James Stribopoulos

The appellant was convicted of multiple firearms offences after police found guns in a duffle bag at his mother's house.

On appeal, he argued the trial judge erred by admitting a recanting witness's videotaped statement under the principled exception to the hearsay rule, by improperly using his pre-trial silence to reject his testimony, and by entering multiple convictions for the same delict.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal against the convictions, finding the hearsay statement met threshold reliability and the trial judge did not rely on pre-trial silence.

However, the court applied the Kienapple principle to enter conditional stays on several duplicate counts.

The appellant appealed his convictions for assault, firearms offences, and drug trafficking, as well as his sentence.

He argued the trial judge erred in admitting the complainant's videotaped statement under the KGB framework and that he received ineffective assistance of counsel when his lawyer agreed to an Agreed Statement of Facts that undermined his testimony.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding the videotaped statement was properly admitted and there was no miscarriage of justice regarding counsel's conduct.

The sentence appeal was allowed to the extent of setting aside the probation order, as a subsequent sentence made the total a penitentiary sentence.

The appellants appealed the dismissal of their application for a declaration that sections 7(3)(d)(i) and 7(3)(h.2) of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) violate section 8 of the Charter.

The Royal Bank of Canada had obtained information from the Toronto Dominion Bank regarding fraudulent mortgage transactions involving the appellants' trust accounts, which it used to obtain a Mareva injunction.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that PIPEDA regulates private organizations and does not transform them into state agents, thus section 8 of the Charter was not engaged.

Furthermore, the appellants lacked a reasonable expectation of privacy in the records.

The appellant appealed his conviction for enticing a person under 14 years of age and his subsequent designation as a dangerous offender.

The appellant argued the trial judge erred in finding the actus reus and mens rea of the offence, specifically regarding the element of 'enticing' and the subjective intent to deprive a parent of possession.

On the sentence appeal, the appellant challenged the finding that the predicate offence was a serious personal injury offence, the admission of evidence regarding prior acquitted conduct, and the dangerous offender designation over a long-term offender designation.

The Court of Appeal dismissed both the conviction and sentence appeals, finding no error in the trial judge's assessment of the evidence, the application of the legal elements, or the conclusion that the appellant's psychopathy and pedophilia posed an ongoing danger requiring an indeterminate sentence.

The appellants appealed their convictions.

The Crown conceded that the trial judge erred in foreclosing the appellants from challenging the factual underpinnings of the counselling to commit murder charges for which the appellant Vanderheyden stood convicted.

The Court of Appeal agreed, noting that the counselling convictions provided a significant boost to the credibility of two unsavoury witnesses.

The court found that the curative proviso could not be applied, as it could not be satisfied that Vanderheyden would not have testified had the trial judge ruled differently.

The appeal was allowed, convictions set aside, and a new trial ordered.

The appellant was convicted of attempted murder and robbery.

On appeal, he argued for the first time that his s. 10(b) Charter rights were violated when police elicited an unrecorded statement from him after he requested counsel but before he was given an opportunity to consult one.

The Court of Appeal allowed the issue to be raised, finding a sufficient evidentiary record and no prejudice to the Crown.

The Court held that subsequent recorded statements, taken after the appellant consulted counsel, were tainted by the initial breach due to their close temporal and contextual connection.

The statements were excluded under s. 24(2) as conscriptive evidence, and a new trial was ordered.

The appellant, a Canadian citizen, resisted extradition to the United States on charges of fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud.

The extradition judge had granted a stay of proceedings based on statements made by an American judge and prosecutor, which the Court of Appeal subsequently set aside.

Relying on the reasons given in the companion case of United States of America v. Cobb, the Supreme Court of Canada allowed the appeal and reinstated the order staying the extradition proceedings.

The appellant appealed his aggravated assault conviction arising from a group attack in which the Crown relied on party liability under s. 21(1)(b) of the Criminal Code.

During deliberations, the jury asked when any accused had first told police that the complainant had grabbed a co-accused by the testicles, and the trial judge answered only that there was no evidence on that point.

The Court of Appeal held that, in the circumstances, the answer was inadequate because it failed to explain that the accused had no obligation to speak to police on arrest or testify at the preliminary hearing, and that no adverse inference could be drawn from silence.

The omission undermined the right to silence and may have materially affected the jury's assessment of the co-accused's defence, which in turn affected the appellant's conviction as a party.

The appeal was allowed, the conviction was set aside, and a new trial was ordered.

The appellant appealed convictions for first degree murder and related offences arising from the kidnapping, confinement, sexual assault, and deaths of two teenage victims.

He admitted the predicate offences and argued that another participant alone committed the killings, leaving him guilty only of manslaughter.

The court rejected challenges to the admission of similar fact evidence and expert evidence on battered woman syndrome, found no reversible error in the jury charge on burden of proof, party liability, or credibility, and upheld the jury selection procedure under s. 635(1) of the Criminal Code.

The appeal was dismissed in full.

The appellant challenged both conviction and sentence following a jury trial, arguing among other things that the trial judge's charge improperly referred to the accused's criminal record and that the response to a jury question was inadequate.

The court held that the impugned reference was evidently a mistaken attribution intended for another witness and, in any event, caused no prejudice in light of the context and overwhelming evidence.

The court further found no basis to conclude the jury was confused about the causal link between the assaults and bodily harm, and held the trial judge's answer was complete.

The conviction appeal was dismissed; leave to appeal sentence was granted, but the sentence appeal was also dismissed.

The appellant was convicted of second degree murder under the constructive murder provisions of the Criminal Code, which were subsequently struck down as unconstitutional.

After exhausting his appeals, the appellant applied for a writ of habeas corpus, arguing his continued detention violated the Charter.

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the appeal, holding that habeas corpus cannot be used as a collateral attack on a conviction by a superior court once the accused is no longer in the judicial system, and that the doctrine of res judicata applies.