Leo Salloum

The applicant, charged with two counts of murder, brought a Charter motion to exclude evidence extracted from an iPhone seized upon his arrest.

The applicant argued that the search warrant was overly broad, the police ignored its limitations, the affiant misled the issuing justice, and the police failed to file reports to a justice and lost a USB key containing the extracted data.

The court found that the applicant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the stolen phone and that the failure to file reports and the loss of the USB key violated his s. 8 Charter rights.

However, applying the Grant test, the court concluded that the evidence was highly reliable and crucial to the Crown's case, and its admission would not bring the administration of justice into disrepute.

The application to exclude the evidence was dismissed.

The accused, Kyle Sparks-MacKinnon, was charged with second-degree murder.

He admitted to fatally shooting the victim but claimed self-defence, asserting the victim pointed a gun at him.

The Crown argued the accused shot the victim while he was in his car, in retaliation for prior incidents.

The court found that while the accused's credibility was questionable on some points, his testimony, supported by other evidence, raised a reasonable doubt regarding whether he faced a threat of force from the victim.

Despite the accused's significant role in instigating the confrontation by brandishing an illegal firearm, the court concluded that his response of using lethal force when facing a threat of death was not unreasonable in the circumstances.

The applicant, charged with second degree murder, applied for a directed verdict of acquittal.

The Crown's case was wholly circumstantial, relying on evidence of animus, opportunity, means, and post-offence conduct.

The court applied the test for a directed verdict, engaging in a limited weighing of the circumstantial evidence to determine if reasonable inferences of guilt could be drawn.

The court concluded that the cumulative evidence could support a reasonable inference that the applicant was the shooter, and dismissed the application.

The accused, charged with second-degree murder, applied for bail in a reverse onus situation.

The proposed release plan involved house arrest with electronic monitoring and his father as a surety.

The court dismissed the application, finding the accused failed to meet his onus on the primary, secondary, and tertiary grounds.

The court noted the accused's history of breaching court orders, fleeing the jurisdiction under a false name, and committing violent offences while on bail or in custody, concluding that electronic monitoring could not overcome the lack of a reliable supervision plan.

The appellant appealed his drug-related convictions arising from a search warrant execution at his residence.

The trial judge found a breach of the appellant's s. 10(b) Charter right to counsel without delay but admitted the evidence under s. 24(2).

The Court of Appeal found the trial judge committed errors of principle in her s. 24(2) analysis by: (1) attenuating the seriousness of the breach based on police compliance with the duty not to question before counsel contact; and (2) treating the impact of the breach as neutral because the appellant failed to demonstrate that the delay prevented meaningful consultation with counsel.

The Court of Appeal concluded the s. 10(b) breach was serious and its impact significant, and that exclusion of the evidence was warranted to maintain the integrity of the administration of justice.

A young person was convicted of manslaughter, aggravated assault, careless use of a firearm, and possession of a firearm without licence or registration following a judge-alone trial.

The appellant appealed the convictions for manslaughter, aggravated assault, and careless use of a firearm, claiming self-defence.

The trial judge rejected the self-defence claim, finding that the appellant fired his gun at retreating attackers and therefore acted unreasonably.

The Court of Appeal found that the trial judge made a palpable and overriding error in finding that the appellant knew his attackers were retreating before he fired the first shot, and that the trial judge failed to properly apply the objective reasonableness standard for self-defence by imposing an unreasonably high burden on the appellant to weigh his response to a nicety within five seconds of being attacked.

The court allowed the appeal and entered acquittals on all three appealed charges.

This decision addresses a blended voir dire concerning the voluntariness of statements made to police and alleged Charter violations (ss. 8, 9, 10(a), 10(b)) during the investigative detention of two accused, Anderson and Rhoden, following a vehicle stop linked to a shooting.

The court found that while initial detention and some searches were lawful, the detention became arbitrary after two hours (4:46 a.m.), and certain statements by Anderson were involuntary due to police inducement or trickery.

