Samuel James Humphrey

The accused, Craig Willoughby, charged with impaired and dangerous driving causing bodily harm, brought a Charter application to exclude a blood sample.

The court found violations of Willoughby's s. 8 (unreasonable search or seizure) and s. 9 (arbitrary detention) Charter rights, as the police officer lacked subjective and objective reasonable and probable grounds for arrest and the subsequent blood demand.

While the s. 10(b) right to counsel was not violated, the court determined that the seriousness of the police misconduct and the profound impact on the accused's bodily integrity outweighed society's interest in admitting the evidence.

Consequently, the blood sample was excluded under s. 24(2) of the Charter.

The defendant, Ciara Jenks, brought a Jordan application for a stay of proceedings due to unreasonable delay, alleging a breach of her s.11(b) Charter right.

The court found a total delay of 665 days (21.9 months), exceeding the 18-month presumptive ceiling for provincial court cases.

The judge attributed 42 days of the delay to the defence for unhelpful boilerplate disclosure requests and failure to bring issues to the court's attention, reducing net delay to 623 days (20.5 months).

The Crown was found responsible for significant disclosure delays and an inflexible approach to scheduling.

The court also acknowledged its own role in the delay by not intervening earlier.

The Crown's argument for further pandemic-related deductions was rejected due to lack of specific evidence.

The court concluded that the defendant's Charter right was infringed and stayed the charge.

On consent of both parties, the Superior Court of Justice allowed a summary conviction sentence appeal, imposing a sentence of 179 days.

The accused was charged with defrauding her employer, the LCBO, by scanning items through her cash register, accepting cash payments, and then immediately voiding the sales without turning over the cash.

On eight separate occasions between October 10 and 25, 2014, the accused engaged in this pattern of conduct.

The Crown's case was circumstantial, relying on video surveillance and electronic journal records.

The court found that the only reasonable inference from the undisputed facts was that the accused deliberately kept the cash while concealing the purchases from the employer's records.

The defence argued that a supervisor could have removed the money, but the court rejected this as speculative.

The accused was found guilty of fraud under $5,000.

The accused pleaded guilty to transferring two restricted firearms knowing he was not authorized to do so under the Firearms Act, contrary to section 99(1)(a) of the Criminal Code.

The Crown proceeded by indictment.

The accused challenged the mandatory minimum three-year sentence imposed by section 99(2)(a) as violating section 12 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms on the grounds that it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

The court found that the mandatory minimum was grossly disproportionate both as applied to the offender and as applied to reasonably foreseeable hypothetical situations, such as family members inheriting firearms from deceased soldiers.

The court declared section 99(2)(a) unconstitutional to the extent it imposes a mandatory three-year minimum term of imprisonment.

Two applicants charged with impaired driving and operating a motor vehicle with blood alcohol concentration exceeding 80 mgs per 100 ml of blood brought a motion for disclosure of records relating to the Intoxilyzer 8000C breath testing device used in their cases.

The Crown refused disclosure on grounds of irrelevance.

The court ordered disclosure of six categories of information including the analyst's certificate for the alcohol solution, calibration records, maintenance logs, and previous subject test records (with personal identifiers redacted).

The court found that the disclosure sought was relevant to allow the accused to meet their burden under section 258 of the Criminal Code to prove the instrument malfunctioned or was operated improperly.

The accused was charged with impaired driving and over 80 milligrams of alcohol in blood following a motor vehicle stop.

The defence challenged the admissibility of breath test evidence, alleging violations of Charter rights to counsel under section 10(b).

The court rejected the defence argument that police failed to provide adequate information about accessing private counsel, finding that the accused made an informed waiver by twice choosing duty counsel over private counsel.

The court distinguished Ontario jurisprudence from recent western Canadian cases imposing broader informational duties on police.

The court convicted on the over 80 charge and stayed the impaired charge.

The Crown and the Ontario Provincial Police applied for certiorari to quash a provincial court disclosure order requiring production of records related to an Intoxylizer 8000C breath testing device in impaired driving prosecutions.

The lower court had ordered disclosure of calibration, maintenance, usage logs, prior subject test records, and samples of the alcohol standard solution used in breath testing.

The applicants argued the police should have been treated as a third party and given notice and an opportunity to be heard, and that the disclosure order conflicted with expert evidence about the relevance of the records.

The court held that the police possessed a direct interest in the records and should have been afforded an opportunity to make submissions on whether the materials constituted third party records.

The order was quashed and the matter remitted to the Ontario Court of Justice for reconsideration of the disclosure regime with participation from the police.

The Crown appealed an acquittal on two counts of breach of probation following a roadside RIDE stop where police demanded identification from vehicle passengers and conducted a CPIC check.

The trial judge had found Charter breaches, including unlawful detention and unreasonable search and seizure, after concluding that the demand for identification and retention of the respondent’s birth certificate amounted to detention without lawful grounds.

Evidence of the probation breach was excluded under s. 24(2) of the Charter and the respondent was acquitted.

On appeal, the court held that the trial judge’s findings of detention and Charter breaches were supported by the evidence and that his exclusion of evidence under the Grant framework was entitled to deference.

The Crown failed to demonstrate any reversible error in the trial judge’s reasoning or application of legal principles.

The applicants sought disclosure of six categories of information relating to the Intoxilyzer 8000C breath testing device used in their respective impaired driving cases.

The Crown refused disclosure on the basis that the information was clearly irrelevant.

The court granted the disclosure applications, finding that the requested information fell within the Crown's disclosure obligations under the Stinchcombe test.

The court emphasized that given the statutory requirement under section 258 of the Criminal Code for accused persons to prove instrument malfunction or improper operation, accused persons must have access to maintenance records, calibration records, previous test results, and related documentation to meet this burden.

The accused was charged with breach of probation for consuming alcohol while prohibited from doing so.

The Crown conceded that the accused should be found guilty if the Charter application was unsuccessful.

The court found violations of sections 8, 9, and 10(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms arising from police conduct during a R.I.D.E. program stop.

The officer demanded identification from the accused as a passenger and ran it through CPIC to discover probation conditions, without lawful authority or consent.

The court excluded the evidence and acquitted the accused.

The applicant sought an extension of time to serve and file a notice of appeal from a summary conviction for operating a motor vehicle with a blood alcohol level exceeding 80 mg.

The court applied the three-part test for extensions of time articulated in R. v. Menear, considering whether the applicant demonstrated a bona fide intention to appeal within the appeal period, whether the delay was adequately explained, and whether the proposed appeal had merit.

The court found no evidence that the applicant intended to appeal within the statutory period and held that the delay was inadequately explained.

The proposed grounds of appeal, relating to alleged Charter breaches concerning mouth alcohol and credibility findings at trial, lacked merit.

The application for an extension of time and the companion request for a stay of the driving prohibition were dismissed.