COURT OF APPEAL FOR ONTARIO
Trotter, Monahan and Dawe JJ.A.
BETWEEN
His Majesty the King
Respondent
and
7891296 Canada Incorporated and Wissam Qita, aka Sam Qita
Appellants
Chris Rudnicki, for the appellants
Vanita Goela, for the respondent
Heard: February 26, 2026
On appeal from the convictions entered by Justice M. Suranganie Kumaranayake of the Superior Court of Justice on March 11, 2022, and from the sentence imposed on May 24, 2023.
A. Introduction
1The appellants were charged with 14 counts under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, S.C. 2001, c. 27 (“IRPA”).
2The trial judge delivered a bottom-line decision roughly six months after the close of submissions, collectively finding the appellants guilty on 10 of the 14 counts. After numerous delays, the judge provided written reasons nine months and nine days after her bottom-line ruling. This was 15 months after the close of submissions, and 18 months after the evidence was completed. Five months later, Mr. Qita was sentenced to three and a half years’ imprisonment. The trial judge imposed a total fine of $20,000 on 7891296 Canada Incorporated (“789”).
3The appellants appeal their convictions based on the trial judge’s long delay in delivering her written reasons for judgment. They submit that this delay gives rise to a reasonable apprehension that the trial judge’s written reasons were an after-the-fact justification of her bottom-line decision to find the appellants guilty. Mr. Qita also appeals his sentence.
4The following reasons explain why I would allow the appeals from conviction and order a new trial. In the circumstances, it is not necessary to consider Mr. Qita’s sentence appeal.
B. Overview of the offences
5Given that the conviction appeals turn on a discrete legal issue, it is sufficient to set out briefly the underlying facts.
6Mr. Qita was an immigration consultant. He also operated an IT consulting business through 789, which he used to sponsor clients from his immigration practice. The charges relate to allegations of misrepresentation (IRPA, s. 127) and counselling misrepresentation (IRPA, s. 126) in relation to the sponsorship applications of nine Syrian refugees.
7The applications were made under the Private Sponsorship of Refugees program (“PSR”). The program is administered by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (“IRCC”). Under this program, private sponsors (individual Canadians, corporations, and community groups), rather than the government, have the opportunity to identify refugee claimants and take on financial and non-financial responsibility for the claimants in Canada. Sponsors must demonstrate that they are able to support refugee claimants for 12 months, at rates calculated by the government.
8In 2016, the IRCC processing manual prohibited sponsors from accepting “the payment of funds from the refugees for the submission of sponsorship, either before or after their arrival in Canada.” However, like any other refugee claimant, applicants under the PSR were entitled to the assistance of a compensated representative (e.g., an immigration consultant).
9In relation to the nine PSR applications in this case, each individual or family signed retainer agreements with Mr. Qita’s immigration consulting business to assist them in the process. This included helping the applicants find eligible sponsors. According to Mr. Qita’s testimony at trial, he had difficulty locating sponsors. However, the claimants whom he assisted were not destitute; they had the means to prepay their own settlement funds.
10The charges relate to Mr. Qita having acted as both a sponsor and consultant, and by having the applicants prepay him settlement funds that he was required to hold to be qualified as a sponsor. Mr. Qita completed some of the paperwork on behalf of the claimants and identified himself as an “uncompensated” representative, even though he charged each applicant consulting fees. Other charges related to representations made to IRCC about the applicants’ financial means and funding arrangements. 789 represented that it would hold $150,000 in trust for the sole purpose of paying out settlement funds to the applicants once they arrived in Canada. In fact, those funds had already been withdrawn from the trust account at the time the applications were submitted. Further charges related to Mr. Qita advising some of the claimants to tell immigration officials at their screening interviews that they did not pay him any fees.
11The trial judge found Mr. Qita guilty of seven counts of misrepresentation and three counts of counselling misrepresentation. He was sentenced to three and a half years’ imprisonment. 789 was convicted of two counts of misrepresentation and was sentenced to pay a $20,000 fine ($10,000 per count).
C. history of the proceedings
12The appellants were charged on April 9, 2018. The trial commenced in the Superior Court of Justice and consumed 16 days of court time in September and October of 2020.
13At the close of the Crown’s case, the appellants brought a motion for a directed verdict. Submissions were heard on October 26, 30, and November 6, 2020. The motion was dismissed on November 30, 2020, with reasons to follow. Detailed written reasons were provided roughly six months later, on May 17, 2021: R. v. Qita, 2021 ONSC 3597. As discussed below, these reasons would figure prominently in the trial judge’s reasons for judgment that form the focus of this appeal.
