Katherine Marie Beaudoin

Mitchell Dubros, a private investigator, was found guilty by a jury of wilfully attempting to obstruct the course of justice.

He was retained by a client's lawyer to gather information on a complainant, Cynthia Mulligan, but instead directly approached Mulligan and her associates, making implied threats to dissuade her from testifying against his client.

The court considered the gravity of the offence, which struck at the heart of the justice system, alongside mitigating factors such as Dubros' lack of criminal record, age, and mental health challenges.

The Crown sought a penitentiary sentence of 3-3.5 years, while the defence sought a 6-month conditional sentence.

The court imposed an 18-month reformatory imprisonment term, followed by three years of probation, balancing the need for denunciation and general deterrence with the offender's rehabilitative prospects.

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 appellant was convicted of four counts of indecent assault and sentenced to two years' imprisonment.

He appealed both conviction and sentence but passed away shortly after perfecting the appeal.

The parties jointly consented to dismiss the appeal as abated.

The Court of Appeal applied the test for moot appeals and found no exceptional circumstances or continuing controversy that would justify departing from the general rule that the death of an accused renders an appeal moot.

The appeals were dismissed as abated without adjudication on the merits.

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.

The accused, an off-duty police officer, was charged with sexual assault after allegedly brushing his fingers against the complainant's inner thigh in a crowded beer tent.

The Crown relied on circumstantial evidence, as no one witnessed the touching.

The court found that while the touching occurred by the accused's hand, there was a reasonable doubt as to whether it was deliberate or accidental.

Evidence of the accused's significant intoxication, unsteady gait, and uncoordinated movements supported a reasonable inference that the brief touching was accidental.

The accused was found not guilty.

The Crown appealed from directed acquittals on charges of break and enter, pointing a firearm, and forcible confinement arising from an alleged assault on Alex Gingras.

The trial judge had granted a directed verdict motion at the end of the Crown's case.

The respondent did not appeal his convictions on other charges.

The Court of Appeal found that the trial judge improperly assessed the credibility and reliability of the Crown witness and that there was evidence capable of supporting convictions on all three counts.

The court rejected the respondent's alternative argument that the verdicts would necessarily have been the same had the trial judge properly refused the directed verdict motion, as it could not assume the respondent would not have testified.

The appeals were allowed, the acquittals were set aside, and a new trial was ordered.

The appellant was convicted of possession of a firearm knowing it to be obtained by crime under s. 96(1) of the Criminal Code.

On appeal, the appellant raised two grounds of appeal: (1) that the trial judge erred in finding the appellant's police statement voluntary, arguing it was tainted by an earlier involuntary statement to a non-police actor; and (2) that the admission of evidence derived from the involuntary statement rendered the trial unfair.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no error in the trial judge's application of the derived confessions rule and no trial fairness concerns arising from the admission of the impugned evidence.

The appellant appealed two dispositions of the Ontario Review Board following his finding of not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder for offences committed in January 2016.

The Board found the appellant suffered from delusional disorder and posed a significant threat to public safety, ordering his detention on a secure forensic unit.

The appellant sought an absolute discharge or conditional discharge to return to the community.

Amicus curiae argued the hearings were procedurally unfair and the disposition was unreasonable.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal from the Initial Disposition as moot and upheld the Current Disposition, finding the Board conducted a fair inquisitorial hearing and the detention decision was reasonable and supported by evidence.

The appellant appealed his conviction on the ground that the verdict was unreasonable and unsupported by the evidence.

The trial judge had convicted the appellant of several offences arising from his conduct at his father's business premises, where he appeared agitated, made gestures suggesting he was armed, and a loaded handgun was subsequently found at the rear of the building.

The Court of Appeal upheld the conviction, finding that the case was circumstantial in nature but that the trier of fact could reasonably conclude that the appellant's guilt was the only reasonable conclusion on the totality of the evidence.

The appellant was convicted of historic sexual offences against his cousin committed when she was a young girl.

He was sentenced to two years less a day in jail and three years' probation.

The appellant appealed his conviction arguing the trial judge engaged in an unbalanced approach to evidence resulting in a reversal of the burden of proof and failure to give effect to the presumption of innocence.

The Crown sought leave to appeal the sentence, arguing the trial judge improperly applied Gladue principles and underemphasized deterrence and denunciation.

The Court of Appeal dismissed both the conviction appeal and the sentence appeal.

