Mayleah Quenneville

The appellant, Gianluca Salvati, appealed his convictions for multiple drug offences, possession of proceeds of crime, and breach of a bail recognizance.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario dismissed the appeal.

The court upheld the trial judge's findings regarding constructive possession of drugs and proceeds, finding no misapprehension of evidence or reversal of the burden of proof.

On the breach of recognizance charge, the court found that an uncertified photocopy of the bail recognizance was properly admissible under the common law public or judicial documents exception to the hearsay rule, despite the trial judge having admitted it under the principled exception.

The accused, Matthew McLean, was sentenced for robbery, possession of an imitation firearm, and assault causing bodily harm.

The court considered aggravating factors, including the seriousness of the firearm offence and the violent nature of the robbery, alongside extensive mitigating factors such as the accused's youth (21 at the time of offence), lack of prior criminal record, strong family support, pro-social life, remorse, and efforts towards rehabilitation.

The court also considered the impact of systemic anti-Black racism in the justice system, as the accused is a young Black man.

The defence proposed a conditional sentence of two years less a day, followed by three years' probation, which the court accepted, finding it consistent with sentencing principles and posing little risk to community safety.

The accused, Tajae-J'Nye Samuel-Maragh, pleaded guilty to possession of an unlicensed firearm, possession of a loaded firearm, and obstructing a police officer.

The charges arose from a police compliance check at a residence used for drug trafficking, where the accused was found with a loaded prohibited handgun and cash, and provided a false identity.

The Crown sought a 3-year penitentiary sentence, while the defence sought a conditional sentence order (CSO) of 24 months less a day.

The court considered aggravating factors, including the serious nature of the loaded firearm offence in a drug trafficking context and the accused's high moral culpability, and mitigating factors such as his guilty plea, remorse, and status as a first-time youthful offender with family support.

While acknowledging the impact of anti-Black racism, the court found insufficient connection between it and the specific offences to mitigate personal responsibility.

The court emphasized general and specific deterrence and denunciation, particularly given the prevalence of gun and drug crime in Thunder Bay.

The court ultimately imposed a sentence of 30 months custody for the firearm offences and 22 days concurrent for obstruction, along with ancillary orders, concluding that a penitentiary term was necessary and a CSO was inappropriate.

The appellant appealed his convictions and sought leave to appeal his sentence for four offences related to an attempted convenience store robbery.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal but granted leave to appeal the sentence.

The sentence was adjusted to mitigate unforeseen collateral immigration consequences for the appellant, a permanent resident, by re-allocating pre-sentence credit and treating restrictive bail conditions as a mitigating factor rather than a direct reduction in sentence, ensuring the effective sentence per count did not exceed 179 days.

Brady Robertson was sentenced for four counts of dangerous driving causing death, four counts of causing death while having excess THC in his blood, and one count of dangerous driving from an earlier incident.

The Crown sought a 23-year jail sentence, while the defence proposed 7 years.

The court considered aggravating factors including the profound victim impact (four deaths, including three children), the offender's extensive and irresponsible driving record, egregious driving conduct on two separate occasions (including fleeing police and driving with suspended licenses and no insurance), and drug consumption (THC and flubromazolan) while driving.

Mitigating factors included the offender's youth (20 years old at the time of offences), lack of an adult criminal record, guilty pleas to some charges, expressed remorse, and harsh pre-trial custody conditions exacerbated by the pandemic.

Applying sentencing principles of denunciation, deterrence, proportionality, and parity, and considering Gladue principles due to the offender's Indigenous ancestry, the court imposed a sentence of 17 years imprisonment.

After deducting 34 months for pre-trial custody, the remaining sentence is 14 years and 2 months.

A 34-year driving prohibition and an in-custody DNA order were also imposed.

The court declined to order delayed parole eligibility, finding no demonstrated need for additional punishment beyond the significant penitentiary term.

