Manasvin Goswami

Two appellants, addicted to fentanyl, set fire to a rowhouse using Molotov cocktails at the direction of their fentanyl dealer, killing three occupants and seriously injuring a fourth.

Both pleaded guilty to three counts of manslaughter and one count of arson causing bodily harm and received sentences of 16 and 17 years respectively, plus $250,000 restitution orders each.

The Court of Appeal found no error in the sentencing judge's treatment of mitigating factors including addiction and mental health, and held the sentences were not demonstrably unfit.

However, the court quashed the restitution orders, finding the sentencing judge failed to weigh the appellants' ability to pay and imposed them as a mechanical afterthought.

Fresh evidence of post-sentencing cooperation with authorities was not admitted.

The applicant pleaded guilty to exercising control over a person providing sexual services and was sentenced to time served plus probation.

More than three years later, he brought a motion for an extension of time to appeal his conviction, arguing his plea was involuntary due to harsh custodial conditions and that he received ineffective assistance of counsel.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the motion, finding the applicant failed to demonstrate a bona fide intention to appeal within the time limit, provided no reasonable explanation for the delay, and raised grounds of appeal that lacked merit.

The appellant appealed an indeterminate sentence imposed following convictions for assault with a weapon, assault causing bodily harm, and carrying a concealed weapon.

The offences arose from the appellant's actions at the American consulate in Toronto, where she forced her way into the building and slashed a security guard with a box cutter.

The appellant argued the sentence was disproportionate given that she had never caused more than minor bodily harm and her violent offences were few and far between.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the sentencing judge properly applied section 753.01(5) of the Criminal Code and that there was no reasonable expectation a determinate sentence would adequately protect the public.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario considered cross-appeals from both the Crown and D.L. regarding convictions and acquittals arising from allegations of intimate partner violence.

The Crown appealed acquittals on sexual assault and extortion charges and sought a harsher sentence, while D.L. appealed his convictions, arguing errors in the trial judge’s assessment of evidence and sufficiency of reasons.

The Court dismissed both appeals, upheld the trial judge’s findings, and stayed certain duplicative counts.

The decision addresses the proper approach to consent in sexual assault, the scope of appellate review, and the principles guiding sentencing for intimate partner violence.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario dismissed Hunter Smith’s appeal from his conviction and sentence for aggravated assault arising from a nightclub incident.

The court found no merit in the arguments that the trial judge misapprehended the evidence, failed to consider all relevant evidence, or erred in sentencing.

The court addressed the risk of cross-racial misidentification but found it was not a serious danger in this case.

The five-month custodial sentence was upheld as fit and principled.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario allowed J.C.'s appeal in part, setting aside his designation as a dangerous offender and substituting a designation as a long-term offender, while upholding the determinate sentence and 10-year long-term supervision order (LTSO).

The court found that the trial judge erred by failing to consider intractability at the designation stage, as required by R. v. Boutilier, but found no reviewable error in the trial judge’s findings regarding the patterns of behaviour or assessment of the criminal record.

The appellant was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to eight years' imprisonment after shooting an intruder outside his home.

He appealed the conviction, arguing the trial judge erred in leaving manslaughter with the jury, and challenged the jury instructions on self-defence and out-of-court statements.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding an air of reality to manslaughter based on the appellant's testimony and upholding the jury instructions.

On the sentence appeal, fresh evidence revealed the trial judge misspoke and intended to impose a six-year sentence.

The Court allowed the sentence appeal, finding the trial judge erred in failing to correct his mistake immediately, and sentenced the appellant afresh to six years' imprisonment.

The appellant appealed his convictions for firearms offences arising from a traffic stop.

He argued the stop and subsequent search were the result of racial profiling, violating his Charter rights, and that the trial judge erred in admitting the firearm under s. 24(2) despite finding a s. 10(b) breach.

The Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge's findings that the stop was based on driving behaviour, not racial profiling, and that the subsequent investigative steps were lawfully based on observations made during the stop.

The court found no error in the trial judge's Grant analysis and dismissed the appeal.

The appellant, an 18-year-old Indigenous man, shot and killed his father and best friend, and attempted to kill his father's girlfriend while highly intoxicated.

Following a trial, he was convicted of two counts of second degree murder and one count of attempted murder.

The trial judge accepted a joint recommendation from counsel and imposed concurrent life sentences with an 18-year parole ineligibility period.

On appeal, the Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal but allowed the sentence appeal.

The Court held that the stringent Anthony-Cook test for departing from joint submissions does not apply to joint recommendations made after a contested trial.

Finding the 18-year period demonstrably unfit due to the trial judge's failure to properly weigh the appellant's youth, intoxication, immediate remorse, and the systemic impacts of colonization, the Court reduced the parole ineligibility period to 13 years.

D.L. brought a motion to bifurcate the Crown's sentence appeal from his conviction appeal and the Crown's appeal from his acquittals.

The court dismissed the motion, reiterating the general principle that conviction and sentence appeals should be heard together for efficiency and to avoid contradictory outcomes, unless there are compelling reasons.

The court found no such compelling reasons, noting that potential complexities could be addressed by remitting sentencing to the trial court if necessary, rather than requiring pre-emptive bifurcation.

The Crown appealed a trial judge's decision to declare a mistrial in a sexual assault case after conviction but before sentencing.

The trial judge had admitted fresh evidence of the accused's subsequent acquittal on similar fact charges, believing it rendered the similar fact evidence inadmissible retrospectively.

The Court of Appeal found that the trial judge erred in misinterpreting the Supreme Court's decision in R. v. Mahalingan, which clarified that issue estoppel does not operate retrospectively to render evidence inadmissible in an earlier completed trial, even if sentencing has not occurred.

