Michael Nathan Bernstein

Four appellants appealed their convictions for various offences arising from a large-scale credit card fraud and money laundering scheme operating over several years.

The appellants were convicted of fraud over $5,000, participation in a criminal organization, identity theft, possession of property obtained by crime, and money laundering.

The appellants raised multiple grounds of appeal, including challenges to the single transaction rule, sufficiency of reasons, and the legal test for criminal organization.

The Court of Appeal dismissed most appeals but quashed certain convictions against one appellant that were entered without being charged, and corrected typographical errors in the trial judgment.

The appellant was convicted of second degree murder and aggravated assault following a violent altercation on a restaurant patio.

He appealed on two grounds, claiming the Crown's closing address was improper and that the trial judge's instruction on self-defence was erroneous.

The Crown's closing address did not misstate the legal test for self-defence under s. 34(2) of the Criminal Code, and any inappropriate comments were adequately corrected by the trial judge.

The trial judge's instruction on self-defence was thorough and proper, correctly identifying the three key elements of the defence without improperly adding proportionality as an additional requirement.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant was convicted at trial of sexual interference and sexual assault arising from an incident in a laundry room involving a 14-year-old complainant.

The trial judge acquitted the appellant of charges relating to a separate hotel incident but found him guilty of the laundry room charges.

The trial judge's conviction was based primarily on his finding that the appellant's failure to report the complainant's inappropriate sexual comments to her mother, cease contact with her, or tell her such comments were inappropriate demonstrated the falsity of his denial of sexual misconduct.

On appeal, the Court of Appeal found that the trial judge materially misapprehended the evidence by failing to consider the appellant's explanation that he did not report the conversation to the complainant's mother because he feared it would cause a "big commotion" and potentially lead to self-harm by the complainant, given her documented mental health issues.

The Court held this failure to address a plausible explanation constituted a miscarriage of justice and allowed the appeal.

The appellant sought leave to appeal a sentence imposed by the trial judge, arguing that the trial judge erred in rejecting the joint submission on sentence.

The appellant had pleaded guilty to attempted murder of his spouse on the third day of trial.

The Crown and defence had agreed that a sentence of seven years was appropriate.

The trial judge rejected the joint submission as contrary to the public interest and imposed a sentence of 10 years' incarceration instead.

The Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge's decision, finding that the joint submission was so unhinged from the circumstances of the offence and the offender that its acceptance would lead reasonable and informed persons to believe that the proper functioning of the justice system had broken down.

The appellant appealed a sentence of 13 years' incarceration imposed by the trial judge.

The trial judge had imposed a sentence that exceeded the Crown's position by two years without providing the parties an opportunity to make further submissions.

The Court of Appeal found this constituted an error in principle.

However, the court determined that the sentence imposed was entirely fit given the circumstances of the offence and the offender.

The court granted leave to appeal but dismissed the appeal, upholding the 13-year sentence.

The appellant was convicted of first degree murder as the middleman between the deceased's nephew who orchestrated the murder and the hired killer who carried it out.

On appeal, the appellant challenged the jury composition on two grounds: (1) that the trial judge improperly used static triers to decide challenges for cause without a formal application under s. 640(2.1) of the Criminal Code, and (2) that the trial judge erred in discharging an elderly juror with physical disabilities without reasonable cause.

The Court of Appeal dismissed both grounds, holding that the appellant obtained what he wanted in substance regarding jury selection procedures and that the trial judge had reasonable cause to discharge the juror based on his inability to follow proceedings.

The appellant was convicted of second degree murder for the killing of Kerlon Charles.

The Crown's case relied heavily on the testimony of Cleavon Springer, a Crown witness of unsavoury character, who testified that the appellant and six others lured the deceased to an apartment and that the appellant killed the deceased in an execution-style shooting.

The appellant denied being present in the apartment.

The trial judge left second degree murder with the jury despite the defence objection, instructing the jury that the appellant could be guilty as a party to the murder even if they had reasonable doubt that he was the shooter.

After conviction, a juror filed an affidavit claiming that another juror made comments about the appellant's criminal record and gang affiliation, and that the juror had sent her websites about the appellant's criminal history after the verdict.

The trial judge declined to conduct a further inquiry into jury deliberations.

The Court of Appeal upheld the conviction and dismissed the appeal on both grounds.

In a criminal appeal, the court addressed whether the jury charge properly instructed jurors on how to assess a complainant's testimony about events allegedly occurring years earlier in childhood.

The intermediate appellate court had set aside convictions for sexual assault and sexual interference and ordered a new trial.

The court held that, read as a whole, the trial judge's instructions conveyed the correct legal approach to credibility and memory assessment.

The appeal was allowed and the convictions were restored.

In a manslaughter appeal, the Crown challenged an order for a new trial based on alleged misdirection to the jury concerning post-offence photographs and characterization of a school conversation as a confession.

The Court held the photographs were admissible on identity because appearance at the time of the offence was in dispute and any prejudice was manageable through limiting instructions.

Reading the charge as a whole, the Court found no realistic risk that jurors would reason impermissibly from broad eyewitness descriptions.

The Court also held that referring to confession in recounting the Crown's submissions was not a toxic instruction where the jury was repeatedly cautioned to assess the actual words and context.

The appeal was allowed, the conviction restored, and sentencing issues were remitted.