14The trial continued with defence evidence being called over the course of six days in May and June of 2021.
15Closing submissions at the end of the trial were heard on September 20 to 22, 2021. The case was adjourned to November 29, 2021 for judgment. When counsel attended in court that day, the trial judge advised them that her reasons were not ready because “I need a little more time, so we’re just going to schedule a new date.” The case was adjourned to January 20, 2022 for judgment.
16In response to an inquiry made by the Crown on January 19, 2022, the trial coordinator advised the parties that judgment would not be forthcoming on that day. No explanation was given for the delay. The parties appeared before the trial judge on January 20, 2022 and the case was adjourned to March 11, 2022 for judgment.
17On March 11, 2022, the trial judge delivered her verdicts, but there was no written judgment. This was 5 months and 17 days after the close of submissions, and 9 months and 5 days since the close of evidence. After noting that the trial transpired over 25 non-consecutive days, the trial judge said:
There was voluminous documentary evidence as well as the oral testimony of 10 witnesses, as well as Mr. Qita’s testimony.
In this matter, I have carefully considered the Crown’s evidence, the defence evidence, the submissions of counsel, the relevant legal principles, as will be explained in the detailed reasons to follow.
On each of the following counts, I find as follows[.]
18The trial judge then announced guilty verdicts on 10 of the 14 counts.
19Defence counsel took the position that sentencing could not proceed without the trial judge’s written reasons, and the trial judge agreed that her detailed reasons would inform sentencing. The trial judge estimated that she would release her reasons within the “next two to three weeks”. On the assumption that the reasons would be available when promised, the case was adjourned to May 25, 2022 for sentencing submissions.
20On April 29, 2022, the Crown wrote to the trial coordinator’s office to inquire into the status of the reasons. On May 6, 2022, the trial coordinator replied that written reasons would be delivered prior to May 25, 2022 and that the deadline for serving and filing sentencing materials was extended until May 24, 2022. However, on May 19, the assistant trial coordinator wrote to counsel to advise them that the reasons would not be ready in time.
21The parties appeared before the trial judge on May 25, 2022. The trial judge advised the parties that she was not in a position to provide her written reasons for judgment. She said she was having difficulties sitting at a computer. The case was adjourned to August 5, 2022.
22On June 30, 2022, the trial coordinator advised counsel that the reasons would not be released before the end of July, and that a new date for sentencing submissions would need to be scheduled. When the parties appeared on August 5, 2022, the reasons were still not available. The trial judge said that they would be released no later than August 15, 2022. With that date in mind, sentencing was adjourned to November 4, 2022.
23On August 15, 2022, the trial judge’s assistant wrote to counsel to advise that her reasons were still not ready but that they could expect them by August 22, 2022. The assistant then wrote to counsel on August 22, 2022 to advise that the reasons were still not ready and said that the trial judge was presiding over another trial that was taking longer than expected. Reasons were promised by September 7, 2022. That did not happen.
24The Crown wrote to the trial judge’s assistant on September 23, 2022 to ask when reasons would be provided. The assistant responded and said she would reach out upon receiving an update from the trial judge. No such update was received. Defence counsel wrote to the trial judge’s assistant on October 21, 2022 to advise that he could not file sentencing materials without first receiving the written reasons. On October 23, 2022, the Crown wrote to the trial judge to ask to appear before her “as soon as possible … to obtain direction from the Court on next steps.”
25The parties brought the matter forward on November 1, 2022 to obtain directions. The trial judge apologized to counsel and thanked them for their patience, but she provided no explanation for the delay. She said her reasons would be complete by November 14, 2022. On this basis, the case was adjourned to December 22, 2022.
26The trial judge released her reasons on December 19, 2022. This was nine months and nine days following the bottom-line verdicts.
27The scheduled date for sentencing submissions, December 22, 2022, was adjourned at the appellants’ request to permit time to bring an application under s. 11(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, based on post-verdict delay: see R. v. Charley, 2019 ONCA 726, 147 O.R. (3d) 497. The application was heard on March 27-28, 2023. Sentencing submissions were heard on April 12-13, 2023.