The Court also found that it had jurisdiction to hear the appeal under s. 676(1)(b) of the Criminal Code because the trial judge failed to exercise jurisdiction on legally valid grounds by not proceeding to sentencing.

The appeal was allowed, and the matter remitted for sentencing.

The appellant, found not criminally responsible for criminal harassment, appealed an Ontario Review Board order requiring his transfer from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) to Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care (Waypoint).

The transfer was necessitated by the appellant's persistent harassing and stalking behaviour towards female staff at CAMH, which had exhausted CAMH's resources and posed a significant risk to public safety.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no procedural unfairness in the Board's decision-making process, no reasonable apprehension of bias from the panel's composition, and that the Board's decision to transfer was reasonable given the safety risks and the exhaustion of CAMH's resources, particularly the need for a male-only unit.

The Crown appealed from a Court of Appeal decision that set aside convictions for sexual assault and sexual interference of a child complainant, ordering a new trial on the basis that the trial judge misapprehended the child complainant's evidence on a matter of substance and failed to grapple with inconsistencies in the evidence of the complainant and her mother.

The Supreme Court, for the reasons of the dissenting judge at the Court of Appeal, allowed the appeal and restored the convictions, finding that the trial judge had applied a common sense approach to assessing the evidence of child witnesses, that there was no misapprehension of evidence, and that the reasons were sufficient.

The appellant, a professional truck driver, was convicted of four counts of criminal negligence causing death and three counts of criminal negligence causing bodily harm following a multi-vehicle collision on Highway 401.

The appellant appealed both his conviction and sentence.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding that the trial judge reasonably concluded the appellant's prolonged inattention constituted a "marked and substantial departure" from the standard of care.

However, the Court granted the sentence appeal, reducing the global sentence from seven years to five years, finding the original sentence demonstrably unfit due to an overemphasis on denunciation and general deterrence, and insufficient consideration of the appellant's positive personal circumstances and low risk of recidivism.

The appellant, Kyle Firlotte, appealed his conviction for first-degree murder.

The victim was abducted, severely beaten, and left in a remote field in cold temperatures, leading to his death.

Firlotte argued the verdict was unreasonable, the trial judge's reasons were inadequate, the "common sense inference" was improperly applied, and the abandonment of the victim was erroneously treated as dispositive of intent.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the verdict reasonable based on the totality of circumstantial evidence, the trial judge's reasons sufficient, the common sense inference appropriately used as a tool, and the consideration of abandonment as a factor in determining murderous intent was correct.

The applicant sought to reopen his appeal from a conviction for robbery, which had been previously dismissed by a different panel of the Court of Appeal and for which leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada was denied.

The applicant argued that the original appeal panel failed to consider one of his merit-based arguments (unreasonable verdict).

The court considered whether it had jurisdiction to reopen an appeal after a formal order reflecting the disposition had been issued.

It held that such jurisdiction is narrow and exceptional, limited to cases not heard on the merits.

The court concluded that there is no jurisdiction to reopen an appeal where it was heard on the merits, even if the panel allegedly failed to consider an argument or incorrectly framed the issues, as this would amount to reviewing the correctness of a previous panel's decision, a power reserved for the Supreme Court of Canada.

The application to reopen was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.

The appellant, Mark Roberts, sought a suspension of an Ontario Review Board order directing his transfer from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) to Waypoint Centre for Mental Health due to his difficult and harassing behaviour towards female staff at CAMH.

The court applied the specific, higher test under s. 672.76 of the Criminal Code for suspending Board dispositions, which requires compelling reasons to doubt the Board's decision's validity or soundness based on the accused's mental condition, and exceptional circumstances.

The court found the appellant failed to provide sufficient evidence of the transfer's impact on his mental condition to justify a suspension, especially considering the severe adverse impact of his conduct on CAMH's operations and staff safety.

The motion for suspension was dismissed.

The appellant, S.T., appealed his conviction for sexual assault.

The appeal raised two grounds: the trial judge's findings regarding the appellant's sobriety were unreasonable and erroneous, and the trial judge's finding of partiality in a defence witness was not supported by evidence and led to an erroneous rejection of their testimony.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no material, reversible error.

The court held that the trial judge's assessment of the appellant's intoxication was within their purview and did not require expert evidence.

While the finding of witness partiality was problematic due to lack of opportunity for the parties to respond, it was deemed not material to the overall assessment of evidence or the trial's outcome, and did not result in a miscarriage of justice.

The appellant appealed his convictions for sexual assault causing bodily harm, unlawful confinement, choking, and uttering a death threat, primarily alleging ineffective assistance of trial counsel.

The Court of Appeal found trial counsel's representation ineffective due to eliciting highly prejudicial bad character evidence, failing to seek disclosure of an arrest warrant and criminal record for the complainant, and providing inadequate advice on challenging jurors for cause based on racial prejudice.

The court concluded that the cumulative effect of these deficiencies undermined the reliability of the jury's verdict, rendering it unreliable.

The appeal was allowed, convictions set aside, and a new trial ordered.

The appellant, J.C., appealed five convictions for assault and assault with a weapon against his former domestic partner, BOH, arguing that the trial judge's reasons were insufficient.

The Court of Appeal found the trial judge's reasons deficient but determined that for four of the five counts (assault and assault with a weapon involving a frying pan and knife), the convictions were supported by the record and the deficiencies did not preclude meaningful appellate review.

However, for the conviction of assault with a drill, the court found the reasons critically insufficient as the conviction was not supported by unambiguous, independent, and contemporaneous confirmatory evidence, making it impossible to discern the trial judge's path to the verdict.

Consequently, the appeal was allowed in part, setting aside the conviction for assault with a drill and ordering a new trial on that count, while dismissing the appeal for the other four counts.