Nadia Thomas

The appellant was convicted of first-degree murder for shooting his half-brother in the back with a shotgun.

The appellant admitted to the shooting but claimed he only intended to scare his brother and shoot at the computer or stereo, not to kill him.

The Court of Appeal found that the trial judge's jury instructions on the mens rea for murder contained serious legal errors, particularly regarding the treatment of evidence of mental illness and the distinction between a legal presumption and a permissible inference.

The trial judge incorrectly suggested that evidence of mental illness could only be relevant to sentencing and failed to properly instruct the jury that such evidence could negate the mental element required for murder.

The court also noted deficiencies in how the trial judge responded to the jury's request for clarification on the state of mind required for murder.

A new trial was ordered.

The appellants Collins and Newton were convicted of murder and attempted murder following a five-week trial before a judge and jury.

Collins was found guilty of first degree murder and attempted murder; Newton was acquitted of first degree murder but convicted of second degree murder and attempted murder.

Both appealed their convictions.

The Court of Appeal found that the trial judge erred by failing to relate the evidence to the legal issues the jury had to decide, instead presenting evidence in a witness-by-witness format.

This error deprived the appellants of a fair trial.

The court rejected Newton's argument that his verdicts were unreasonable.

The convictions were set aside and a new trial was ordered.

The appellant appealed his sentence for break and enter to commit theft and break and enter with intent.

He had pleaded guilty and received a suspended sentence with two years' probation, with pre-sentence custody credited at 1.5:1 (198 days from 132 days).

The enhanced credit resulted in a custodial sentence exceeding 180 days, triggering mandatory deportation as a convention refugee and barring him from appealing the deportation order.

Fresh evidence on appeal demonstrated that trial counsel failed to appreciate the immigration consequences of the enhanced credit.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal on consent of the Crown and reduced the pre-sentence custody credit by 19 days to 179 days, thereby avoiding the immigration consequences.

Conviction appeal from a judge-alone trial for break and enter and robbery.

The sole issue was identification.

The appellant was identified by two witnesses who knew him as "Mack Truck" from a social group.

The witnesses identified him despite being masked and partially obscured during the incident.

The trial judge accepted the identification evidence based on recognition rather than identification of a stranger, and rejected the appellant's denial and his co-accused's claim of amnesia.

The Court of Appeal upheld the conviction, finding the trial judge properly considered the frailties of identification evidence while recognizing that recognition evidence by acquainted witnesses carries different considerations than stranger identification.

The appellant challenged an order for a new trial after exclusion of a co-accused’s prior inconsistent Agreed Statement of Facts tendered for its truth in a murder prosecution.

The majority held threshold reliability was not established because available safeguards did not adequately permit testing of truth and accuracy, particularly given curtailed cross-examination following assertions of solicitor-client privilege.

The Court emphasized deference to trial-level reliability determinations absent error in principle and rejected a request for a new trial based on how the prosecution conducted the voir dire.

It concluded the statement’s surrounding circumstances did not provide sufficient substantive reliability where the declarant had incentives to shift blame during plea negotiations.

The appeal was allowed and the acquittal restored, with dissenting reasons favouring a new trial.