Criminal and Quasi-Criminal Law - OCA

The Crown sought leave to appeal a decision staying regulatory charges under the Occupational Health and Safety Act on the basis of unreasonable delay contrary to s. 11(b) of the Charter.

The charges arose from a workplace fatality at a gold mine where a worker was poisoned by cyanide.

The Ontario Court of Justice found that the net delay of 23 months exceeded the presumptive ceiling of 18 months and that the Crown failed to develop and follow a concrete plan to minimize delay.

The Superior Court dismissed the Crown's appeal.

The Crown sought leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal on four grounds relating to the calculation of delay and the application of the Jordan framework.

The appellant appealed his convictions for break and enter and assault with a weapon, as well as his sentence of five years' imprisonment and a ten-year long-term supervision order.

On the conviction appeal, the appellant argued the trial judge erred in his jury instructions regarding eyewitness identification and the Vetrovec warning for an accomplice's testimony.

The Court of Appeal found no error in the instructions.

On the sentence appeal, the appellant argued he should have received enhanced credit (1.5:1) for pre-sentence custody.

The Court of Appeal held that while the trial judge erred in denying enhanced credit solely because the appellant did not apply for bail, enhanced credit was not warranted because the appellant's extensive criminal record and likelihood of reoffending meant he was unlikely to be granted early release.

Both appeals were dismissed.

The appellant challenged convictions arising from a judge-alone criminal trial on the basis of misapprehension of evidence.

The respondent conceded material misapprehensions on two counts but disputed any error on the remaining count.

The court held that a further misapprehension affected the credibility assessment on the first count and, taken cumulatively with the conceded errors on the other counts, rendered the verdicts unreliable.

The appeal was allowed and a new trial was ordered on all three counts.

The young person appealed their conviction and sentence for robbery.

The appellant argued the trial judge misapprehended circumstantial evidence regarding identification and erred in principle during sentencing by departing from a probation officer's recommendation.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding the trial judge correctly assessed the circumstantial evidence matching the appellant's clothing and appearance to the perpetrators.

The sentence appeal was also dismissed, as the trial judge made no error in principle and was entitled to weigh the appellant's poor behaviour in pre-trial custody.

The appellant appealed a decision dismissing his application for certiorari, mandamus, or prohibition to stop a trial in the Ontario Court of Justice.

The application had been dismissed because the appellant left the courtroom before it was completed.

The Court of Appeal heard the appeal in the appellant's absence and dismissed it as moot and without merit, noting that the trial he sought to stop had already taken place.

The Crown appealed an 18-month conditional sentence imposed on the respondent, who pleaded guilty to administering a noxious chemical and criminal harassment against a former intimate partner and co-worker.

The respondent repeatedly sprayed a corrosive chemical on the victim's workstation, causing severe burns and blistering over several years.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, finding the trial judge erred in concluding the conduct was not a 'serious personal injury offence' under s. 752 of the Criminal Code, which rendered a conditional sentence unavailable.

The Court also found the original sentence demonstrably unfit given the significant breach of trust and extensive planning, varying the sentence to two years less a day of imprisonment.

The appellant, an inmate serving a six-year sentence, appealed the dismissal of his habeas corpus application challenging his classification as a medium security risk.

While the appeal was pending, the appellant was placed on day parole, rendering the classification issue moot.

The Court of Appeal also found that the grounds of appeal lacked merit, as the correctional authorities had the jurisdiction to delegate the grievance decision and retained discretion to consider factors beyond the Custody Rating Score.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant's new counsel requested an adjournment at the opening of the appeal hearing to obtain fresh expert evidence, following the recent death of the appellant's previous counsel.

The Court of Appeal granted the adjournment to a peremptory date without expressing a view on the admissibility of the proposed fresh evidence under the Palmer test.

The appellant appealed his convictions and sentence for firearms and driving offences.

He argued that the police violated his s. 8 Charter rights by searching his vehicle after he was arrested for failing to identify himself under the Highway Traffic Act.

The Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge's finding that the police did not know the appellant's identity with certainty and that the search of the vehicle for identification was progressive and reasonable.

The conviction and the five-year sentence were upheld, noting the appellant's lengthy criminal record and breaches of prohibitions.

The Crown appealed a summary conviction appeal court decision that had overturned the accused's conviction.

The Court of Appeal found that the appeal judge erred in law by failing to apply binding precedent.

Because the approved screening device was located nearby and customs officials administered the test within nine minutes of the original demand, the conviction was restored.

