Wrongful conviction

The appellant media organisation challenged a publication ban issued by the Manitoba Court of Appeal over an affidavit filed in wrongful conviction proceedings.

The affidavit concerned the death of a witness and contained highly sensitive personal information about the witness's spouse.

Applying the three-branch test from Sherman Estate v. Donovan, 2021 SCC 25, the Court held that court openness posed a serious risk to the spouse's dignity as an important public interest, the ban was necessary and not overbroad, and the benefits of the ban significantly outweighed its minimal effect on free expression and the open court principle.

The affidavit was not admitted as evidence and played no role in determining that a wrongful conviction had occurred.

This appeal concerns a wrongful conviction for manslaughter, stemming from the unreliable expert evidence of disgraced pathologist Dr. Charles Smith.

The appellant, convicted in 1997 for the death of a 17-month-old, sought an acquittal based on fresh expert evidence that contradicted the original "shaken baby syndrome" theory, proposing a "complex fall" as the cause of death.

The court admitted the fresh evidence, including a 911 call transcript and new expert opinions, finding that the modern forensic science undermined the trial evidence.

The court also discounted the appellant's police interview due to coercive interrogation techniques.

Given the lack of reasonable prospect for conviction, the appeal was allowed, the conviction set aside, and an acquittal entered.

A young person convicted of sexual assault appealed on the basis that the verdict was unreasonable, arguing the trial judge illogically accepted selective parts of the accused's evidence while rejecting others due to intoxication.

The majority held the verdict was reasonable, finding the trial judge provided sound reasons for accepting some portions of the accused's evidence while rejecting others.

The appellant also challenged the constitutionality of s. 37(10) of the Youth Criminal Justice Act, which denies young persons the automatic appeal rights available to adults under s. 691 of the Criminal Code.

The majority upheld s. 37(10) as consistent with ss. 7 and 15 of the Charter, while Abella J. (with Karakatsanis and Martin JJ.) found it to be an unjustified breach of s. 15.

The appeal was dismissed, with Côté J. dissenting on the reasonableness of the verdict and declining to address the constitutional questions as moot.

An appellant, convicted in 1998 of administering a noxious substance to her child based on flawed Motherisk Drug Testing Laboratory (MDTL) hair analysis, successfully reopened her conviction appeal.

Fresh evidence, in the form of two Ministry of the Attorney General reports (2015, 2018) detailing the unreliability of MDTL testing, was admitted.

The Court of Appeal found that without the discredited MDTL evidence, the appellant would not have been convicted.

The conviction for administering cocaine and the stayed conviction for criminal negligence were set aside, and acquittals were entered.

The court also lifted a publication ban on the appellant's name at her request, acknowledging the wrongful conviction and allowing for public correction.

The appellant was convicted of two counts of robbery, one count of use of an imitation firearm in the commission of an indictable offence, two counts of assault causing bodily harm, and one count of threatening to cause death, arising from violent robberies of two victims behind the Yorkdale Subway Station in Toronto.

The appellant received a global sentence of four years' imprisonment.

On appeal, the appellant sought to adduce fresh evidence consisting of an expert forensic report authenticating Voxer App voicemail messages that would establish his absence from the scene of the robberies.

The Crown consented to the admission of the fresh evidence and conceded that the convictions amounted to a miscarriage of justice.

D.H. was charged with criminal negligence causing bodily harm, failing to provide necessaries of life, and assault causing bodily harm related to injuries sustained by a 28-month-old child, B.V. The Crown alleged D.H. assaulted B. or showed wanton disregard for B.'s safety, and deterred B.'s mother from seeking medical attention.

The court found D.H. not guilty on all charges, concluding that the child's severe head injuries were likely caused by a subgaleal hematoma, possibly from hair combing, rather than assault.

The court also found the mother's testimony not credible, noting she changed her story to improve her child protection case, and criticized the police investigation for failing to disprove D.H.'s consistent statements.

The accused, Johnathan McIlvride-Lister, sought to strike her guilty plea to one count of sexual assault, asserting factual innocence despite having entered a plea.

The court examined whether the plea was voluntary, informed, and unequivocal, and whether striking the plea was in the interests of justice to prevent a miscarriage of justice.