28On May 24, 2023, the trial judge dismissed the appellants’ s. 11(b) Charter application and provided oral reasons. On the same day, the trial judge sentenced the appellants. She provided an oral summary of her reasons at the time and promised detailed written reasons to follow.
29The trial judge delivered her written reasons for dismissing the s. 11(b) application on May 31, 2023. She delivered her written reasons for sentence on July 24, 2023, two months following the imposition of sentence.
30As noted above, given the manner in which I would dispose of this appeal, it is not necessary to consider the merits of the trial judge’s s. 11(b) ruling. However, some passages in this ruling are relevant to the appellants’ conviction appeals.
D. Analysis
31At the heart of this appeal is the integrity of the trial judge’s reasons. There is a strong presumption that the reasons of trial judges reflect the actual reasoning that led to the verdict, not an after-the-fact justification of a decision previously made: R. v. Teskey, 2007 SCC 25, [2007] 2 S.C.R. 267, at para. 19.
32The presumption of judicial integrity is intimately connected to the presumption of impartiality on the part of Canadian judges, a presumption that is not easily displaced: Wewaykum Indian Band v. Canada, 2003 SCC 45, [2003] 2 S.C.R. 259, at para. 59; R. v. Edwards, 2024 SCC 15, 436 C.C.C. (3d) 1, at para. 84; and R. v. S. (R.D.), 1997 CanLII 324 (SCC), [1997] 3 S.C.R. 484, at paras. 32, 117.
33The presumption of integrity arises when there is a delay between the pronouncement of the verdict and the subsequent release of reasons for that verdict. This scenario raises concerns that the reasons are not a true account of the reasons that led the judge to announce their verdict.
34Bottom-line verdicts (sometimes referred to as “bare verdicts”), whereby verdicts are announced with the promise of reasons to follow, seem to occur with increasing frequency in our criminal courts. This may be the product of the mounting caseloads that trial judges must shoulder, especially in busy jurisdictions such as the one in which this trial was conducted.
35In the leading case of Teskey, at para. 16, Charron J. said: “[a] judge is not precluded from announcing a verdict with ‘reasons to follow’” (emphasis added). But she signalled limitations on this practice, at para. 17:
For example, it is often necessary in the interests of achieving trial efficiency for a trial judge to announce promptly the disposition on an evidentiary ruling or on a Charter motion, with reasons to follow at a later date. In particular circumstances, there may also be good reason for announcing the verdict in a criminal case prior to delivering the reasons that led to it. For example, the prompt delivery of a verdict of acquittal may allow an accused to be immediately released from custody. Or it may be desirable to announce a verdict of guilty at the conclusion of the hearing so as to secure an earlier date in the court’s schedule for the subsequent sentence proceedings. However, in all cases, a trial judge should be mindful of the importance that justice not only be done but that it appear to be done. [Italics in original; underlining added.]
36The last point underscored in this passage transcends the presumption of integrity and engages an equally fundamental principle. An accused person is entitled to know in a timely manner not just that they have been found guilty, but also why. Witnesses, whether complainants or otherwise, along with the community at large, are also entitled to know why such a serious decision in a criminal case has been reached. The appearance of justice suffers when this delay is unduly lengthy.
37When there is a long delay between the verdict and the reasons, it may cause a reasonable person to apprehend that the judge has engaged in result-driven reasoning, even subconsciously, to defend the verdict rather than explain how it was actually reached: Teskey, at para. 18. In these circumstances, having committed to a particular result, the trial judge may feel that they are unable to keep an open mind in their review of the evidence. As Charron J. said in Teskey, at para. 18: “A reasonable doubt is not always obvious. Its presence may be far more subtle and only discernible through the eyes of the person who keeps an open mind.”
38In R. v. Khawaja, 2026 ONCA 304, my colleague Favreau J.A. addressed the relevant principles to be considered in determining whether the presumption of integrity is rebutted. Referring to Teskey, she wrote, at para. 34:
This presumption of integrity applies even where the trial judge provides reasons after delivering a verdict, including after a lengthy delay between the verdict and the delivery of reasons. Delay in delivering reasons, on its own, will not rebut the presumption: Teskey, at para. 23; R. v. Artis, 2021 ONCA 862, 408 C.C.C. (3d) 133, at para. 18. However, the longer the delay between the verdict and the reasons for decision, “the greater the concern that the requisite link between the two does not exist”: [R. v. Cunningham, 2011 ONCA 543, 106 O.R. (3d) 641, at para. 37]; Artis, at para. 18.
