Jennifer Trehearne

During a trial for first degree murder, the accused brought two motions seeking further instructions to the jury at the end of the jury charge.

The first motion sought an instruction to disregard evidence elicited in re-examination regarding the accused's prior interest in firearms.

The second motion sought an instruction that the Crown's failure to call the accused's girlfriend as a witness constituted a gap in the evidence providing a basis for reasonable doubt.

The trial judge dismissed both motions, finding that the re-examination evidence was necessary to correct a false impression left during cross-examination, and that the failure to call the witness did not leave a gap in the Crown's case as she was an unnecessary and unreliable witness.

The accused, charged with first degree murder, brought a motion to override the Attorney General's refusal to consent to a judge alone trial under s. 473(1) of the Criminal Code, arguing that extensive adverse pre-trial publicity from a prior murder conviction rendered a fair jury trial impossible.

The court dismissed the motion, finding that the demanding standard for Charter relief was not met and that traditional safeguards, including challenge for cause, should be attempted first.

The court granted the alternative motion to challenge prospective jurors for cause based on pre-trial publicity and approved a set of six questions for the jury selection process.

In a pre-trial motion for a first-degree murder trial, the Crown sought to admit various pieces of circumstantial evidence, including firearms purchases, text messages, and statements made by the accused.

The court applied the test of balancing probative value against prejudicial effect.

The court ruled that evidence of a handgun purchase shortly before the victim's disappearance was highly probative of intent and planning and thus admissible.

However, evidence of other firearms purchases and certain highly prejudicial text messages referring to other criminal activities were excluded or ordered to be edited.

Evidence of the financial relationship between the co-accused was deemed admissible to show the nature of their relationship.

In a pre-trial motion for a first-degree murder case, the defence sought to limit the scope and terminology of expert opinion evidence from two forensic anthropologists regarding photographs of objects burning in an incinerator.

The court granted the request to prohibit the experts from using potentially misleading terminology such as 'consistent with' or 'cannot exclude'.

However, the court dismissed the defence's challenge to one expert's qualifications to opine on the differences between human and deer bones, finding she met the threshold for expertise, subject to a brief voir dire at trial.

The Crown and one of the co-accused brought a joint pre-trial motion to admit numerous out-of-court statements made by the alleged murder victim prior to her disappearance.

The statements were tendered either for their truth under the principled exception to the hearsay rule and the state of mind exception, or as non-hearsay circumstantial evidence.

The court admitted most of the statements, finding them substantively reliable or relevant to the declarant's state of mind, but excluded certain statements alleging prior assaults as unreliable and irrelevant.

The Crown brought pre-trial motions to admit similar fact evidence and discreditable conduct evidence in a first-degree murder trial.

The Crown sought to introduce evidence of the accused's prior murder conviction involving the disposal of remains in an incinerator, as well as prior criminal acts, text messages, and rap lyrics.

The court dismissed the similar fact motion, finding the moral prejudice of introducing a prior murder outweighed its probative value.

The court also excluded most of the discreditable conduct evidence, but allowed an edited calendar entry and the first verse of a rap song that had a strong circumstantial link to the alleged disposal of the victim's body.

The applicants, jointly charged with first degree murder, brought pre-trial motions for severance and for a stay of proceedings due to unreasonable delay under s. 11(b) of the Charter.

The court dismissed the severance motion, finding that the interests of justice favoured a joint trial and that any prejudice from out-of-court statements could be managed with limiting instructions.

The court also dismissed the s. 11(b) motion, calculating the net delay at 29 months after deducting 15 months for the discrete event of a concurrent murder trial involving the same accused.

Alternatively, the court found the delay justified by the case's exceptional complexity and transitional provisions.