M. Dambrot

During a trial for first-degree murder, the Crown sought to introduce a video chronology prepared by police.

The chronology compiled still shots from extensive surveillance video, adding identifying information, circles, arrows, and short neutral descriptions.

The defence objected, arguing the video itself is the only admissible evidence and the chronology amounted to Crown advocacy.

The court ruled the video chronology admissible as a demonstrative aid to assist the jury in comprehending voluminous and complex video evidence.

The court held that such summaries are permissible if they are neutral, introduced through a witness who can be cross-examined, and accompanied by limiting instructions to the jury.

The accused were charged with first-degree murder.

At the outset of the trial, two of the accused brought an application to exclude cellphone video recordings showing them celebrating at a nightclub hours after the shooting, arguing the prejudicial effect outweighed the probative value.

The Crown argued the videos were probative of their relationship, their presence together after the shooting, and their state of mind.

The court found the videos highly probative of the accused's identity, relationship, and state of mind, and concluded that the probative value strongly outweighed any general prejudice.

The application to exclude the evidence was dismissed, and the videos were ruled admissible subject to agreed-upon editing.

During a trial for first degree murder, the Crown brought an application to adduce a post-arrest statement made by the accused to the police.

The accused brought a cross-application to exclude the statement under s. 24(2) of the Charter, arguing his s. 10(b) right to counsel was violated because he did not understand the legal advice he received from duty counsel and his own lawyer.

The court dismissed the Charter application, finding the accused was advised of his rights multiple times, spoke to counsel three times, and clearly understood the advice.

The court also ruled the statement was admissible in the Crown's case-in-chief, as there was independent evidence of fabrication to support its use as after-the-fact conduct evidence.

The three accused were jointly charged with first-degree murder.

One of the accused gave a post-arrest video statement to the police implicating himself and his co-accused.

The accused brought pre-trial applications to redact portions of the statement, and two of the accused alternatively sought to sever their trials.

The court granted the redactions consented to by the Crown but refused further redactions, finding the contested portions highly probative of the maker's involvement and credibility.

The court dismissed the application for severance, holding that the strong policy preference for joint trials applied and that a mid-trial and final jury instruction would adequately cure any reasoning prejudice to the co-accused.

The accused, charged with first-degree murder, brought a pre-trial motion to sit at counsel table rather than in the prisoner's dock during their jury trial.

The court balanced fair trial considerations against courtroom security.

Given that the accused were detained in custody, had histories of institutional misconduct, and there was hostility between the co-accused, the court found that security concerns outweighed the potential prejudice of sitting in the dock.

The application was dismissed.

The Crown brought an application at the outset of a first-degree murder trial to admit six utterances made by the deceased shortly after being shot.

The court analyzed the admissibility of the statements under the dying declaration exception, the spontaneous utterance exception, and the principled approach to hearsay.

The court found that while only the statements made to police qualified as dying declarations, all six utterances were admissible as spontaneous utterances and under the principled approach to hearsay, as the pressure of the shooting excluded the possibility of concoction or distortion.

The applicant, charged with offences under the Security of Information Act for allegedly attempting to communicate safeguarded information to a foreign entity, brought an application to stay the proceedings due to unreasonable delay under s. 11(b) of the Charter.

The prosecution had been ongoing for over eight years, complicated by extensive litigation over national security privilege under s. 38 of the Canada Evidence Act regarding a CSIS warrant.

The court applied the Jordan framework, calculating the total delay and subtracting defence delay and discrete exceptional events, including the time taken for the national security litigation and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The court found that the remaining delay of over 40 months significantly exceeded the 30-month presumptive ceiling and that the case was not particularly complex.

Consequently, the court held that the applicant's s. 11(b) rights were breached and ordered a stay of proceedings.

The offender was found guilty of sexually assaulting his intimate partner while she was asleep.

The Crown sought a sentence of 4 years, while the defence sought 2 to 2.5 years.

The court considered the serious nature of the offence, the offender's extensive criminal record, and the mitigating factor of a severe assault the offender suffered while in pre-sentence custody.

The court imposed a sentence of 3 years imprisonment, less credit for pre-sentence custody and lockdowns.

In a first-degree murder trial, the Crown brought an application to admit a compilation of surveillance video recordings.

The compilation combined footage from the scene of the shooting and a subsequent location, and included enhancements such as spotlights and magnifiers.

The defence objected, arguing the compilation and enhancements could unduly influence the jury.

The court held that the compilation and spotlight enhancements were admissible, as they were substantially accurate and assisted the trier of fact without causing prejudice.

The use of a magnifier on the accused's clothing was excluded pending further evidence on whether it altered the image.

The applicant, charged under the Security of Information Act, brought a motion to exclude evidence obtained from an undercover operation pursuant to s. 24(2) of the Charter.

The applicant argued that the evidence was derived from a CSIS wiretap warrant that violated his s. 8 Charter rights due to a lack of candour by the affiant.

The court assumed a s. 8 breach had occurred but applied the Grant factors and concluded that the breach was not at the most serious end of the scale, the impact on the applicant's rights was diminished by several factors, and society's interest in adjudicating the serious national security charges on their merits was exceptionally high.

