Julianna Greenspan

The appellant appealed his summary convictions for two counts of sexual assault against a mother and daughter during acupuncture treatments.

The appeal was based on alleged errors in credibility findings, uneven scrutiny of evidence, failure to declare a mistrial due to a post-verdict civil claim, and impermissible stereotypical reasoning.

The Superior Court of Justice found that while the trial judge's credibility findings and dismissal of the mistrial application were reasonable, the trial judge erred in law by relying on impermissible stereotypical reasoning regarding the likelihood of a civil claim based on masturbation.

This error reversed the burden of proof.

The appeal was granted, the convictions were set aside, and a new trial was ordered.

The Crown sought to introduce historical text messages sent by the accused to his wife, which were obtained by police pursuant to a valid general warrant.

The accused sought to exclude the messages on the basis of spousal privilege under s. 4(3) of the Canada Evidence Act and s. 189(6) of the Criminal Code.

The court dismissed the application, holding that spousal privilege is a testimonial privilege that protects a spouse from being compelled to testify, but does not render the communications themselves inadmissible when independently and lawfully obtained by police.

The Attorney General of Canada, on behalf of the United States, brought a second application for the extradition of the respondent on charges of cross-border internet child sexual exploitation.

The first committal order was quashed on appeal due to insufficient evidence linking the respondent to the IP address.

In this second application, relying on both American and Canadian-gathered evidence, the court found sufficient circumstantial evidence to support the reasonable inference that the respondent committed the offences using his laptop and IP address.

The respondent's applications for further disclosure and Charter exclusion having been dismissed, the court ordered his committal for extradition.

The Republic of Poland sought the extradition of the applicant for fraud-related offences.

The applicant applied for a stay of proceedings, alleging abuse of process on the basis that Canada had previously attempted a 'disguised extradition' through deportation proceedings at Poland's behest, and that the Attorney General of Canada had engaged in prosecutorial misconduct by improperly withholding relevant documents.

The court found that the deportation proceedings were indeed a disguised extradition initiated solely to appease Poland, and that the Attorney General's defiance of a production order constituted an abuse of process.

A stay of proceedings was granted.