L. Sela

The defendants applied under s. 11(b) of the Charter for a stay of charges due to unreasonable delay, as the time from charge to the anticipated end of trial exceeded the 30-month presumptive ceiling.

The court found no defence-caused delay and no discrete events that would justify the delay.

Furthermore, the case was not deemed particularly complex to rebut the presumption of unreasonable delay.

Despite acknowledging significant judicial resource limitations, the court concluded that the 30.5-month delay was unreasonable and granted the application, staying the charges against both defendants.

The Crown sought to admit expert forensic accounting evidence from Jeffrey J. Good to establish that approximately $49,500 in seized currency was proceeds of drug trafficking.

The defendants were jointly charged with possession of various prohibited substances for trafficking and possession of proceeds of crime.

The court applied the two-step admissibility test for expert evidence from *Mohan* and *White Burgess*.

While the expert was qualified, the court found the evidence lacked logical relevance to directly link the seized funds to drug trafficking over the seven-year period analyzed.

Concerns were also raised regarding the unexplained expansion of the expert's mandate from one defendant to both, and the arbitrary selection of the seven-year period.

The court concluded that the potential prejudicial effects of the evidence, including inviting speculation and devolving the case into a remote inquiry, outweighed its slight probative value.

Consequently, the expert evidence was deemed inadmissible.