Michael John Nicholas Haraschuk

Several First Nations accused sought disclosure of 2013 jury rolls in advance of a planned constitutional application alleging underrepresentation of Indigenous jurors in jury pools.

They argued the records were relevant to a forthcoming application under ss. 7, 11(d), and 11(e) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and to a potential s. 11(b) delay claim arising from the litigation of that issue.

The court held that the requested materials were governed by the third‑party disclosure framework from R. v. O'Connor because the records were held by a separate government entity rather than the prosecuting Crown.

Applying the likely relevance threshold, the court concluded the jury rolls could assist in determining whether delays associated with the application should be characterized as institutional delay or delay attributable to the accused.

Disclosure was therefore ordered subject to privacy undertakings.

The applicant sought review of a detention order under s. 520 of the Criminal Code after bail was denied on secondary grounds.

He argued the justice of the peace misapplied the Gladue principles and presented a new release plan involving multiple sureties and structured cultural and community activities.

The reviewing judge found the justice of the peace had sufficient evidence regarding the applicant’s Indigenous background and properly considered Gladue factors when assessing detention.

The court further concluded the proposed bail plan lacked meaningful community support and that the proposed sureties minimized or denied the applicant’s extensive violent criminal history.

The application was therefore dismissed and the detention order maintained.

The accused brought a motion seeking a stay of proceedings based on alleged breaches of ss. 7 and 11(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms arising from pre‑charge and post‑charge delay.

The charges included manslaughter, criminal negligence causing death, and trafficking in a controlled substance following a fatal methadone overdose.

Applying the framework from Morin and related jurisprudence, the court assessed the delay and attributed the majority to inherent and defence causes, finding institutional delay of approximately 5.6 months, within acceptable limits for the Superior Court of Justice.

The court concluded the accused failed to establish sufficient prejudice from the delay to justify a stay of proceedings.

The accused also sought to exclude a statement recorded in a physician’s patient note; the court held the statement was admissible as its probative value was not outweighed by prejudice.

The Crown appealed a trial judge's order staying charges against the respondents due to unreasonable delay under s 11(b) of the Charter.

The Crown argued the trial judge made several errors in attributing delay and assessing prejudice.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the trial judge's analysis consistent with the Supreme Court's decision in Godin.

The Court emphasized deference to the trial judge's knowledge of local court practices and her strong factual findings regarding the prejudice suffered by the respondents over the 25-month delay.

The accused brought a Charter application seeking exclusion of evidence seized under a search warrant for computers and storage devices allegedly containing child pornography.

He argued the information to obtain the warrant lacked full, frank, and fair disclosure, that the warrant lacked reasonable and probable grounds, and that the search was overly broad.

The court found that certain information in the information to obtain should be excised or amplified, including surveillance obtained through an unlawful entry onto private property and references to prior charges that had not resulted in conviction.

However, even after excision and amplification, sufficient grounds remained to support the issuance of the warrant.

Applying the section 24(2) framework, the court held the Charter breaches were not sufficiently serious to justify excluding the evidence.

The accused applied for certiorari to quash committals for trial on charges of manslaughter and criminal negligence causing death following a preliminary inquiry.

The case arose from the accused leaving a bottle of methadone with a third party as collateral for a loan; the drug was later consumed by another person who died of acute methadone intoxication.

The applicant argued that there was no evidence of objective foreseeability or causation and that voluntary consumption by the deceased severed the chain of causation.

The court held that there was sufficient circumstantial evidence upon which a properly instructed trier of fact could find that trafficking in methadone under the circumstances was dangerous and that bodily harm was objectively foreseeable.

The court further held that the consumption of the methadone did not necessarily break the chain of causation and that the evidence supported committal for trial on the challenged counts.

The Ontario Court of Justice considered whether it had jurisdiction to entertain an application for interim release under section 523(2)(b) of the Criminal Code after the accused had been committed to stand trial and an indictment had been filed with the Superior Court of Justice.

The court held that jurisdiction over interim release transfers to the Superior Court of Justice upon the filing of the indictment, and that the Ontario Court of Justice has no jurisdiction to hear the application once the matter is before the Superior Court.

The accused brought an application under s. 278.3 of the Criminal Code seeking production of third‑party records from a psychologist and a children’s aid society relating to the complainant in a sexual assault prosecution.

The defence argued the records were likely relevant to credibility and reliability because the complainant had stated he sometimes “made things up” or misinterpreted events.

The court applied the framework from R. v. Mills and R. v. O’Connor governing production of confidential records and held that the threshold of likely relevance was met for the psychologist’s records.

Those records were ordered produced to the judge for review for the period April 1, 2009 to July 24, 2013.

Although the evidentiary basis for production of children’s aid society records was not otherwise established, the court ordered production of the records already obtained by police because they had been improperly requested and reviewed during the investigation.

The applicant brought a certiorari application seeking to quash committal to trial on charges of assault causing bodily harm, unlawfully causing bodily harm, and extortion following a preliminary inquiry.

The applicant argued that the evidence did not establish a causal connection between the alleged assault and the complainant’s serious injuries and that the extortion charge lacked evidence of intent to obtain property.

Applying the committal test articulated in R. v. Arcuri, the court held that a properly instructed jury could reasonably infer that the injuries were caused by the alleged assault based on common sense inferences from the evidence.

The court also found sufficient evidence that violence was used to obtain control of the disputed property during the altercation.

The application to quash the indictment was dismissed.

A young person charged with six counts of sexual abuse against two male cousins applied for severance of the counts.

The accused sought to have three counts tried separately from the remaining three counts.

The court considered the criteria established in R v. Last, including general prejudice, legal and factual nexus, complexity, and other factors.

The court found that a legal and factual nexus existed between the counts based on the age of the victims, their relationship to the accused, location, timeframe, and similarity of alleged acts.

The court rejected the severance application, finding that trying all counts together would be in the interests of justice and would not expose the accused to undue prejudice.

The accused, charged with historical sexual offences against his stepson and step-grandson, brought an application to sever the counts relating to each complainant.

The Crown opposed the application, arguing it intended to bring a similar fact evidence application.

The court considered the factors for severance, including the risk of reasoning prejudice and the lack of a strong factual or legal nexus between the two sets of allegations separated by 20 years.

Finding minimal benefits to a joint trial and some risk of prejudice, the court granted the application to sever the counts.

The appellant sought leave to appeal from a Summary Conviction Appeal Court decision that allowed the Crown's appeal from an acquittal.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the motion for leave to appeal, finding that the test for granting leave had not been met and none of the grounds raised warranted granting leave.