The Crown appealed a sentencing decision that imposed concurrent victim surcharges on an offender convicted of two counts of theft under $5,000.

The central issue was whether sentencing judges have discretion to impose victim surcharges concurrently or whether surcharges must be imposed separately for each offence.

The Court of Appeal held that victim surcharges are imposed automatically by statute for each and every offence, and sentencing judges have no discretion to order concurrent surcharges.

The court distinguished surcharges from time-based sentences and fines, finding that the legislative history and statutory language clearly demonstrate Parliament's intent that surcharges be imposed for each conviction.

The appellant was convicted of three counts of sexual assault and related charges involving alleged sexual abuse of his stepson when the victim was nine or ten years old.

The victim reported the allegations approximately eight years later.

The appellant appealed his convictions on the grounds that the verdicts were unreasonable and that the trial judge erred in various aspects of his credibility assessment and reasoning.

The Court of Appeal upheld the convictions, finding that the verdicts were reasonable, the trial judge properly assessed credibility, and there were no errors in the application of the relevant legal principles.

The appellant was convicted of possession of child pornography and making child pornography available following a trial by judge and jury.

The conviction on the first count was stayed under R. v. Kienapple.

The appellant was sentenced to 21 months in jail plus three years' probation on the second count.

On appeal, the appellant challenged his conviction on the making available count on two grounds: first, that the trial judge failed to adequately rectify the Crown's violation of the rule in Browne v. Dunn regarding cross-examination of a defence witness; and second, that the trial judge's W.(D.) instruction was improperly limited to the appellant's testimony.

The Court of Appeal dismissed both grounds and upheld the conviction.

The appellant was convicted of assault, possession of a weapon (a knife), aggravated assault, and breach of probation following an incident with her then-boyfriend.

She was sentenced to two years' imprisonment on the aggravated assault conviction and 30 days concurrent for breach of probation.

On appeal, the appellant challenged the trial judge's rejection of her self-defence claim.

The Court of Appeal upheld the conviction, finding that the trial judge properly considered and rejected the self-defence argument on the merits based on the evidence she accepted.

The appellant failed to demonstrate any palpable and overriding error in the trial judge's factual findings or inferences.

The appellant appealed a sentencing decision imposing a conditional sentence of six months followed by one year probation for two Criminal Code offences related to applying for and using a false passport.

The appellant argued the sentencing judge erred in law or principle in refusing to impose a conditional discharge by failing to properly consider the "public interest" factor under section 730 of the Criminal Code.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the sentencing judge's conclusion that a conditional discharge was not in the public interest was entirely warranted given the appellant's use of a fraudulent passport to make multiple entries into the United States.

The respondent pleaded guilty to making child pornography for the purpose of publication.

The trial judge found that the respondent's rights under ss. 7 and 9 of the Charter were breached due to mistreatment in custody and a delayed bail hearing.

Invoking s. 24(1) of the Charter, the trial judge imposed a 21-month conditional sentence, overriding the one-year mandatory minimum sentence and the statutory prohibition on conditional sentences for this offence.

The Crown appealed.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, finding the trial judge erred in finding the Charter breaches and in using s. 24(1) to impose a sentence outside statutory limits.

A 21-month prison sentence was substituted but stayed as the respondent had already served the conditional sentence.

The accused pleaded guilty to internet child luring.

Following his arrest, police issued a media release that disclosed his HIV-positive status, which they had learned from a lawful search of his vehicle.

At trial, the judge found the disclosure violated the accused's section 7 Charter rights, refused a stay of proceedings, but imposed a conditional sentence below the mandatory minimum as a section 24(1) remedy.

On appeal, the Court of Appeal upheld the refusal of the stay but found the trial judge erred in finding a section 7 breach, as the disclosure did not have a serious and profound effect on the accused's psychological integrity beyond the stress of the charges themselves.

The Court also held that a sentence reduction below the statutory minimum was not an appropriate remedy.

The Crown's sentence appeal was allowed, and the sentence was varied to one year of imprisonment, but stayed as the accused had already served the conditional sentence.

The Crown appealed a Summary Conviction Appeal Court decision that had overturned the accused's conviction for having care or control of a vehicle while impaired.

The Court of Appeal found that the SCAC impermissibly substituted its own factual findings for those of the trial judge regarding whether the accused posed a realistic risk of danger.

The Court of Appeal also held that the SCAC erred by deciding the appeal on the unargued ground of insufficient reasons.

The appeal was allowed and the conviction restored.