The motion to exclude the evidence was dismissed.

Following the offender's convictions for firearms and breach offences, the Crown applied for forfeiture of $4,900 CAD and $325 USD seized during his arrest.

The court dismissed the application under the offence-related property regime, noting that drug trafficking is a CDSA offence, not a Criminal Code offence.

However, relying on expert evidence regarding indicia of drug trafficking and the offender's criminal history, the court found beyond a reasonable doubt that the seized funds were proceeds of crime.

The forfeiture application was granted.

The offender was convicted of possessing a loaded prohibited firearm and pleaded guilty to multiple breaches of court orders, including a weapons prohibition, recognizance, and probation.

The firearm was thrown from an 11th-floor window during a police raid and was found loaded and ready to fire.

The court found the firearm was possessed as a tool for drug trafficking, given the presence of scales, cash, and multiple cell phones.

As a recidivist firearms offender, the offender was sentenced to a total of 7 years' imprisonment, emphasizing denunciation and deterrence.

The accused, charged with armed robbery and related offences, brought a second application to review his detention order, alleging material changes in circumstances due to the COVID-19 pandemic and potential unreasonable delay under s. 11(b) of the Charter.

The court found that the detention centre had effectively managed the virus and the accused failed to show an increased risk of contracting COVID-19.

Furthermore, the court held that the potential delay was largely attributable to the defence and did not constitute a material change that would have affected the initial bail decision.

The application was dismissed, and the accused remained detained on the secondary and tertiary grounds.

The applicant, charged under the Security of Information Act, brought an application for a stay of proceedings under s. 38.14 of the Canada Evidence Act.

He argued that his right to a fair trial was compromised because relevant information in a CSIS wiretap affidavit was withheld from him due to an Attorney General's certificate, preventing him from making full answer and defence on a s. 24(2) Charter application.

The court found that while the judicial editing process was fair, the Attorney General's unreviewable redactions of relevant information adversely affected trial fairness by precluding a subfacial challenge to the warrant.

Instead of a stay, the court fashioned a lesser remedy, declaring a s. 8 Charter breach and directing that the reviewing judge assume the affidavit contained false or misleading information.

The accused was tried for unlawful possession of a prohibited firearm and unlawful possession of a loaded prohibited firearm.

During the execution of a search warrant by the Emergency Task Force at an 11th-floor apartment, an officer stationed outside observed a loaded Glock handgun being thrown from a bedroom window.

The accused and his girlfriend were found in the bedroom.

The court rejected the defence's arguments that the officer could not have seen the gun fall or that it was planted, and found the girlfriend's testimony that she did not throw the gun credible.

The court concluded beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused threw the loaded firearm out the window upon hearing the police breach the door, and found him guilty on both counts.

The accused, charged with second degree murder following an unprovoked and fatal assault on a stranger, applied for judicial interim release.

The court reviewed the accused's extensive criminal record, history of breaching court orders, and the strength of the Crown's case.

The court found the proposed release plan, which relied on family members as sureties, insufficient to manage the risk.

The application was dismissed, and the accused was ordered detained on both the primary and secondary grounds.

The Crown brought an application for a sealing order and to hold part of the proceedings in camera regarding charges under the Security of Information Act.

The charges stemmed from intercepted telephone calls to a foreign embassy.

The Crown sought to prevent public disclosure of a redacted CSIS affidavit and warrant, arguing it would injure Canada's international relations.

Applying the Dagenais/Mentuck test, the court found that the orders were necessary to prevent a serious risk to the proper administration of justice and that the salutary effects outweighed the deleterious effects on the open court principle.

The application was granted.

During a jury trial for first degree murder, the Crown sought to introduce recognition evidence from five witnesses to identify the accused in surveillance videos.

The witnesses, including a police officer and four security guards, had prior interactions with the accused in the community.

The court applied the test for non-expert opinion evidence of identity, finding that each witness had a sufficient prior acquaintance with the accused and was in a better position than the jury to identify him.

The court rejected arguments that the evidence was overly prejudicial or tainted by the witnesses' knowledge of the investigation.

The Crown's application to adduce the recognition evidence was granted.

During a trial for first-degree murder, the Crown sought to admit a Resident Information Form for an apartment unit as a business record under s. 30 of the Canada Evidence Act.

The accused objected, arguing the form was not created in the ordinary course of business, contained double hearsay, and lacked threshold reliability.

The court dismissed the objections, finding the form was routinely collected and relied upon by property management, satisfying the statutory requirements for admissibility.

The form was admitted into evidence.

During a first-degree murder trial, the accused brought an application for a mistrial and other relief following the late disclosure that undercover officers placed in his cell had audio-monitored their communications.

The accused sought further disclosure, challenged the Crown's claim of investigative privilege over the monitoring device, and argued the monitoring violated section 8 of the Charter.

The court dismissed the applications, finding that the Crown properly asserted public interest privilege over the device's specifics.

The court also held that the audio monitoring was lawfully conducted for officer safety under section 184.1 of the Criminal Code and did not constitute an unreasonable search or seizure.

The application for a mistrial was dismissed.