Criminal and Quasi-Criminal Law - OCA

The appellant, Preston Darnell Scott, appealed his conviction for robbery and his sentence.

The Crown alleged he acted as the getaway driver in a home invasion.

The appeal challenged the trial judge's inference of knowledge regarding the co-accused's masks and the sufficiency of reasons, as well as the fitness of the six-and-a-half-year sentence.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding the trial judge's inference of knowledge was reasonable despite an "unfortunate" choice of words, and that the reasons were sufficient.

The court allowed the sentence appeal only to grant credit for pre-sentence custody, reducing the sentence by 23 days.

Maxwell Johnson was convicted of trafficking cocaine, possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking, and possession of proceeds of crime.

He was initially sentenced to six months' imprisonment concurrently.

He appealed the sentence, arguing the trial judge erred in applying sentencing ranges for street-level trafficking to a 'share trafficking' scenario and in reducing the weight given to his first offender status.

The Court of Appeal found errors in principle regarding the application of sentencing ranges and the consideration of first offender status.

The appeal was allowed, and a six-month conditional sentence was substituted for the original custodial sentence, to be served concurrently, followed by one year of probation.

The appellants, Jermaine Gager and Corey Leonard Smelie, appealed their murder convictions, with Mr. Smelie also seeking leave to appeal his sentence.

They raised several grounds, including errors in qualifying an expert witness on street gangs, inadequate jury instructions, erroneous dismissal of disclosure applications, inconsistent verdicts, and reasonable apprehension of bias by the trial judge.

The Court of Appeal dismissed all appeals, finding no reversible error in the trial judge's rulings or conduct, and affirmed the fitness of the sentence imposed on Mr. Smelie.

Alisa Chaly appealed her convictions for refusing to provide a breath sample and breach of recognizance, following an unsuccessful summary conviction appeal.

She sought leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal, arguing errors regarding arbitrary detention and the loss of booking area video.

The Court denied leave, finding no questions of law significant to the administration of justice or clear errors.

The trial judge's findings on arbitrary detention (lack of evidence) and the video loss (not negligent, no material prejudice) were upheld.

The victim surcharge was set aside by consent.

The appellant appealed a conviction entered on September 4, 2013 by Justice James Ramsay of the Superior Court of Justice.

The appellant took no steps to advance the appeal for several years and could not be located despite efforts by the RCMP.

The Crown sought dismissal of the appeal as abandoned.

The Court of Appeal granted the Crown's request and dismissed the appeal as abandoned.

The appellant appealed his conviction, arguing the verdict was unreasonable based on differences in transaction methodology, lack of exclusive opportunity, and logistical improbability.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no evidence of different methodologies, noting the appellant was caught on video misappropriating funds and had the victim's PIN, and concluding the logistics pointed to the appellant rather than anyone else.

The appellant was convicted of second degree murder after participating in the beating death of a drug dealer.

On appeal, he argued the trial judge erred by admitting a witness's videotaped out-of-court statement under the principled exception to the hearsay rule after the witness claimed no memory of the conversation at trial.

The appellant also challenged the jury instructions regarding the use of the hearsay statement, the effect of intoxication on the intent for murder, and the use of post-offence conduct.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no errors in the admission of the hearsay evidence or the jury instructions.

The appellant was stopped for speeding and arrested for breaching his recognizance curfew.

During a search of the vehicle incident to that arrest, the officer smelled raw marihuana, leading to a second arrest for possession and a further search of the trunk, which revealed 18.1 pounds of marihuana.

The appellant appealed his conviction for possession for the purpose of trafficking, arguing the search violated his s. 8 Charter rights.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, upholding the trial judge's findings that the officer had reasonable and probable grounds for the initial arrest, the search of the front of the car was justified for officer safety, and the officer's testimony regarding the smell of marihuana was credible, making the subsequent search of the trunk lawful.

The appellant appealed a disposition of the Ontario Review Board, arguing that the majority of the Board misapprehended the expert evidence of a doctor.

The Court of Appeal found no misapprehension of the evidence and held that the Board's decision was reasonable.

Giving deference to the Board's analysis, the appeal was dismissed.

The appellant appealed his conviction for second-degree murder.

The Crown's case relied heavily on the testimony of an accomplice and similar fact evidence of two prior incidents involving the appellant.

The Court of Appeal held that the trial judge erred in admitting the similar fact evidence, as its prejudicial effect outweighed its limited probative value.