39I emphasize that, in determining whether the presumption of integrity has been rebutted, the focus is from the perspective of an informed and reasonable observer considering the totality of the circumstances: Teskey, at para. 21; R. v. Arnaout, 2015 ONCA 655, 127 O.R. (3d) 241, at para. 33, leave to appeal refused, [2016] S.C.C.A. No. 51. As Doherty J.A. wrote in Cunningham, at para. 35, this objective approach “avoids the impossible task of deciding whether a particular set of reasons in reality describes the actual reasoning path taken by a judge”.
40In Teskey, at para. 23, Charron J. identified a number of factors that caused her to conclude that the 11-month delay between the trial judge’s announcement of the verdicts and the release of reasons rebutted the presumption of integrity. For ease of subsequent reference, I have replaced the bullet points in the original text with numbers:
(1) the trial judge’s obvious difficulty in arriving at a verdict in the months following the completion of the evidence;
(2) the absolutely bare declaration of guilt without any indication of the underlying reasoning;
(3) the trial judge’s expressed willingness to reconsider the verdicts immediately after their announcement;
(4) the nature of the evidence that called for a detailed consideration and analysis before any verdict could be reached;
(5) the failure of the trial judge to respond to repeated requests from counsel to give reasons;
(6) the contents of the reasons referring to events long after the announcement of the verdict suggesting that they were crafted post-decision;
(7) the inordinate delay in delivering the reasons coupled with the absence of any indication that his reasons were ready at any time during the 11 months that followed or that the trial judge had purposely deferred their issuance pending disposition of the dangerous offender application.
As Favreau J.A. said in Khawaja, at para. 36, “this list of factors is not comprehensive. Other factors may be relevant depending on the circumstances of the case.”
41In this case, five of the seven Teskey factors are in play.1 I also address two other factors that are unique to this case.
42On the first Teskey factor, the trial judge was obviously having difficulty in reaching verdicts following the completion of the evidence. When she delivered her bottom-line verdicts on March 11, 2022, the trial judge mentioned the “voluminous documentary evidence as well as the oral testimony of 10 witnesses, as well as Mr. Qita’s testimony.” The trial judge’s ruling on the s. 11(b) Charter application is also telling in this regard. While she noted that she was “confident” she had reached a “just verdict” by March 2022, she described her deliberations as a “daunting task and at times, a very overwhelming process.” This comment is a good indication that the trial judge found the case to be difficult. This is not meant as a criticism of the trial judge. It was a difficult case.
43On the second factor, when the trial judge announced her verdicts, in the words of Teskey, it was a “bare declaration of guilt without any indication of the underlying reasoning”: at para. 23. The Crown argues that we should consider the bottom-line verdicts against the backdrop of the very thorough reasons the trial judge provided in dismissing the motion for directed verdicts. The Crown submits that these reasons add important context to the ultimate verdicts reached by the trial judge. I do not accept this submission.
44The issue faced on a motion for directed verdict is very different from the ultimate verdict. The directed verdict decision merely requires an evaluation of whether there is any evidence upon which a trier of fact, properly instructed, could find the accused person guilty on a particular count: R. v. Charemski, 1998 CanLII 819 (SCC), [1998] 1 S.C.R. 679, at paras. 1-4. In making this determination, a trial judge must take the Crown’s case at its highest: R. v. Sazant, 2004 SCC 77, [2004] 3 S.C.R. 635, at para. 18; R. v. Jackson, 2016 ONCA 736, 33 C.R. (7th) 130, at paras. 7-8; and R. v. Shaw, 2024 ONCA 119, 170 O.R. (3d) 161, at para. 277. As this court said in R. v. Patterson, 2018 ONCA 774, at para. 11: “The Crown was not required to demonstrate that the inference sought was a likely or probable inference arising from the evidence, let alone that it was the only available inference. To leave the count with the jury, it was enough that it was a reasonable inference consistent with guilt” (emphasis in original).
45This is quite a different task than the ultimate determination at the end of the trial when the question is not whether a trier of fact could find the accused person guilty, but whether guilt has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt, based on all of the evidence adduced at trial. This, of course, includes defence evidence. In this case, evidence was called on behalf of both appellants which, by definition, was absent from the trial judge’s consideration when the directed verdict motion was argued at the end of the Crown’s case.
