Michael Peterson

The accused was charged with multiple counts of arson and public mischief following a fire that destroyed his truck and damaged adjacent vehicles and a building.

The Crown's case relied on circumstantial evidence, including surveillance videos and the testimony of the accused's former fiancée.

The court found the accused guilty of arson seriously threatening another's property and arson for a fraudulent purpose, concluding he intentionally set fire to his own insured truck.

However, the accused was acquitted of the remaining arson charges because the Crown failed to prove the ownership of the other damaged vehicles.

The appellant, K.C., appealed his conviction for sexual assault, having abandoned his sentence appeal.

The incident involved conflicting accounts of a sexual encounter.

The trial judge rejected the appellant's testimony, finding it contradicted by text messages, and accepted the complainant's evidence as logical, consistent, and supported by other evidence.

The Court of Appeal found no legal error or material misapprehension of evidence by the trial judge, affirming the high degree of deference owed to credibility findings on appeal.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant, Terrence Rivard, appealed his conviction for aggravated assault and a 6-year sentence.

The trial judge had acquitted him of assault with a weapon but convicted him of aggravated assault on Daniel Shaver, rejecting his self-defence claim regarding Shaver.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding the trial judge's credibility assessments and factual findings, supported by independent evidence, were sound.

The court also dismissed the sentence appeal, noting the appellant's significant criminal record and the severe impact on the victim.

The appellant, R.C., appealed convictions for sexual assault, touching for a sexual purpose, and invitation to sexual touching.

The complainant, who was 15 at the time of trial, testified about incidents that occurred when she was between four and seven years old.

The trial judge accepted the complainant's evidence as credible and reliable.

On appeal, R.C. argued that the trial judge improperly assessed the reliability of the complainant's uncorroborated evidence and erred in dealing with recovered memories.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the trial judge carefully considered and resolved reliability issues, and did not err or reverse the onus of proof regarding recovered memories.

The trial judge's findings on reliability were entitled to deference.

During a criminal trial involving multiple accused, the Crown brought a Khelawon application to admit the out-of-court statements of two deceased witnesses for the truth of their contents under the principled exception to the hearsay rule.

The court found that the unsworn, audio-recorded telephone statement of a former neighbour lacked both procedural and substantive reliability and was inadmissible.

However, the court admitted the video-recorded statement of a deceased complainant, finding sufficient procedural safeguards and substantive reliability corroborated by other witnesses to overcome hearsay dangers.

During a trial for sexual offences, the defence sought to cross-examine a complainant on alleged prior inconsistent statements recorded in notes made by Family and Children's Services workers, pursuant to s. 11 of the Canada Evidence Act.

The Crown objected, arguing the notes were not verbatim statements.

The court ruled that the notes, being summaries written in the third person and not verified by the complainant, lacked the necessary reliability to be characterized as prior inconsistent statements under the Act.

The defence was permitted to cross-examine on the content of the interviews but could not use the notes as formal prior statements.

The Crown sought a ruling on the admissibility of lay opinion evidence from a registered nurse and capacity assessor regarding the complainant's capacity to manage her personal care.

The accused opposed the admission, arguing it was irrelevant and potentially prejudicial.

The court applied the principles from Graat and ruled the evidence admissible, finding it relevant to the complainant's condition and helpful to the jury, subject to appropriate limiting instructions.

The Crown sought a ruling on the admissibility of proposed demonstrative aids, specifically aerial maps of Port Colborne with embedded photographs and property descriptors, for a lengthy trial involving multiple accused and sexual offences.

The accused objected to the necessity of the maps, the accuracy of Google Street View photos, and the prejudicial nature of certain descriptors.

The court allowed the use of the aerial maps with municipal addresses and commercial names, but excluded the embedded photographs and non-neutral descriptors to avoid clutter and potential prejudice.

The applicant, facing serious drug and fraud charges, brought a Rowbotham application seeking state-funded counsel after being denied Legal Aid.

The court dismissed the application, finding that the applicant failed to provide comprehensive financial disclosure regarding his personal finances and his business to prove he lacked the means to retain counsel.

Furthermore, the court held that the outstanding fraud charge was not sufficiently complex to require state-funded counsel for a fair trial.

The appellant appealed his conviction entered on April 23, 2015 and sentence imposed on August 4, 2015 by the Superior Court of Justice.

The Crown conceded that the trial judge erred by failing to provide reasonable assistance to the appellant in respect of Charter views.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and ordered a new trial.