The accused cited pressures including a significant sentencing disparity between a plea and a trial, financial constraints, perceived lack of success at trial, and concerns about accommodation for her transgender status in custody.

The court found the plea to be voluntary and informed, but acknowledged initial equivocation regarding the facts.

Ultimately, the court accepted that the accused maintained a belief in her innocence and pleaded guilty for pragmatic reasons unrelated to culpability, concluding that such a plea constitutes a miscarriage of justice.

The court also expressed discomfort with the Crown's plea offer condition that defence counsel not cross-examine the complainant at the preliminary inquiry.

The appellant was convicted of sexual assault against a friend of his and his long-time girlfriend.

The case rested largely on the complainant's recognition of the appellant as a man she saw standing in a doorway for several seconds immediately after waking up in a dark room, and on the appellant's equivocal responses when confronted by his girlfriend about the allegations.

The Court of Appeal found that the trial judge erred in law by instructing the jury that recognition evidence of a known person is different from identification evidence of a stranger, when in fact recognition evidence is subject to the same frailties and risks.

The trial judge also erred by failing to instruct the jury on the dangers of relying on reaction evidence, particularly where the accused was confronted with vague allegations and given no details of the specific conduct alleged.

The conviction was set aside and a new trial ordered.

The accused was charged with sexual assault and other offenses stemming from a 1990 home invasion.

The Crown's case relied on DNA evidence from a T-shirt and a photographic lineup identification by the victim.

The court found the DNA evidence unreliable due to a lack of proven link between the T-shirt and the crime, noting multiple other semen samples on the bedsheet that excluded the accused.

The photographic lineup was deemed fatally flawed due to procedural defects, including the distinctive appearance of the accused's photograph and the victim's reliance on intuition.

Emphasizing the duty to prevent wrongful convictions, the court concluded that the Crown failed to prove identity beyond a reasonable doubt, as both pieces of evidence lacked reliability and could not cumulatively establish guilt.

The accused was found not guilty on all counts.

The Attorney General brought a motion to quash summonses issued by defendant Michael G. Engel to two Crown attorneys, John McMahon and Paul Amenta, for examination under Rule 39.03 of the Rules of Civil Procedure.

Engel sought to examine them as part of his response to the Attorney General's summary judgment motion to dismiss Engel's crossclaim for contribution and indemnity, which alleged that Crown attorneys failed to comply with disclosure obligations in the underlying wrongful conviction action.

The court found that Engel demonstrated a reasonable evidentiary basis that the Crown attorneys could provide relevant evidence on several specific disclosure topics and that the proposed examinations would not constitute an abuse of process.

The motion to quash was dismissed, allowing examinations on four of the five identified topics.

The appellant appealed his conviction for sexual assault of his sister-in-law, alleging the conviction was unreasonable.

The complainant alleged approximately 10-50 sexual assaults occurred between 1997 and 1999 when she was 16-17 years old.

The Court of Appeal found that important aspects of the complainant's evidence were demonstrably false, including her claims of being enslaved and controlled.

The trial judge herself had significant misgivings about the complainant's credibility and found that the Crown had not proven most of the alleged assaults beyond a reasonable doubt.

The appellate court determined that the risk of wrongful conviction was too high and set aside the conviction, entering an acquittal.

The applicant sought a declaratory judgment affirming the Superior Court's jurisdiction under section 24(1) of the Charter to order post-conviction disclosure for individuals claiming wrongful conviction.

The respondent, the Attorney General of Ontario, brought a motion to strike the application, arguing the applicant lacked standing, the application was premature, and it failed to meet the section 7 Charter test.

The court dismissed the motion to strike, finding that the respondent had not met the high threshold of demonstrating it was plain, obvious, and beyond doubt that the application could not succeed.

This appeal addressed federal Crown civil liability for the Minister of Justice's handling of mercy applications after a wrongful conviction.

The Court held that the mercy power was a core policy function protected by qualified immunity, and liability required bad faith or serious recklessness rather than simple fault.

The appellant did not prove that ministers acted in bad faith or that any alleged review failures caused compensable loss.

The Court also rejected additional damages, punitive damages, and claimed extrajudicial fees tied to alleged abuse of process.

The appeal concerned whether Charter damages may be claimed against the provincial Crown for wrongful prosecutorial non-disclosure without pleading malice.

