Julie Laborde

The appellant was acquitted of second degree murder and manslaughter at trial by judge alone after applying a chokehold to the deceased, who lost consciousness and died.

The trial judge found the Crown had not established the requisite subjective mens rea for murder, and that self-defence applied to the lesser included offence of manslaughter.

The Nunavut Court of Appeal allowed the Crown's appeal and ordered a new trial, finding errors of law in the trial judge's analysis of mens rea for murder and application of self-defence.

The Supreme Court of Canada allowed the further appeal and restored the acquittal, holding that the Crown's right to appeal an acquittal under s. 676(1)(a) of the Criminal Code is limited to questions of law alone, that the Court of Appeal failed to precisely identify any such error, and that there is no legal rule that a chokehold is always an inherently dangerous act requiring specific findings on mens rea.

The trial judge's self-defence analysis correctly applied an objective standard under each element of s. 34 of the Criminal Code.

The Crown appealed as of right on questions of law following the Quebec Court of Appeal's majority decision setting aside a manslaughter conviction of a police officer and ordering a new trial.

The majority of the Supreme Court agreed with the Court of Appeal that the trial judge erred in law by denying the accused's motion for disclosure of third-party records that met the threshold of likely relevance for full answer and defence.

The trial judge further erred in her treatment of evidence crucial to the accused and in her assessment of expert testimony concerning the accused's conduct as a police officer.

The Crown's appeal was dismissed, with two justices dissenting on both the disclosure and expert evidence issues.