46The fourth factor – whether the nature of the evidence called for a detailed consideration and analysis before any verdict could be reached – was clearly present in this case. The length of delay after the end of submissions was lengthy, and it was also punctuated by adjournments driven by the trial judge. As the trial judge’s thorough reasons both on the directed verdict motion and in her final judgment demonstrate, the case was factually complex. It required a careful and detailed consideration of the evidence.
47On the fifth factor – the trial judge’s responsiveness to requests from counsel to give reasons – the trial judge was responsive at times, but not at others. Counsel made numerous requests for the trial judge to deliver her reasons in this case. The trial judge’s out-of-court responses, transmitted through court staff, were often apologetic. But only twice did the trial judge offer an explanation for her delay: once citing difficulties in sitting at a computer, and another time when she referred to an on-going criminal jury trial that was taking longer than she expected.
48On the seventh factor referenced in Teskey – whether there was an inordinate delay in delivering the reasons – I have already referenced the fact that the reasons were released over nine months after the trial judge announced her bottom-line verdicts, with minimal explanation of the cause for such delay.
49There are two further considerations, beyond the Teskey factors, that are relevant to this case. The first one is revealed in the trial judge’s reasons in which she dismissed the appellants’ post-verdict s. 11(b) Charter application. A contested issue was the time spent waiting for the trial judge to release her reasons, after her bare verdicts were delivered but before sentencing could take place. The appellants took the position that this period of time should be counted in the sentencing delay calculus because it was not “deliberation time” within the meaning of R. v. K.G.K., 2020 SCC 7, [2020] 1 S.C.R. 364. In other words, the appellants argued that deliberations ended when the bottom-line verdicts were rendered. The Crown submitted that this period was deliberation time, based on the premise that deliberation time includes time required to prepare reasons for decisions already announced. The trial judge accepted the Crown’s argument and counted the entire period of nine months and nine days, from the delivery of her bottom-line verdicts to the release of her written reasons, as deliberation time.
50I am not concerned with the correctness of the trial judge’s characterization of this period of time for the purposes of reviewing her decision on the s. 11(b) application. The focus is on how a reasonable observer would understand the trial judge’s description of her deliberation process as it relates to the presumption of integrity described in Teskey. As the trial judge said in her Charter ruling when explaining the reasons for her delay in releasing her written reasons, at paras. 57-58:
The parties needed to know ‘what’ was decided and ‘why’ it was decided. On March 11, 2022, the parties and counsel knew what was decided. They needed the Reasons to understand why that decision had been made.
In my view, the time taken for the preparation and delivery of Reasons does form part of the deliberation time. I rely on K.G.K. in support of this finding as reviewed below. [Emphasis added.]
51In K.G.K., the Supreme Court held that deliberation ought not to be included in the ceilings established in R. v. Jordan, 2016 SCC 27, [2016] 1 S.C.R. 631. Moldaver J. said, at para. 24: “a different test is required in determining whether an accused person’s s. 11(b) rights have been infringed on account of verdict deliberation time” (emphasis added). There are many references in the Court’s decision to the expression “verdict deliberation time”, not simply “deliberation time”. The Court describes “verdict deliberation time” as “the time taken by a trial judge to deliberate and render a decision after the evidence and closing arguments at trial have been made”: K.G.K., at para. 2.
52The Court in K.G.K. acknowledged the conceptual connection between delay for post-trial s. 11(b) purposes on the one hand, and delay in the context of the presumption of integrity on the other. However, they are not the same thing. Moldaver J. said, at para. 65:
Where an accused claims that the trial judge’s verdict deliberation time breached their s. 11(b) right to be tried within a reasonable time, they must establish that the deliberations took markedly longer than they reasonably should have in all of the circumstances. This is — appropriately, in my view — a high bar. As indicated, the presumption of judicial integrity operates in this context to create a presumption that the trial judge balanced the need for timeliness, trial fairness considerations, and the practical constraints they faced, and took only as much time as was reasonably necessary in the circumstances to render a just verdict. Only where the trial judge’s verdict deliberation time is found to have taken markedly longer than it reasonably should have will this presumption be displaced. [Italics in original; underlining added.]
53Deliberation is the process by which a judge reasons to a conclusion – in a criminal case, a verdict. While reasons are meant to explain that process – i.e., how the verdict was reached – they are not part of it when a decision has already been made. If a judge continues to “deliberate” after a verdict has been rendered, the integrity of that decision becomes questionable, and the reasons justifying the announced decision are suspect.
