority of the Court of Appeal that there was sufficient material before the Justice of the Peace to support the issuance of the search warrant.

The accused was acquitted of trafficking in cocaine and possession of proceeds of crime.

The Crown appealed, arguing the trial judge erred in his jury instructions regarding the admissibility of co-conspirator hearsay evidence under the Carter test.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and ordered a new trial.

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the accused's appeal, confirming that the trial judge made two clear misdirections in formulating the Carter test.

The Court held that the Crown met the heavy burden of establishing with reasonable certainty that, had the jury been properly charged, the verdict would not necessarily have been the same.

The appellants appealed their convictions, arguing that evidence obtained during an open-space search violated their rights under section 8 of the Charter.

The Supreme Court of Canada assumed, without deciding, that the search was unreasonable.

However, the Court upheld the Court of Appeal's finding that the admission of the evidence would not bring the administration of justice into disrepute.

The appeal was dismissed.