Ken Lockhart

The appellant appealed his conviction for sexual assault, arguing the trial judge erred by allowing the Crown to call rebuttal evidence, failing to apply the W.(D.) framework to defence evidence, and admitting unauthenticated Snapchat screenshots.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the trial judge properly exercised her discretion to admit the rebuttal evidence as it responded to a new issue raised by the defence.

The court also found no error in the trial judge's application of the burden of proof or the admission of the electronic evidence, which met the low threshold for authentication.

The 30-year-old first offender was convicted of being a party to a sexual assault after digitally penetrating the complainant while she was physically restrained by another passenger in his vehicle.

The Crown sought a four-year sentence, while the defence argued for 18 months to two years less a day.

The court emphasized denunciation and deterrence given the gravity of the offence and the vulnerability of the victim, finding that digital penetration is as serious as penile penetration.

The offender was sentenced to three years' imprisonment, less credit for pre-sentence custody, along with mandatory ancillary orders.

The accused was charged with kidnapping, extortion, aggravated assault, and other offences following the targeted abduction and torture of the complainant.

The Crown's case on identity was entirely circumstantial, relying on video surveillance, financial transactions using the accused's account, and fingerprint evidence found in the complainant's stolen vehicle.

The court found that the cumulative effect of the circumstantial evidence established the accused's identity as a central participant in the kidnapping beyond a reasonable doubt.

The accused was found guilty on all counts, either as a principal, aider, or party to a common intention.

The appellant, a high school teacher, appealed his convictions for sexual assault and sexual exploitation involving two of his students.

He argued the trial judge misapprehended evidence regarding the physical impossibility of the assaults and applied a stricter standard of scrutiny to his testimony compared to the complainants' evidence.

The Superior Court of Justice dismissed the appeal, finding the trial judge's credibility assessments were well-reasoned, even-handed, and free from material misapprehension of evidence.

During a trial for first degree murder, the accused brought two motions seeking further instructions to the jury at the end of the jury charge.

The first motion sought an instruction to disregard evidence elicited in re-examination regarding the accused's prior interest in firearms.

The second motion sought an instruction that the Crown's failure to call the accused's girlfriend as a witness constituted a gap in the evidence providing a basis for reasonable doubt.

The trial judge dismissed both motions, finding that the re-examination evidence was necessary to correct a false impression left during cross-examination, and that the failure to call the witness did not leave a gap in the Crown's case as she was an unnecessary and unreliable witness.

The accused, charged with first degree murder, brought a motion to override the Attorney General's refusal to consent to a judge alone trial under s. 473(1) of the Criminal Code, arguing that extensive adverse pre-trial publicity from a prior murder conviction rendered a fair jury trial impossible.

The court dismissed the motion, finding that the demanding standard for Charter relief was not met and that traditional safeguards, including challenge for cause, should be attempted first.

The court granted the alternative motion to challenge prospective jurors for cause based on pre-trial publicity and approved a set of six questions for the jury selection process.

In a pre-trial motion for a first-degree murder trial, the Crown sought to admit various pieces of circumstantial evidence, including firearms purchases, text messages, and statements made by the accused.

The court applied the test of balancing probative value against prejudicial effect.

The court ruled that evidence of a handgun purchase shortly before the victim's disappearance was highly probative of intent and planning and thus admissible.

However, evidence of other firearms purchases and certain highly prejudicial text messages referring to other criminal activities were excluded or ordered to be edited.

Evidence of the financial relationship between the co-accused was deemed admissible to show the nature of their relationship.

The Crown and one of the co-accused brought a joint pre-trial motion to admit numerous out-of-court statements made by the alleged murder victim prior to her disappearance.

The statements were tendered either for their truth under the principled exception to the hearsay rule and the state of mind exception, or as non-hearsay circumstantial evidence.

The court admitted most of the statements, finding them substantively reliable or relevant to the declarant's state of mind, but excluded certain statements alleging prior assaults as unreliable and irrelevant.

The Crown brought pre-trial motions to admit similar fact evidence and discreditable conduct evidence in a first-degree murder trial.

The Crown sought to introduce evidence of the accused's prior murder conviction involving the disposal of remains in an incinerator, as well as prior criminal acts, text messages, and rap lyrics.

The court dismissed the similar fact motion, finding the moral prejudice of introducing a prior murder outweighed its probative value.

The court also excluded most of the discreditable conduct evidence, but allowed an edited calendar entry and the first verse of a rap song that had a strong circumstantial link to the alleged disposal of the victim's body.

