John Stuart Dick

The accused, Kyle Sparks-MacKinnon, was charged with second-degree murder.

He admitted to fatally shooting the victim but claimed self-defence, asserting the victim pointed a gun at him.

The Crown argued the accused shot the victim while he was in his car, in retaliation for prior incidents.

The court found that while the accused's credibility was questionable on some points, his testimony, supported by other evidence, raised a reasonable doubt regarding whether he faced a threat of force from the victim.

Despite the accused's significant role in instigating the confrontation by brandishing an illegal firearm, the court concluded that his response of using lethal force when facing a threat of death was not unreasonable in the circumstances.

The applicant, Dejan Mitrovic, sought a stay of proceedings under section 11(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms due to unreasonable delay.

The charges stemmed from a large criminal organization investigation (Project Sizzle) involving drug trafficking and conspiracy.

The court calculated the gross delay from arrest to projected end of trial as 31 months and 28 days.

After deducting periods attributable to defence delay (unavailability of counsel, failure to complete pre-trial reports, preliminary inquiry scheduling issues) and exceptional circumstances (preliminary inquiry judge's deliberation time), the net delay was found to be 27.5 months, which is below the 30-month presumptive ceiling established in R. v. Jordan.

The applicant failed to demonstrate that he took meaningful steps to expedite the proceedings or that the case took markedly longer than it reasonably should have.

Consequently, the application for a stay was dismissed.