54The trial judge did not merely slip in her use of the term “deliberation”. She was clear that she considered her deliberation time to include the post-verdict period when she was writing her reasons. This is a factor that, along with the five Teskey factors discussed above, would cause a reasonable person to apprehend that the trial judge’s written reasons were an after-the-fact justification of her bare verdicts delivered over nine months earlier.
55There is one further matter that requires consideration. At the hearing of the appeal, appellants’ counsel produced a document that, in colour-coded form, compared the reasons of the trial judge on the directed verdict motion with her final reasons for judgment. Both documents are lengthy. The directed verdict reasons are 91 pages (259 paragraphs) long and her final reasons are 105 pages (314 paragraphs) long.
56Without objection from the Crown about the relevance or accuracy of this document, the appellants have demonstrated that roughly 75% of the reasons for judgment are either exactly the same, or contain only very minor variations (e.g., re-wording, typo corrections). In fairness to the trial judge, the new parts of her analysis in her final reasons address principally the defence evidence.
57I do not mention this aspect of her reasons as a criticism of the trial judge’s work product. However, in her s. 11(b) Charter ruling, the trial judge emphasized the length of her reasons as partial explanation for the delay that unfolded. It would appear that a good portion of the reasons had already been written. There is nothing inherently wrong with this practice. But it goes to the lack of explanation for the delay, which is a circumstance that may constitute evidence to rebut the presumption of integrity: Khawaja, at para. 36. The appellants submit that this comparison supports their Teskeyargument. Given that a significant portion of the reasons were already done, the delay persisted while the trial judge was drafting parts that specifically engaged with contested issues raised by the defence’s case. A reasonable observer would conclude that those were difficult paragraphs to write because the trial judge continued to deliberate on these issues post-verdict.
58Finally, the Crown submits that a relevant contextual factor in this case is the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. I agree with the appellants that there is no indication that the pandemic had any impact on what happened in this case.
59In conclusion, weighing the various factors from Teskey, and the other features of this case that I have identified, the appellants have met their high burden of displacing the presumption of integrity. I acknowledge that there is nothing specific in the trial judge’s reasons, something telling, that is indicative of a disconnect between the verdicts she reached and the reasons she provided. But that is not the test. The inquiry is an objective one, from the perspective of a reasonable and informed person. In this case, taken together, the factors I have identified would lead a reasonable person to apprehend that the reasons that were produced were an after-the-fact justification for a decision reached months earlier. As the appellants say in their factum:
As spring turned to summer, summer to fall, and fall to winter, she repeatedly rescheduled appearances while she continued to write her reasons. This Court cannot be confident that during this time, the trial judge was merely recording the reasoning that had previously led to her decision. On this record, a reasonable person would view her reasons as a product of after-the-fact justification.
60Accordingly, for the purposes of appellate review, the trial judge’s reasons for judgment cannot be relied upon. The case must stand or fall on the bottom-line decision announced on March 11, 2022. The Crown does not dispute that these reasons, standing alone, cannot sustain the convictions.
61To conclude, I am aware that a finding by an appellate court that the presumption of integrity has been rebutted strikes a harsh tone. The everyday use of the term “integrity” hints at a person’s character, not necessarily their work product. A more suitable label in this context might refer to the “authenticity” of a trial judge’s reasons. Consideration of whether the presumption of authenticity has been rebutted would train the focus squarely on the trial judge’s work. However, “integrity” has emerged as the term of choice in the jurisprudence.
62Nevertheless, I wish to stress that nothing in this judgment should be considered to be an attack on the trial judge’s personal integrity. Despite my conclusions on the legal issue raised in this case, it is clear that this trial was presided over by a hard-working judge who, it would appear, did not have sufficient time to complete her reasons in a difficult case. While it may sometimes be challenging to find that time, especially for judges handling heavy caseloads in busy jurisdictions, appellate intervention is required when the high threshold established in Teskey is met, as it has been in this case.
E. Disposition
63I would allow the appeals, set aside the convictions, and order a new trial.
Released: July 30, 2026 “G.T.T.”
“Gary Trotter J.A.”
“I agree. P.J. Monahan J.A.”
“I agree. J. Dawe J.A.”
Footnotes
- The third and sixth factors listed in para. 40, above, were not in play. These factors concern a trial judge’s expressed willingness to reconsider the verdicts after their announcement, and whether the contents of the reasons refer to events occurring after the announcement of the verdicts, respectively.