During a trial for first-degree murder, the accused requested that the partial defence of provocation be left with the jury.

The accused testified that the victim made threatening comments before the accused killed him.

The trial judge refused the request, finding no air of reality to the objective element of the defence.

The court held that the victim's comments, made while bound and confined by the accused, would not cause an ordinary person to lose the power of self-control.

The appellant appealed his conviction for trafficking and the sentence imposed by the trial judge.

The Crown conceded that the trial judge erred in law by improperly using confidential informant information contained in the Information to Obtain (ITO) to support the trafficking finding.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, set aside the convictions, and ordered a new trial.

The Crown brought an application for a ruling on the admissibility of post-offence conduct evidence against three accused in a first-degree murder trial.

The court deferred the decision on the admissibility of vehicle cleaning evidence, finding it premature to balance probative value against prejudicial effect until further trial evidence was presented.

However, the court granted the admission of evidence regarding alleged witness intimidation by one accused, finding its probative value outweighed its prejudicial effect, subject to proper jury instructions and prior identification evidence.

The Crown sought a ruling on the admissibility of cell phone evidence and the use of a PowerPoint presentation summarizing call detail records at a first-degree murder trial.

The court permitted non-expert telecommunications company representatives to testify about the "general rule" regarding cell phone location in relation to towers, acknowledging exceptions.

The court also allowed the use of a PowerPoint presentation as demonstrative evidence, provided it was amended to be neutral, fact-based, and accurate, with consistent formatting and scale for maps, and subject to limiting instructions to the jury.

In a first-degree murder trial, the Crown sought to admit thermal-imaging video evidence, lay opinion evidence from a surveillance technician interpreting heat signatures, and demonstration evidence.

The defence objected to the lay opinion and demonstration evidence, and requested the full unedited video.

The court reserved decision on the lay opinion evidence pending further qualification of the witness, disallowed the demonstration evidence due to its high prejudicial effect outweighing its probative value, and permitted the Crown to present an edited version of the thermal-imaging video, finding the timestamp sufficient to convey time gaps.

The accused, indicted for first-degree murder, applied for an order requiring the Crown to produce criminal records and police occurrence reports for all Crown witnesses.

The Crown agreed to provide criminal records but opposed the production of occurrence reports, arguing they were not first-party disclosure and that the third-party disclosure procedure had not been followed.

The court found that occurrence reports from the investigating police service (NRPS) for nine specific Crown witnesses fell within the Crown's first-party disclosure obligation under *Stinchcombe* and *McNeil*, as credibility was a live issue and the reports related directly to the investigation.

However, the court declined to order disclosure from other police services, deeming them third parties, and dismissed the third-party disclosure application due to procedural non-compliance under *O'Connor*.

The accused brought a Rowbotham application seeking a stay of proceedings until state-funded counsel was provided after Legal Aid Ontario denied funding.

The court considered whether the accused had established the three elements required for state-funded counsel: exhaustion of legal aid remedies, inability to retain counsel, and that counsel was essential to a fair trial.

The court found that the anticipated drug trafficking trial was relatively straightforward, involved limited witnesses, and did not raise complex legal issues.

The accused also failed to provide adequate financial disclosure or demonstrate reasonable efforts to secure private funding for counsel.

The application was dismissed.

Four accused were convicted of intentionally or recklessly causing damage by fire to a residential property on August 22, 2010, knowing or being reckless as to whether the property was inhabited.

The victim's residence was firebombed with Molotov cocktails in what was characterized as a crime for hire based on false allegations that the victim was a pedophile.

The offenders caused approximately $10,000 in damage.

One accused also faced charges of disguising his face with intent to commit an indictable offence and breaching probation.

Another accused faced an additional charge of attempting to obstruct justice.

The court imposed penitentiary sentences ranging from two to four and one-half years, with the lead offender receiving the longest sentence.

The court emphasized the seriousness of arson, particularly when targeting an occupied residence, and applied principles of denunciation and deterrence.

The appellant appealed from a decision of the Summary Conviction Appeal Court, arguing that the trial judge's reasons were inadequate and that the trial judge erred in applying the W.(D.) principles.

The Court of Appeal found no error of law in the Summary Conviction Appeal Court Judge's conclusion that the trial judge's reasons met the functional test for adequacy set out in Sheppard, nor in the conclusion that the trial judge correctly applied W.(D.).

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