Ken Campbell

The appellant challenged a decision arising from a preliminary hearing in a prosecution involving alleged sexual touching during a medical examination.

The Court of Appeal held there was some evidence on which a reasonable jury, properly instructed, could find that the appellant squeezed the complainant's breasts and placed his hand underneath her pants for a sexual, rather than medical, purpose.

The appeal was therefore dismissed.

The appellant appealed a 12-month sentence for aggravated assault and sought a conditional sentence followed by probation.

The court emphasized the appellant's youth, first-offender status, remorse, positive pre-sentence report, strong family supervision, and the trial judge's finding that he was not a danger to the community.

In light of recent Supreme Court of Canada conditional sentencing decisions, the court held that denunciation and general deterrence could still be achieved by a conditional sentence in this case.

Leave to appeal sentence was granted, the appeal was allowed, and the sentence was converted to an 18-month conditional sentence followed by 9 months probation.

The appellant was involved in two motor vehicle accidents, the second resulting in a fatality.

At the hospital, blood and urine samples were taken for medical purposes with the appellant's consent.

A coroner subsequently seized the samples under the Coroners Act and turned them over to the police for analysis.

The results were used to convict the appellant of impaired driving causing death and other offences.

The Supreme Court of Canada held that while the police's appropriation of the samples constituted an unreasonable seizure violating s. 8 of the Charter, the evidence should not be excluded under s. 24(2) because the samples existed independently of the breach, the authorities acted in good faith, and the evidence would have been discovered anyway.

The appeal was dismissed.

The respondents were convicted of attempted murder after an accomplice shot a convenience store clerk during an armed robbery.

The trial judge instructed the jury that the respondents could be convicted as parties under s. 21(2) of the Criminal Code if they knew or ought to have known that the shooting was a probable consequence of the robbery.

The Supreme Court of Canada held that because the principles of fundamental justice require subjective foresight of death to convict a principal of attempted murder, the same minimum degree of mens rea is constitutionally required to convict a party.

The objective foreseeability component ('ought to have known') in s. 21(2) violates s. 7 of the Charter and cannot be justified under s. 1 in cases where subjective foresight is constitutionally required.

The appeal was dismissed.