Geneviève Dagenais

The appellant sought an extension of time to appeal historical guilty-plea convictions entered between 1996 and 2005, after later being found unfit to stand trial because of intellectual disability.

A majority of the provincial appellate court refused the extension.

The Supreme Court held there was no reversible error in that refusal and dismissed the appeal, adopting the majority appellate reasons.

A dissenting justice would have granted the extension and remitted the matter.

The accused were convicted of first degree murder and manslaughter following a shooting related to a drug debt.

The Crown's case relied heavily on circumstantial evidence and an out-of-court statement made by the deceased shortly before his death expressing fear of one of the accused.

The Court of Appeal ordered a new trial based on errors in the trial judge's jury instructions regarding circumstantial evidence, reasonable doubt, and the limiting instruction for the hearsay statement.

The Supreme Court of Canada allowed the Crown's appeal and restored the convictions, finding that the jury instructions on the burden of proof were adequate when read as a whole and that the deceased's statement was properly admitted under the state of mind exception to the hearsay rule to establish his fear and rebut the defence's theory of alternative suspects.