Kevin Michael Rawluk

The appellant was convicted of human trafficking and related offences involving two young women.

He was sentenced to a global term of 14 years' imprisonment.

On appeal, he argued the sentencing judge underemphasized the mitigating factor of anti-Black racism and erred in applying the Morris framework to assess his moral blameworthiness.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the sentencing judge carefully balanced the appellant's experience with systemic racism against the extreme gravity and violence of the offences.

The court held that the sentence, while at the high end of the range, was fit and proportionate.

The appellant, who previously pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and had his sentence appeal and motion to extend time to appeal conviction dismissed, filed a habeas corpus application seeking immediate release.

He alleged irregularities in his guilty plea and complained about his conditions of confinement.

The application judge summarily dismissed the application as manifestly frivolous, noting it was an attempt to bypass the statutory review process and appeal his conviction out of time.

The Court of Appeal found no error in the application judge's analysis and dismissed the appeal.

The appellant appealed his five-year penitentiary sentence for offences including break and enter, criminal harassment, and firearms violations committed against his former spouse.

The trial judge treated the conduct as an escalating pattern of intimate partner violence and prioritized denunciation and deterrence.

The Court of Appeal found no error in principle, holding that the trial judge properly characterized the offences as intimate partner violence and appropriately weighed the aggravating factors, including the appellant's extensive record of breaching court orders.

The sentence was not demonstrably unfit.

The appellant was convicted of four counts of criminal harassment and one count of breach of release conditions.

During a court-ordered NCR assessment, the appellant made statements to a forensic psychiatrist.

The Crown introduced those statements at trial without a voir dire on admissibility under s. 672.21 of the Criminal Code, without first putting the statements to the appellant in cross-examination as required by ss. 10 and 11 of the Canada Evidence Act, and without disclosing its intention to use the statements for impeachment purposes.

The Court of Appeal held that the combined effect of these errors deprived the appellant of a fair trial, quashed the convictions, and ordered a new trial.

The appellant appealed his conviction for sexual assault, arguing the trial judge misapprehended evidence and failed to address inconsistencies in the complainant's testimony.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no palpable and overriding error in the trial judge's credibility assessments or factual findings.

The court noted the trial judge properly applied the W.(D.) framework, appropriately addressed the complainant's post-offence conduct, and correctly rejected the appellant's explanations regarding DNA evidence.

The appellant appealed his total sentence of 76 months for sexual exploitation, making child pornography, and voyeurism involving a 17-year-old complainant and multiple other victims secretly recorded in his home.

The appellant argued the trial judge erred by imposing a consecutive sentence for child pornography, treating elements of the offences as aggravating factors, and providing insufficient credit for harsh pre-sentence custody conditions.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the overall sentence fit under the totality principle and noting the trial judge's discretionary decisions were entitled to deference.

The appellant appealed his convictions and global sentence of eight years for sexual offences against three adolescent women.

The appellant argued the trial judge erred in admitting the testimony of each complainant as similar fact evidence across counts, specifically regarding the finding that accidental tainting had not occurred.

The Court of Appeal found no error in the trial judge's analysis, noting that the core allegations differed meaningfully and could not be the product of accidental tainting.

The sentence appeal was also dismissed, as the eight-year global sentence was fit given the breach of trust and vulnerability of the victims.

The appellant appealed his conviction on five counts (three counts of distributing intimate images without consent, one count of criminal harassment, and one count of sexual assault) on the basis that the trial judge erred in refusing to stay the conviction for delay contrary to s. 11(b) of the Charter.

The trial judge found that the net delay of 506 days did not exceed the 18-month presumptive ceiling established in Jordan by attributing 196 days to defence delay.

On appeal, the court reconsidered the attribution of three disputed periods of delay in light of subsequent Supreme Court and Court of Appeal decisions, ultimately finding that the net delay was 515 days, which remained within the reasonable time threshold for a provincial court trial.

The appellant appealed both his conviction for sexual assault and his sentence of two years and six months' imprisonment.

The trial judge found the appellant's testimony unreliable, evasive, inconsistent, and self-serving.

The trial judge also found that a text message sent by the appellant to the complainant after the incident, in which he said he was "sorry" multiple times, constituted an admission and was corroborative of the complainant's account.

The appellant argued that his use of the word "sorry" was culturally customary and not an apology.

The Court of Appeal found no basis for appellate intervention in the trial judge's credibility assessments and dismissed both the conviction appeal and the sentence appeal.

The appellant appealed his sentence of four years' imprisonment following conviction on three counts of sexual assault.

The offences occurred in 1989 and involved the appellant's 17-year-old niece whom he had sponsored to come to Canada from the Philippines.

The appellant threatened not to sponsor the complainant's mother and siblings if she revealed the assaults.

The Court of Appeal found no errors in principle by the sentencing judge and dismissed the sentence appeal.

Fresh evidence regarding the appellant's dementia was rejected as insufficient to warrant sentence reduction.

The appellant appealed his sentence imposed by the Ontario Court of Justice.

The Court of Appeal found that the trial judge erred in principle by holding that the conditions of the appellant's incarceration while completing his conditional sentence were not relevant in assessing Duncan/Marshall credit.

