Katherine Marie Beaudoin

The appellants, a police officer and an employee of the Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee, were convicted of defrauding an elderly man's estate using a fabricated will.

They appealed their convictions and sentences, arguing errors in the trial judge's refusal to stay proceedings for a Charter breach, admission of after-the-fact conduct evidence regarding the concealment of their affair, and an unbalanced jury charge.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeals, finding no error in the trial judge's evidentiary rulings, jury instructions, or the sentences imposed.

The accused, a personal support worker, was convicted of sexually assaulting a vulnerable patient in a psychiatric ward.

The summary conviction appeal judge overturned the conviction, finding the trial judge's reasons insufficient on the issues of non-consent and vitiation of consent.

The Crown appealed.

The Court of Appeal agreed the reasons on subjective non-consent were insufficient due to a failure to address conflicting evidence.

However, the Court held the appeal judge erred in her interpretation of s. 273.1(2)(c) of the Criminal Code.

The trial judge was entitled to find, in the alternative, that any apparent consent was vitiated by the accused's abuse of his position of trust, and inducement could be inferred from the circumstances.

The conviction was restored.

The appellant appealed his convictions for assault and his 34-month sentence arising from intimate partner violence.

He argued the trial judge erred in instructing the jury on myths and stereotypes regarding delayed reporting and returning to an abusive relationship.

The Court of Appeal found no legal error, concluding the jury was properly equipped to assess credibility.

The court also dismissed the sentence appeal but reduced the sentence by one month to remedy post-conviction Charter breaches involving arbitrary detention and an unlawful strip search after bail pending appeal was granted.

The accused, a dermatologist, was charged with sexual assault in relation to five patients who alleged he intentionally touched them in a sexual manner during medical examinations.

The Crown brought a similar fact application to admit the evidence of each complainant across all counts, which the court allowed.

However, applying the W.(D.) framework and assessing the circumstantial evidence, the court found the complainants' evidence unreliable due to inconsistencies and the possibility of tainting from media reports.

The court concluded there was a reasonable possibility that the physical contact was inadvertent and incidental to the close-proximity medical examinations.

The accused was found not guilty.

The appellant appealed convictions for human trafficking, assault, and related offences following a jury trial.

The appellant argued the trial judge erred by admitting prior discreditable conduct evidence, creating procedural unfairness by prematurely sharing defence counsel's closing position summary, and improperly instructing the jury to disregard parts of the defence closing submissions due to a breach of the rule in Browne v. Dunn.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no error in the trial judge's evidentiary rulings, no severe procedural unfairness, and deference to the trial judge's remedial action for the Browne v. Dunn breach.

The moving party sought an extension of time to appeal two lifetime SOIRA registration orders imposed following convictions for prostitution-related offences.

The Crown consented to the extension.

The motion judge found a strong argument that the orders were made without lawful authority, as the offences were designated offences that did not permit mandatory lifetime orders.

The motion judge granted the extension of time, leaving potential jurisdictional issues regarding the appeal route to be determined by a full panel.

The appellant challenged convictions on three sexual assault counts and the custodial and ancillary sentencing orders.

The court held that the trial reasons adequately applied the reasonable doubt framework, addressed credibility and reliability concerns arising from complainant incapacity, and permitted meaningful appellate review.

It further held that the custodial term was fit, declined to admit fresh evidence concerning family caregiving circumstances, and upheld the 20-year SOIRA order as properly imposed under the governing statutory regime at sentencing.

A constitutional remedy request regarding registration obligations was left to a court of first instance due to an insufficient record.

Both conviction and sentence appeals were dismissed.

The appellant was convicted of child luring, invitation to sexual touching, making child pornography, criminal harassment, and uttering a death threat against a 12-year-old girl in Manitoba.

The main contested issue at trial was identity.

The trial judge found the appellant guilty as charged and imposed a net sentence of three years' imprisonment.

The appellant appealed both his convictions and sentence.

The Court of Appeal dismissed both appeals, finding that the circumstantial evidence linking the appellant to the Snapchat account and phone numbers was overwhelming, and that the trial judge's reasoning path could be readily discerned from the evidence as a whole despite sparse reasons.

The court also found no reversible error in the trial judge's refusal to adjourn sentencing to permit a post-conviction Charter application.

The appellant was convicted after a jury trial of multiple criminal offences involving domestic abuse and sexual assault of his former domestic partner.

He appealed his convictions on two grounds: (1) that the jury charge on myths and stereotypes was imbalanced and insufficient, and (2) that the jury instruction on prior consistent statements was inadequate.

He also sought leave to appeal his five-year sentence for sexual assault, arguing it was excessive and based on a misapprehension of evidence regarding his conduct in other relationships.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding the jury charge, while not perfect, was functional and equipped jurors to decide the case according to law.