The appellant appealed his convictions for possession of a firearm while prohibited and breach of probation.

He argued he was arbitrarily detained and searched, and that the unloaded sawed-off rifle found on him should be excluded under s. 24(2) of the Charter.

The Court of Appeal assumed an arbitrary detention occurred but held the evidence should not be excluded, finding the police acted in good faith in a high-crime area and the admission of the evidence would not bring the administration of justice into disrepute.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant appealed his conviction for impaired driving, arguing the summary conviction appeal judge erred in upholding the trial judge's finding that he was in care and control of his vehicle after crashing into a stone gate post.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no error of law.

The trial judge properly concluded the appellant retained care and control based on his proximity to the vehicle, possession of the keys, declared intention to continue driving, and repeated attempts to extricate the vehicle.

The appellant appealed his conviction for impaired driving, arguing he did not have care and control of the vehicle.

The trial judge applied the law from R. v. Toews and found a real risk that the extremely impaired appellant could have woken up and driven the vehicle.

The summary conviction appeal court judge upheld this finding as not unreasonable.

The Court of Appeal found no error of law and dismissed the appeal.

The young person appealed from a finding of guilt for sexual assault and the sentence imposed.

The Court of Appeal found that the trial judge erred by relying on a prior consistent statement (a handwritten letter) made by the complainant to bolster her credibility.

The court held that the letter was introduced only to explain how the allegations came to be reported, and its use to enhance credibility was an error.

The appeal was allowed, the finding of guilt was set aside, and a new trial was ordered.

The appellant was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder after the elderly victims were stabbed in their sleep.

The Crown relied on circumstantial evidence, including the appellant's motive, opportunity, blood on his track pants, and a confession to an undercover officer.

The trial judge admitted expert evidence from a police officer regarding crime scene reconstruction and criminal profiling.

On appeal, the appellant challenged the admission of the expert evidence, demeanour evidence, and the conduct of Crown counsel.

The Court of Appeal held that while the criminal profiling evidence was inadmissible, the crime scene reconstruction evidence was properly admitted.

The court applied the curative proviso to the profiling evidence, finding the case against the appellant overwhelming, and dismissed the appeal.

The appellant appealed his conviction imposed by a judge and jury.

In light of the Court of Appeal's disposition of the co-accused's appeal, the appeal was allowed, the conviction was quashed, and a new trial was ordered.

The appellant appealed his convictions for aggravated assault and firearm offences, arguing that the trial judge erred by not excluding evidence from an informal line-up due to alleged breaches of his ss. 7 and 10(b) Charter rights, and by misapprehending identification evidence.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no Charter breach and noting that the trial judge did not rely on the line-up evidence.

The Court also found no error in the trial judge's conclusion that the appellant was the shooter, as all witnesses agreed the shooter was the person pursued and beaten by the crowd, which matched the appellant.

The appellant appealed his convictions for sexual assault with a weapon, sexual interference, and forcible confinement.

The Court of Appeal found that the trial judge erred in his reasons by inappropriately considering what would happen to the complainant if the accused were not convicted, and by framing the credibility assessment as a contest of whether the complainant or the accused was 'guilty' of fabrication.

The appeal was allowed, the convictions were set aside, and a new trial was ordered.

The appellant appealed a jury conviction for counselling murder arising from an alleged arrangement with a co-accused witness to kill a prospective witness in unrelated property offences.

He argued the verdict was inconsistent with acquittals on conspiracy to commit murder and attempted murder, that the jury charge on counselling was flawed, that a prior guilty plea to possession of property obtained by crime was wrongly admitted, and that the Crown’s closing unfairly overstated the target witness’s importance.

The Court of Appeal held the verdicts were not violently at odds because the offences were separately defined and involved materially different elements, the charge as a whole could not have misled the jury, the prior guilty plea was admissible, and the closing address disclosed no reversible error.

The appeal was dismissed.

The Crown appealed a sentence imposed after a manslaughter conviction arising from the death of the accused's mother by ligature strangulation.

The court reiterated the deferential appellate standard for sentence appeals and held that a conditional sentence for manslaughter is not, in itself, an error in principle.

In light of the offender's remorse, rehabilitation, psychiatric evidence, lack of risk to the community, and the trial judge's careful consideration of the sentencing objectives in the Criminal Code, the majority found no basis to interfere.

Leave to appeal sentence was granted, but the appeal was dismissed, with a dissent concluding that denunciation and general deterrence required custody.