Jeff Casey

Criminal appeal from an order setting aside an acquittal and directing a new trial after the trial judge limited both sides to four peremptory challenges and denied the Crown any stand bys.

The Supreme Court held, by majority, that the Crown's substantially greater ability to shape the jury through stand bys and peremptory challenges created a reasonable apprehension of partiality and infringed the accused's right to a fair hearing by an impartial tribunal under s. 11(d) of the Charter.

The infringement was not justified under s. 1.

The Court also held that statements made after counsel had been retained were properly excluded because the police response to the accused's inquiry about contact from his father was misleading in the circumstances.

The appeal was allowed and the acquittal restored.

The appellant was convicted of aggravated assault based in part on wiretap evidence.

The trial judge admitted the evidence without opening the sealed packet.

The Court of Appeal opened and edited the packet but denied the appellant the right to cross-examine the affiant.

The Supreme Court of Canada allowed the appeal and ordered a new trial, holding that the appellant had established a basis to cross-examine the affiant because the affidavit was misleading regarding the use of a police informant, which bore directly on whether other investigative procedures were unlikely to succeed.

The appellant was found intoxicated in the driver's seat of a stolen vehicle and charged with having care or control of a motor vehicle while impaired.

At trial, he was acquitted on the basis that he was too intoxicated to form the requisite intent.

The Court of Appeal set aside the acquittal.

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the appeal, holding that the offence of having care or control while impaired is a general intent offence for which voluntary intoxication is not a defence.

The Court further held that the unavailability of the intoxication defence for this offence does not violate sections 7 or 11(d) of the Charter, or alternatively, any such violation is justified under section 1.

The appellant was charged with counselling theft and fraud after offering a hotel security guard money to obtain confidential information containing the names and addresses of hotel employees for a union.

The Supreme Court of Canada held that confidential information does not qualify as property for the purposes of the theft provisions in the Criminal Code, as it cannot be taken or converted in a manner that deprives the owner.

The Court also held that the conduct did not amount to fraud, as the hotel had no intention of dealing commercially with the information and thus faced no risk of economic deprivation.

The appeal was allowed and the acquittals restored.

The appellant appealed a decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal that set aside his acquittal on a charge of dangerous driving and ordered a new trial.

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the appeal, agreeing that the Court of Appeal did not err in rejecting the trial judge's finding that the accused drove as he did 'probably out of necessity'.

The respondents were charged with defrauding two sole proprietorships through a factoring scheme involving false invoices.

The trial judge directed a verdict of acquittal, finding that sole proprietorships are not 'persons' capable of being defrauded under the Criminal Code, and refused the Crown's motion to amend the indictment due to irreparable prejudice to the defence.

The Court of Appeal upheld the acquittals.

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the Crown's appeal, holding that the trial judge's refusal to amend should not be interfered with and that there was no evidence the registered owner of the proprietorships suffered any actual risk of prejudice to her economic interests.