The court granted leave to appeal the sentence but dismissed the sentence appeal, finding the five-year term was not demonstrably unfit given the severity of the offence and the offender's moral culpability.

The appellant appealed his conviction for second-degree murder, arguing that the trial judge's jury charge relating to after-the-fact conduct evidence failed to properly equip the jury to decide the case according to law and the evidence.

The Crown presented extensive evidence of the appellant's conduct in the hours following the killing, including exchanges with neighbours, apparent attempts at concealment, admissions to friends, and various activities at commercial establishments.

The trial judge failed to provide a limiting instruction restricting the jury's use of this evidence solely to the issue of intoxication and rational mindset, instead inviting the jury to consider it broadly in determining the appellant's mens rea for murder.

The trial judge also failed to address the risks of consciousness of guilt reasoning and invited the jury to infer callous disregard as evidence of intent to kill.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, finding three reversible errors in the jury charge.

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 appellant, D.S., appealed convictions for two counts of sexual assault and two counts of sexual interference involving his niece, T.S. The appeal raised four grounds: the trial judge's reliance on similar fact evidence, misapprehension of the complainant's credibility, illogical reasoning in rejecting the appellant's evidence, and the unreasonableness of the convictions.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, affirming the trial judge's proper application of similar fact evidence principles from R. v. Handy and upholding the credibility findings, noting the high bar for appellate intervention on such matters as per R. v. Kruk.

The applicant, convicted of first-degree murder, sought bail pending his conviction appeal.

The Crown opposed the application based on the public interest criterion.

The court applied the three-part test under s. 679(3) of the Criminal Code, requiring the applicant to show the appeal is not frivolous, they will surrender, and detention is not necessary in the public interest.

While the surrender criterion was met, the court found the grounds of appeal weak, particularly the ineffective assistance of counsel claim.

Considering the gravity of the first-degree murder offence, its heinous circumstances (murder-for-hire), and the applicant's dangerousness, the court concluded that the reviewability interest did not outweigh the enforceability interest, and public confidence in the administration of justice would be undermined by release.

The application for bail was dismissed.

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.

A York Regional Police officer, Jordan Nesbitt, was charged with breach of trust, fabricating evidence, and attempting to obstruct justice following a vehicle search.

The Crown alleged he planted cocaine and falsified reports to justify an unlawful search.

The court found that the Crown failed to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt, citing issues with witness credibility, the integrity of the scene, and plausible alternative explanations for the presence of substances.

The defendant was acquitted on all counts.

The Crown appealed the acquittal of the respondent on a sexual assault charge.

The appeal argued that the trial judge erred in analyzing the complainant's capacity to consent and subjective consent, specifically by misapplying the test for capacity and failing to consider all evidence, and by taking an "all or nothing" approach to subjective consent.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no error in the trial judge's application of the G.F. framework for capacity to consent or in his assessment of subjective consent, noting that a trial judge is not required to explicitly address every item of evidence.

The appellant, F.C., appealed convictions for 12 sex-related offences, raising two grounds: the trial judge's denial of a severance motion and an alleged improper jury charge on the human trafficking offence.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no error in the trial judge's holistic application of the R. v. Last factors for severance, nor in the jury instruction on human trafficking, which was deemed sufficient given the factual context and absence of trial counsel objection.

The appellant, Matthew Paik, initiated private prosecutions against six police officers, alleging they illegally preserved surveillance video.

The Crown intervened to withdraw these charges, asserting a lack of reasonable and probable grounds for prosecution.

Paik sought certiorari in the Superior Court, arguing the Crown's intervention was in bad faith and an abuse of process.

The Superior Court dismissed his application, finding the Crown's actions appropriate and no evidence of bad faith.

Paik appealed this decision, as well as an earlier order concerning the disclosure of police officers' birth dates.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, affirming the Crown's discretion to withdraw private prosecutions when reasonable and probable grounds are absent, and noting the appellant failed to demonstrate bad faith or abuse of process.

The court also found the appeal regarding the disclosure of birth dates to be moot given the withdrawal of the underlying charges.

The appellant, Aayush Choudhary, appealed his conviction for sexually assaulting a 16-year-old complainant.

He argued the trial judge erred by excluding evidence of other sexual activity under s. 276 of the Criminal Code, failing to resolve material inconsistencies in the complainant's evidence, and misapprehending material evidence.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario dismissed the appeal, upholding the trial judge's decision that the "kitchen incident" sexual activity was distinct from the charged offence and properly screened under s. 276.

The court found no material inconsistencies in the complainant's testimony and concluded that any misapprehensions of evidence by the trial judge were inconsequential to the conviction, as the complainant had verbally communicated non-consent.