The accused, Brady Robertson, brought a constitutional challenge against sections 320.14(1)(c) and 320.14(3) of the Criminal Code and section 2 of SOR/2018-148, which establish a per se limit of 5 ng/ml of THC in blood for drivers.

The challenge argued that the per se limit violated section 7 of the Charter by being arbitrary and overbroad, particularly for frequent and chronic cannabis users who might have residual THC levels above the limit without being impaired.

The Crown argued the legislation was a precautionary measure to deter impaired driving.

The court dismissed the application, finding that the legislation's objective was to strengthen impaired driving laws and deter cannabis users from driving when they pose a risk.

The court concluded that the 5 ng/ml per se limit was neither arbitrary nor overbroad, as it was rationally connected to the legislative objectives and did not criminalize harmless conduct in a manner inconsistent with fundamental justice principles.

The accused, Tanade Mohamed, shot and killed two men in a nightclub parking lot following a minor altercation.

He claimed self-defence and provocation for the first victim, and accident for the second.

The co-accused, Abdirisaq Ali, drove the getaway vehicle and was charged as a party to the offences.

The court rejected Mohamed's claims of self-defence and provocation, finding him guilty of second-degree murder for the first victim.

However, the court found a reasonable doubt regarding his intent to kill the second victim, resulting in a manslaughter conviction.

The co-accused was acquitted of all charges, as the court found a reasonable doubt regarding his prior knowledge of the shooter's intentions.

The accused were charged with drug trafficking and firearms offences after police executed a search warrant at their residence and seized cocaine, a loaded handgun, and cash.

The accused brought a Charter application arguing that the Information to Obtain (ITO) the search warrant was deliberately misleading and lacked reasonable and probable grounds.

The court found that the ITO contained numerous inaccurate, exaggerated, and unsupported statements by the affiant officer, which were excised.

After excising the misleading information, the court concluded that the remaining evidence from a confidential informant was insufficiently corroborated, resulting in breaches of the accused's rights under ss. 8 and 9 of the Charter.

Applying the Grant framework, the court excluded the seized evidence under s. 24(2) due to the seriousness of the police conduct in drafting a deliberately misleading ITO.

As the Crown called no further evidence, all charges were dismissed.

The applicants, charged with two counts of second-degree murder following a nightclub shooting, brought Charter applications to exclude evidence.

The police had obtained the applicants' names and contact information from their banks without a warrant, claiming exigent circumstances due to the fleeing armed suspects.

The court found a breach of section 8 of the Charter, noting the applicants had a diminished expectation of privacy in the 'tombstone' banking information.

However, applying the Grant framework under section 24(2), the court declined to exclude the evidence, finding the police acted in good faith with an honest belief in exigent circumstances and that exclusion would significantly harm the administration of justice.

The accused was convicted at trial of incest and sexual interference against the complainant, his daughter.

The accused appealed on the basis that the trial judge improperly extended or relied upon principles from governing cases regarding the timing of complaint, thereby sidestepping inconsistencies in the complainant's evidence, and that the trial judge failed to provide sufficient reasons on how he resolved those inconsistencies.

A majority of the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal and upheld the convictions.

The Supreme Court of Canada unanimously dismissed the further appeal, substantially for the reasons of the majority of the Court of Appeal.

In a civil forfeiture proceeding, the interested party brought a motion to exclude seized currency from evidence, arguing that the search warrants for his residence and vehicle violated his section 8 Charter rights.

The court reviewed the Information to Obtain (ITO) and found that the police had established a fair probability that evidence of a crime would be found, based on the party's prior drug trafficking convictions, surveillance of hand-to-hand transactions, and the practice of separating drugs from cash.

The motion to exclude the evidence was dismissed, and costs were awarded to the Attorney General.

The accused pleaded guilty to two counts of possession of a loaded restricted firearm on May 9, 2018, when he was 18 years old with no prior criminal record.

The Crown sought a sentence of four years imprisonment, while the defence argued for a shorter sentence considering the accused's youth, clean record, and circumstances including systemic discrimination against young Black men and his legitimate fear for his safety.