The accused, Dellen Millard, brought a motion seeking a six-month adjournment of his first-degree murder trial to retain counsel and prepare for trial.

The trial was scheduled to commence in mid-October 2017, with pre-trial motions beginning in March 2017.

The court found that the accused had access to substantial private funds and had been given ample time—nearly two years—to retain counsel but had failed to act diligently.

The court also noted that a further adjournment would jeopardize the co-accused's right to a trial within a reasonable time under s. 11(b) of the Charter and the public interest in timely justice.

The motion for an adjournment was dismissed.

The applicants, jointly charged with first degree murder, brought pre-trial motions for severance and for a stay of proceedings due to unreasonable delay under s. 11(b) of the Charter.

The court dismissed the severance motion, finding that the interests of justice favoured a joint trial and that any prejudice from out-of-court statements could be managed with limiting instructions.

The court also dismissed the s. 11(b) motion, calculating the net delay at 29 months after deducting 15 months for the discrete event of a concurrent murder trial involving the same accused.

Alternatively, the court found the delay justified by the case's exceptional complexity and transitional provisions.

The accused brought an evidentiary motion in a criminal trial concerning whether statements allegedly acknowledging a nickname could be admitted as evidence of adoption.

A police officer testified that on several occasions the accused acknowledged being known by the nickname “Governor,” though the evidence was imprecise and unsupported by contemporaneous notes.

The court held that the alleged acknowledgements provided an evidential basis upon which a jury could determine whether the accused adopted the nickname, and the lack of specificity affected weight rather than admissibility.

The court also ruled that if the Crown elicited evidence of the alleged adoption, the defence would be permitted to cross‑examine on a prior denial of the nickname to avoid presenting an incomplete picture to the jury.

The accused brought an application to exclude statements made to police in Georgia following his arrest on a Canadian warrant for attempted murder and firearms offences.

The defence argued the statements were involuntary and contrary to the Charter and American law.

The court held the Crown failed to prove the voluntariness of statements made during a police station interview due to gaps in the evidentiary record concerning the accused’s treatment between arrest and questioning.

However, statements made at the time of arrest providing a false name and date of birth were admissible because they arose from routine identity questions following a lawful arrest and did not constitute investigative interrogation.

The court further confirmed that the Canadian Charter generally does not apply to foreign officials acting outside Canada, though foreign evidence may still be excluded if its admission would render the trial unfair.

The accused brought a motion to exclude evidence of an out-of-court identification arising from a 1996 police photo lineup.

The original photo array had been lost and could not be reconstructed, and the identification procedure had been conducted in a manner inconsistent with later Sophonow inquiry recommendations, including the absence of audio or video recording, use of an investigating officer who knew the suspect, and simultaneous presentation of photographs.

The court held that the procedure was fundamentally flawed and that the loss of the photo array created significant prejudice to the defence’s ability to challenge the identification.

Given the inability to assess the fairness of the lineup and the resulting prejudice, the court excluded the evidence of the photo identification.

The ruling noted that the issue could be revisited depending on developments at trial.

Pre‑trial Charter motions considered the admissibility of evidence arising from a police detention and search conducted in connection with a firearm investigation and search warrant.

The court found the Information to Obtain contained inaccurate, misleading, and incomplete information, and that police exceeded the lawful scope of investigative detention by questioning the accused and conducting searches for evidentiary purposes.

Applying s. 24(2) of the Charter and the framework in R. v. Grant, the court held that the seriousness of the Charter breaches and their impact on the accused’s liberty and privacy interests favoured exclusion of evidence obtained from the accused in the parking lot.

However, the accused failed to establish a reasonable expectation of privacy in the apartment searched under the warrant.

As a result, the firearm and ammunition recovered from the apartment were admissible, while the key, drugs, cash, and related utterances obtained from the detention were excluded.

The accused, a co-owner of a temporary employment agency, was charged with fraud over $5000, forgery, and using forged documents.

The Crown alleged that the accused defrauded the company by adding phantom former employees to the payroll draft, intercepting their cash pay envelopes, and forging their signatures on cash receipts.

The accused was also charged with forging letters from his business partner to provide to his conditional sentence supervisor to facilitate personal activities.

The court rejected the admission of similar fact evidence regarding a prior fraud conviction.

Applying the W.D. test, the court rejected the accused's testimony as incredible and accepted the evidence of the business partner and former employees.

The court found the accused guilty on all counts, concluding the Crown proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused perpetrated the fraud and forged the documents.