Consequently, evidence obtained after 4:46 a.m., Anderson's confessions of his real name, his videotaped statement to Det. Cobor, and evidence from the unlawful trunk search were excluded under s. 24(2) of the Charter.

Early statements and the initial false name provided by Anderson were deemed admissible.

This decision addresses multiple pre-trial motions in a large-scale drug trafficking prosecution, focusing on Charter violations related to search and seizure (s.8) and the right to counsel (s.10), as well as the voluntariness of an utterance.

The court found the initial warrantless search for cocaine unconstitutional and excluded the evidence.

The initial search warrant for the Warwick premises was quashed, but other evidence seized under it was admitted.

Covert camera evidence was admitted despite an unlawful installation, but references to it were excised from subsequent Informations to Obtain (ITOs).

Tracking warrants and general warrants for other properties were largely upheld after excising unconstitutionally obtained information.

An accused's utterance was found voluntary and admitted, despite a s.10 Charter violation, as the impact on Charter rights was deemed slight and exclusion would not bring the administration of justice into disrepute.

The accused, Prabhjeet Singh, brought a motion to exclude post-incident statements made by himself and Abhijeet Nagra to a relative of the deceased and their employer.

The statements allegedly minimized their involvement by claiming the air hose was applied to the deceased's legs rather than his anus, following an incident resulting in the deceased's death.

The Crown argued the motion was untimely and, alternatively, that the evidence was probative as it demonstrated the accused's knowledge of danger and attempt to minimize responsibility.

The court declined to dismiss the motion as untimely due to the accused's liberty interests but dismissed it on its merits, finding that the circumstances (video evidence, statements made to employer and next of kin) provided independent evidence of fabrication, making the statements admissible and relevant to the issue of assault.

The accused, charged with unlawful act manslaughter, brought multiple motions during their trial.

These included a motion to exclude the testimony of a lawyer, Mr. Sodhi, on the grounds that his evidence was tainted by a breach of an exclusion of witnesses order and late disclosure by the Crown.

They also sought, in the alternative, a mistrial, a stay of proceedings based on abuse of process, and permission to call Crown counsel and an officer as witnesses.

The court dismissed all motions, finding the breach of the exclusion order to be minor and technical, the evidence not unduly tainted, no Charter breach affecting fair trial rights, no abuse of process warranting a stay, and no basis to call Crown counsel or re-examine the officer.

The court emphasized that alternative remedies, such as cross-examination and limiting instructions to the jury, were sufficient to address any concerns.

The accused brought pre-trial applications challenging the Superior Court's administrative decision to transfer his manslaughter trial from Brampton to Kitchener due to a severe courtroom shortage.

The accused argued the transfer order was subject to judicial review and violated administrative law principles of procedural fairness.

The court dismissed the applications, holding that the Chief Justice and Regional Senior Judges have statutory authority under the Courts of Justice Act to transfer cases within and outside a region.

The court further held that administrative decisions made in the course of criminal proceedings are not subject to judicial review, and that the accused failed to establish grounds for a change of venue under s. 599 of the Criminal Code.

The accused, charged with manslaughter alongside two co-accused, applied for an adjournment of the trial to find more experienced counsel after his counsel of choice was removed from the record due to medical issues and a change of venue.

He also applied for severance from his co-accused, offering to waive his s. 11(b) Charter rights.

The court dismissed the applications, finding that the accused had retained competent counsel, that an adjournment would jeopardize the co-accused's s. 11(b) rights, and that the interests of justice strongly favoured a joint trial.

The accused, charged with manslaughter, brought an application for the case management judge to recuse himself.

The accused argued that the judge's prior involvement in administrative decisions to transfer cases out of Brampton due to courtroom shortages created a reasonable apprehension of bias.

The court dismissed the application, finding that the accused failed to provide cogent evidence to overcome the strong presumption of judicial impartiality.

The court noted that the administrative transfer process and the court's commitment to managing resources efficiently would not lead a reasonable, informed person to conclude the judge had a closed mind.