Laura Hodgson

The appellant appealed his conviction for second degree murder, arguing that the trial judge's pre-Lifchus charge to the jury on reasonable doubt was defective.

The Supreme Court of Canada applied its decision in R. v. Rhee and found no reason to interfere with the majority of the Court of Appeal's conclusion that the charge was in substantial compliance with the principles articulated in Lifchus.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant appealed convictions for three counts of fraud under $5,000 and sought leave to appeal sentence.

He argued that the original trial could not properly proceed by summary conviction, despite defence consent, and challenged both the sufficiency of the evidence and the fitness of sentence.

The court held that s. 786(2) of the Criminal Code is procedural and authorized the mode of proceeding adopted, with no resulting jurisdictional defect.

It further held that the evidence supported the convictions and that the sentence was fit.

The conviction appeal was dismissed, leave to appeal sentence was granted, and the sentence appeal was dismissed.

The appellant sought leave to appeal sentence after pleading guilty to criminal negligence causing death arising from alcohol-impaired, high-speed driving through multiple red lights, causing a fatal collision.

The court held that this offence does not lend itself to a fixed sentencing range because it may be committed in an almost infinite variety of factual circumstances, although alcohol-related cases have attracted increasing severity over time.

Given the appellant’s extreme moral blameworthiness, prior record, and the need for denunciation and general deterrence, the five-year penitentiary sentence and 15-year driving prohibition were not clearly unreasonable.

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

The appellant appealed a conviction for sexual assault and a sentence of six months' imprisonment.

The court held that the trial judge made two errors in assessing the complainant's evidence: using jointly reconstructed evidence about age to bolster credibility, and failing to test credibility and reliability against the improbability of the alleged incident occurring in a public park in broad daylight.

Taken together, those errors rendered the verdict unsafe.

The appeal was allowed, the conviction was set aside, and a new trial was ordered.