The court imposed a sentence of two years less one day in provincial jail followed by three years' probation, with lifetime weapons prohibitions.

The appellant appealed his conviction for fraud under $5,000 and sought leave to appeal his sentence.

The appellant had pleaded guilty to obtaining a false driver's licence under a false name, which was subsequently presented to police after two car crashes.

The appellant challenged the validity of his guilty plea, arguing it was uninformed, that the facts did not establish the necessary element of "risk of loss or deprivation," that the trial judge failed to provide adequate assistance as a self-represented litigant, and that the sentencing was inappropriate.

The Court of Appeal upheld the conviction and dismissed both the appeal and the leave to appeal sentence.

At a preliminary inquiry into the deaths of Tyler McLean and Zemarai Khan Mohammed, who were shot outside the Rebel nightclub on October 1, 2017, the Crown sought committal of both accused on murder charges.

Tanade Mohamed conceded committal on two counts of second-degree murder as the alleged shooter.

Abdirisaq Ali, who drove the vehicle from which the shots were fired, contested committal and sought to be committed only as an accessory after the fact.

The court found that while the accessory provisions captured Ali's involvement, there was a reasonable inference that Ali knew Mohamed had a gun and intended to assist in the murders, based on Ali's conduct in positioning the vehicle, waiting in the parking lot, and fleeing the scene.

The court committed both accused to stand trial on two counts of second-degree murder.

The accused appealed his fraud conviction, arguing that the trial judge wrongly admitted non-expert opinion evidence.

The Court held that the appellate court properly applied the curative proviso even though it was not explicitly named in the Crown's submissions, because the substance of the point was argued.

It concluded no substantial wrong or miscarriage of justice occurred.

The conviction was upheld and the appeal was dismissed.

The applicant, convicted of possessing child pornography, applied for bail pending appeal.

The court dismissed the application, finding that the appeal was frivolous.

The applicant argued that the trial judge erred in applying the W.D. test, failed to consider key evidence, and failed to consider whether guilt was the only logical conclusion in a circumstantial case.

The court rejected all three arguments, concluding that the trial judge properly assessed credibility, considered the relevant evidence, and correctly applied the burden of proof.

Appeals from conviction and sentence in a complex fraud case involving a scheme to divert millions of dollars from the Canadian Revenue Agency.

The appellants were convicted of fraud over $5,000 following a four-month jury trial.

The appellants challenged their convictions on multiple grounds including delay, issue estoppel, evidentiary rulings, and jury instructions.

The Crown appealed the quantum of the fine in lieu of forfeiture imposed on one appellant.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeals and the sentence appeals, but granted leave to appeal on the sentencing issues.

The appellant was convicted of robbery with a firearm and related offences following a jury trial and sentenced to five years' imprisonment.

The sole issue at trial was identification.

The appellant appealed from conviction and requested leave to appeal sentence.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding that the trial judge's charge on eyewitness identification evidence was adequate given the strength of the circumstantial evidence, and that the trial judge had vetted the charge with counsel.

The court also found that photo line-up evidence had no probative value as witnesses could not identify the fleeing passenger, and that the surveillance video instruction was adequate.

Leave to appeal sentence was granted but the sentence appeal was dismissed, as the trial judge had imposed the minimum sentence for very serious offences and had not disregarded pre-sentence custody or house arrest bail.

The appellant was convicted of unlawfully importing cocaine into Canada contrary to s. 6(1) of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment, less credit for pre-sentence custody.

He appealed on two grounds: that the trial judge failed to address his defence meaningfully and failed to undertake proper analysis under the third step of the R. v. W.(D.) inquiry.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the trial judge adequately addressed the defence theory that the appellant was an unwitting "blind mule" and properly applied the reasonable doubt standard.

The evidence established that cocaine was found in the appellant's luggage, and the only live issue was knowledge.

The trial judge rejected the defence assertion that unknown baggage handlers planted the drugs, finding it speculative and unsupported by evidence.