However, the court concluded that this error did not affect the fitness of the sentence given significant aggravating factors.

The appellant also complained about the failure to implement a plea deal, but the record showed the Crown was not prepared to proceed with it and defence counsel did not pursue it at trial.

Leave to appeal sentence was granted, but the sentence appeal was dismissed.

This is a sentence appeal by Brendan Bananish from a 7-year and 3-month global sentence (reduced to 24 months after credit), designation as a long-term offender, and an 8-year long-term supervision order, following a violent attack on an intimate partner.

The appellant raised several grounds of appeal, including alleged expert bias, dispute of prior conviction facts, and the fairness of the sentencing process.

The Court of Appeal found no merit in the grounds raised and dismissed the appeal, granting leave to appeal sentence but upholding the trial judge’s findings and sentence.

The appellant appealed his convictions for possession of a firearm, arguing the trial judge erred by not excluding the firearm evidence under s. 24(2) of the Charter after finding a s. 8 breach from a facially invalid search warrant.

The Court of Appeal found no error in the trial judge's application of the Grant framework, noting the breach was deemed the product of sloppiness rather than bad faith.

The appeal was dismissed, with the court deferring to the trial judge's balancing of the factors.

The appellant, C.D., appealed his conviction for sexual interference, sexual exploitation, and sexual assault, and his sentence.

The sentence appeal was abandoned during oral submissions.

The conviction appeal raised three issues: the admissibility of prior discreditable conduct (the "shower incident"), the lack of a caution regarding the complainant's prior consistent statement, and the absence of an instruction against cross-count reasoning.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no reversible errors by the trial judge.

The court held that the shower incident evidence was admissible for motive and to rebut defence theories, and that the lack of specific jury instructions was a legitimate tactical decision by defence counsel.

The appellant appealed convictions for four counts of sexual assault, one count of assault, and one count of forcible confinement, arguing the trial judge erred in assessing the complainant's credibility and reliability by treating memory gaps and inconsistencies as enhancing factors, and materially misapprehended the evidence.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the trial judge properly grappled with the difficulties in the complainant's evidence, provided rational explanations for her findings, and that her credibility findings were owed deference.

The appellant, Elias Gibb, appealed his conviction for second-degree murder, raising three grounds: the constitutionality of the Criminal Code's provocation provision (s. 232(2)), the trial judge's failure to provide a free-standing instruction on intoxication's impact on mens rea for murder, and an error in the W.D. instruction for co-accused.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the constitutional challenge based on a companion case.

Regarding intoxication, the court found no error, noting the defence strategically chose to integrate intoxication into the provocation defence rather than seeking a separate instruction.

The court also found that while the W.D. instruction was imperfect in its wording, it did not lead to an unfair verdict when read in context, as the jury was otherwise properly instructed on separate verdicts for each accused.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant, Sukhchain Brar, appealed his conviction for first-degree murder of his wife, Gurpreet Brar.

He admitted the killing but sought a manslaughter conviction based on lack of mens rea or provocation.

The appeal raised constitutional challenges to s. 232(2) of the Criminal Code, which defines the partial defence of provocation, arguing it infringes s. 7 of the Charter by being arbitrary and overbroad.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the constitutional challenge, finding the purpose of the amendment was to limit provocation to serious unlawful conduct, not just to address "honour killings." The court also dismissed other non-constitutional grounds of appeal related to jury instructions on provocation, cultural/religious motive, ante-mortem statements, and after-the-fact conduct.

The appellant was convicted of second-degree murder and appealed on the grounds that the Criminal Code's provocation provisions were unconstitutional and that the trial judge erred in jury instructions on provocation.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the constitutional challenge, affirming its reasoning in a companion case.

The court also dismissed the appeal regarding jury instructions, holding that the trial judge correctly instructed the jury on the elements of assault and self-defence as they relate to the definition of provocation under section 232(2) of the Criminal Code, which requires the provocative act to constitute an indictable offence.

The Crown appealed a conditional sentence of two years less one day imposed for sexual assault, arguing it was manifestly unfit.

The respondent had sexually assaulted the complainant four times while she feigned sleep.

The Court of Appeal found the trial judge erred by applying an inappropriate sentencing range and failing to justify the conditional sentence with "exceptional circumstances." The court clarified that the appropriate sentencing range for penetrative sexual assault is three to five years, regardless of the victim's state or relationship to the offender, and that "forced penetration" refers to lack of consent.

The appeal was allowed, the conditional sentence set aside, and a three-year term of imprisonment imposed, with credit for time served.

The court declined to impose a SOIRA order due to lack of appellate jurisdiction.

The appellant, convicted of second-degree murder, appealed his conviction and sentence.

The conviction appeal challenged the trial judge's jury instructions on the defence of a third party and accident, arguing there was no air of reality to the former and the latter was inadequate, thereby undermining his primary defence of identity.

The sentence appeal challenged the 12-year parole ineligibility period, alleging misapprehension of evidence regarding aggravating factors.

The Court of Appeal dismissed both appeals, finding that the trial judge correctly instructed the jury on the defences, which had an air of reality and did not prejudice the appellant's primary defence.

The court also found no reversible error in the parole ineligibility period, concluding that the trial judge's factual findings were supported by evidence and the sentence was proportionate.