The evidence lacked sufficient similarity to the charged offence and posed a significant risk of moral and reasoning prejudice.

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

The appellant appealed his sexual assault conviction, arguing the trial judge improperly relied on the complainant's prior consistent statements to bolster her credibility.

The summary conviction appeal judge found an error but applied the curative proviso on his own initiative to dismiss the appeal.

The Court of Appeal held that while the appeal judge erred in applying the proviso without submissions, there was no underlying error by the trial judge, who properly used the statements as narrative and to explain inconsistencies.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant was convicted of aggravated assault after allegedly slashing the victim's face.

The victim gave an unsworn audio-taped statement to the police identifying the appellant as the assailant, but left the country the next day and could not be located for trial.

The trial judge admitted the statement under the principled exception to the hearsay rule, finding necessity and reliability.

On appeal, the Court of Appeal found that the trial judge erred in concluding that no benefit would be served by cross-examining the victim, given evidence of possible animus, unsavoury character, and suspicious departure.

The appeal was allowed and a new trial ordered.

The appellant appealed his conviction for resisting arrest, arguing the trial judge erred in finding a lawful arrest without addressing whether the police used excessive force.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the appellant's actions of pulling his hands and hiding them under his stomach constituted forceful opposition.

The court also held that because the issue of excessive force was not argued at trial as it was on appeal, the trial judge did not err in failing to specifically address it.

The appellant appealed his conviction and sentence for contempt of court, which arose from his refusal to testify at a first-degree murder trial.

He argued that the trial judge erred in the procedure followed and in rejecting his defence of duress.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the procedure was fair, the duress defence lacked merit because the appellant failed to pursue a safe avenue of escape by going to the police, and the sentence was fit given the impact of his refusal on the murder trial.

This is an addendum to an appeal book endorsement that reduced the appellant's custodial sentence to two years less a day.

The Court of Appeal ordered a further 10-week reduction to the sentence to reflect five weeks of pre-sentence custody credited on a two-for-one basis, which had been granted by the sentencing judge but inadvertently omitted from the initial appellate decision.

The appellants appealed the dismissal of their application to quash their committal for trial.

They argued a denial of natural justice regarding the preliminary inquiry judge's use of hearsay evidence.

The Court of Appeal found no denial of natural justice, noting that counsel had the opportunity to make submissions on the issue and that the absence of a voir dire did not constitute jurisdictional error.

The court also found sufficient evidence of knowledge and control of a gun to warrant committal, based on the location of the child, the car seat, and the visibility of the gun.

The appeals were dismissed.

The appellant was convicted of extortion after demanding the complainant purchase the distribution rights to a book he wrote about their past criminal involvement, threatening to distribute it to her community if she refused.

He appealed, arguing the trial judge erred in the jury charge regarding the definition of a threat and the defence of reasonable justification, and failed to adequately review the complainant's cross-examination evidence where she admitted she was not explicitly threatened.

The majority of the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the jury charge adequate and the failure to review the cross-examination evidence not fatal given the short trial and the legal definition of a threat.

Borins J.A. dissented, finding the trial judge's failure to review the exculpatory cross-examination evidence constituted reversible error.

The appellant challenged his conviction as a party to a sexual assault with a weapon arising from a group sexual assault committed during a heavily intoxicated gathering, arguing that the trial judge failed to address intoxication and scrutinized defence evidence more harshly than Crown evidence.

The court held that the intoxication defence had an air of reality, but the trial reasons, read contextually, showed the trial judge was aware of the defence and rejected it, thereby permitting meaningful appellate review.

The court also rejected the complaint about uneven scrutiny, finding the credibility analysis thorough and balanced.

Leave to appeal sentence was granted, but the sentence appeal was dismissed because the custodial term was fit and parity with youth co-accused sentenced under a different statutory regime did not assist the appellant.

The appellant appealed the sentence imposed by the Ontario Court of Justice.

The Court of Appeal found no error in principle and held that the sentence was fit.

Leave to appeal sentence was granted, but the appeal was dismissed.

The appellant appealed his sentence for a residential marijuana grow operation.

The Court of Appeal found that the trial judge erred in principle by categorically removing a conditional sentence as a possible sentence for this type of offence.

The court set aside the original sentence and, balancing the appellant's individual circumstances with the need for deterrence and denunciation, substituted a sentence of 90 days to be served intermittently, followed by the probation terms imposed by the trial judge.