Katherine Beaudoin

The appellant appealed his first-degree murder conviction, arguing that his confession, obtained during a 13-hour police interrogation using the Reid Technique, should have been excluded.

The appellant and an intervener argued for a new common law rule creating a rebuttable presumption of involuntariness for confessions elicited via the Reid Technique.

The Court of Appeal declined to amend the confessions rule, finding the existing framework sufficient.

However, the Court allowed the appeal and ordered a new trial, finding the trial judge erred by failing to assess the cumulative effect of the prolonged, aggressive questioning and by making a palpable and overriding error of fact in concluding the appellant had not fallen asleep during the interrogation.

The appellant, convicted of sexual assault, brought an application before the Court of Appeal seeking production of post-charge police occurrence reports pertaining to the complainant.

The Court established a framework for third-party records applications brought for the first time on appeal, holding that while the Criminal Code's statutory regime does not strictly apply, its underlying principles must inform the appellate court's exercise of discretion.

The Court held that an applicant must first satisfy the two-part test for fresh evidence production, and if successful, the court must then weigh the statutory privacy factors.

The application was dismissed as the appellant failed to demonstrate a non-speculative link between the requested records and his proposed fresh evidence application.

The accused, a police officer charged with breach of trust and fabricating evidence, brought a motion to compel the Crown to call a fellow officer as a witness.

The Crown refused to call the officer, citing concerns about his reliability due to inconsistencies in his statements.

The court declined to order the Crown to call the witness, affirming the Crown's discretion.

However, given the witness's materiality and allegations that his statement was improperly influenced by an investigating detective, the court exercised its exceptional discretion to call the officer as the court's own witness, permitting both parties to cross-examine him with certain restrictions.

The accused, charged with sexual assault, brought an application under section 276 of the Criminal Code to adduce evidence of a subsequent sexual relationship with the complainant.

The accused argued the evidence was necessary to provide context for his narrative that the relationship was consensual from the outset, while the Crown opposed it as violating the twin-myth prohibitions.

The court granted the application in part, allowing evidence of the fact and nature of the subsequent sexual relationship to be admitted to assess credibility and context, but excluding details of specific sexual encounters.

A police officer was convicted of criminal negligence causing death and failing to provide the necessaries of life after an Indigenous woman died in his custody from a methamphetamine-induced heart attack.

The officer failed to obtain medical assistance and lied to other officers about her condition.

The court emphasized denunciation and deterrence, noting the breach of trust and the victim's vulnerability.

The officer was sentenced to 12 months in custody, with the necessaries of life conviction conditionally stayed.

The accused, charged with sexual assault, brought a Stage 1 application under section 276 of the Criminal Code to adduce evidence of a post-incident sexual relationship with the complainant.

The accused argued the evidence was necessary to contradict the complainant's narrative of their subsequent relationship and to support his defence that the initial encounter was the start of a consensual, months-long relationship.

The court found the proposed evidence was capable of being admissible as it did not rely on prohibited twin-myth reasoning and was relevant to the complainant's credibility and the narrative of the relationship.

The application was granted, moving the matter to a Stage 2 hearing.

The accused, a police officer, arrested a woman who was severely intoxicated by methamphetamine.

While she was in his custody, her condition deteriorated significantly, but he failed to seek medical assistance.

He subsequently transferred her to the custody of other officers and deliberately provided them with false and incomplete information about her medical condition, delaying medical intervention.

The detainee later died of methamphetamine toxicity.

The court found the accused guilty of failing to provide the necessaries of life and criminal negligence causing death, holding that his actions constituted a marked and substantial departure from the standard of care of a reasonably prudent police officer.