The Court held that malice is not required, but imposed a stringent threshold requiring intentional withholding, actual or imputed knowledge of materiality and likely impairment of full answer and defence, a Charter breach, and causation of legally cognizable harm.

The reasons emphasized good-governance limits to prevent defensive prosecution practices and unmeritorious civil claims, while preserving remedies for serious constitutional violations.

The claimant was permitted to pursue an amended pleading for s. 24(1) damages based on the alleged disclosure failures leading to wrongful convictions and prolonged incarceration.

The defendant was charged with common assault and failing to comply with a probation order after allegedly pushing an elderly woman down stairs at a shopping mall.

The Crown presented testimony from the complainant and two independent witnesses who claimed the defendant pushed the complainant down the stairs.

The defendant testified that he made only incidental contact with the complainant's arm while gesturing to allow her to pass.

The court reviewed CCTV footage of the incident and found that the video evidence supported the defendant's account of accidental contact rather than an intentional assault.

The defendant was acquitted on both counts.

Following the dismissal of a civil action alleging negligence and wrongdoing by police and the Crown arising from a historic murder conviction later quashed, certain police defendants sought substantial indemnity costs against the plaintiff.

The court considered the extraordinary circumstances of the case, including the miscarriage of justice that resulted in the plaintiff serving decades in prison and the role of state actors in the events leading to that outcome.

Although the action had been dismissed as an abuse of process due to the inability to re-litigate factual findings already determined by the Court of Appeal and the prejudice caused by the passage of time, the court held that ordering costs would be unfair and contrary to the interests of justice.

Exercising its discretion, the court declined to award costs to the successful defendants.

The Crown charged two defendants with assault causing bodily harm to Christopher Marcos, who was savagely beaten outside a nightclub in Toronto's Entertainment District on June 18, 2011.

The victim recalled little of the incident and could not identify his assailants.

The Crown's case rested entirely on the testimony of four Toronto Police Service officers who claimed to have witnessed the assault.

The sole issue was the identity of the perpetrators.

The defendants did not testify.

The court found that while the police witnesses may have observed an assault, their evidence fell short of the standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt required for conviction due to significant inconsistencies in their accounts, the problematic manner in which their notes were prepared collaboratively, and the absence of any blood evidence on either defendant despite the victim being severely bloodied.

The appellant, a numbered Ontario corporation, sought costs on an appeal from a conviction under the Liquor Licence Act of Ontario.

The appellant had been convicted in absentia after the prosecutor amended the Information to substitute the appellant as defendant without notice or service.

The court found jurisdiction to award costs under section 129 of the Provincial Offences Act and determined that exceptional circumstances existed warranting a costs award.

Although the prosecutor's conduct was careless rather than malicious, the court found that fairness required the appellant be relieved of the financial burden of the appeal, as it had been wrongly convicted without notice or opportunity to defend.

Costs were awarded in the amount of $4,520.00.

The applicant, convicted of first-degree murder and unsuccessful on appeal to the Court of Appeal, sought a declaration that he was not required to seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada before applying for ministerial review of his conviction under s. 696.1 of the Criminal Code.

The Attorney General of Ontario argued that all appeal avenues, including a leave application to the Supreme Court, must be exhausted before ministerial review could proceed.

The court held that although the phrase “rights of judicial review or appeal” includes the right to seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court, the concept of exhaustion must be interpreted flexibly.

Determining whether appeal rights have been exhausted is a discretionary screening decision for the Minister of Justice, not the provincial Attorney General.

The court declared that the Minister may determine that appeal rights are exhausted even where no leave application to the Supreme Court has been made.

In a Charter application brought by a person convicted of first degree murder seeking a declaration that evidence in homicide cases must be preserved for the lifetime of the offender, the respondent Attorney General moved to strike portions of affidavit evidence and parts of the amended notice of application and constitutional question.

The impugned affidavits contained second‑hand information about other alleged wrongful conviction investigations and lost evidence.

The court held the affidavit material could remain in the record for the limited purpose of illustrating the types of evidence that may be lost post‑conviction, but not to prove the truth of the allegations in those other cases.

However, paragraphs in the amended notice of application and notice of constitutional question relying on alleged loss of evidence in other cases were struck because the applicant lacked standing to advance constitutional claims based on those matters.

The motion was therefore granted in part.