Criminal and Quasi-Criminal Law - OCA

The appellant, a tax return preparer, was convicted of fraud over $5,000 for filing false claims of charitable donations on behalf of his clients to a registered charity called Tractors for Daily Bread.

The appellant claimed he believed the donations were valid and had relied on the charity's director to verify them.

He was sentenced to 30 months in custody.

On appeal, the appellant challenged the admission of non-expert opinion evidence from a Canada Customs and Revenue Agency investigator, the trial judge's instruction on mens rea, and the instruction on prior inconsistent statements.

The majority dismissed the conviction appeal and sentence appeal, while the dissent would have allowed the appeal and ordered a new trial.

Three injured workers appealed convictions or acquittal reversals under section 149(2) of the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act, 1997, which makes it an offence to wilfully fail to inform the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board of a material change in circumstances affecting entitlement to benefits.

The Court of Appeal clarified the mens rea requirement for this offence, holding that the Crown must prove the accused knew of a material change, intended not to inform the Board, and either intended to receive unentitled benefits or foresaw such receipt as substantially certain.

The court restored one acquittal and ordered new trials for two convictions.

The appellant appealed his convictions for sexual assault, sexual interference, and unlawful confinement against his daughter when she was under 16 years of age.

The sole ground of appeal was that the trial judge provided insufficient reasons for meaningful appellate review.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that while the trial judge's reasons were brief, they were sufficiently clear to demonstrate why the conviction was reached.

The trial judge properly assessed credibility and reliability of witnesses, accepted the complainant's evidence regarding the April 16, 2013 offences, and correctly applied the W.(D.) analysis to reject the appellant's denial and defence evidence.

The appellant appealed his convictions and sentence for numerous gun-related offences arising from a seizure of firearms and explosives.

He argued the trial judge erred by not staying the charges due to Charter breaches, including a 15-day detention without a bail hearing and the destruction of seized explosives.

The Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge's application of the Babos test, agreeing that exclusion of evidence and sentence remission were adequate remedies.

The sentence appeal was also dismissed, as the sentencing judge properly considered the appellant's status as a former RCMP officer against his deliberate defiance of court orders.

The appellant was convicted of first degree murder, second degree murder, attempted murder, and aggravated assault following a series of altercations that began at a pub and ended with two men fatally stabbed.

On appeal, the appellant argued the first degree murder verdict was unreasonable, the jury was improperly instructed on after-the-fact conduct and self-defence, a Crown expert was biased, and he should benefit from retrospective application of new self-defence laws.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding ample evidence of planning and deliberation, no reversible error in the jury instructions, and that the proposed fresh expert evidence did not meet the test for admission.

The appellant was convicted of manslaughter as a party under s. 21(2) of the Criminal Code after his co-accused stabbed the victim during a group fight.

On appeal, the appellant argued the trial judge erred in her instructions to the jury on self-defence, consent, and the use of a prior inconsistent statement.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and ordered a new trial, finding that the trial judge's instruction on consent was confusing and may have improperly led the jury to consider the stab wounds when determining if the victim consented to the initial fight.

The appellant sought leave to appeal his sentence for robbery with an imitation firearm, arguing he should receive enhanced credit for his 15 months of pre-trial custody.

Following the Supreme Court of Canada's decision in R. v. Summers, the Court of Appeal granted leave and allowed the appeal, awarding enhanced credit on a 1.5 to 1 basis, reducing the remaining sentence.

The appellant was convicted of second degree murder after killing the victim and subsequently burying her body and cleaning the crime scene.

He appealed his conviction, arguing the trial judge misdirected the jury on the intent required for murder, the common sense inference, self-defence, and the use of post-offence conduct.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and ordered a new trial, finding that the trial judge erred by failing to properly instruct the jury on how the post-offence conduct (flight, lies, and concealment of the body) could be used to infer the specific intent required for murder.

The appellant appealed his conviction for assault with a weapon, arguing that the evidence at trial did not support the conclusion that the offence occurred in 1999 as alleged in the information.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, holding that the date of the offence is not an essential element unless it is critical and the accused is misled or prejudiced.

The court found the appellant knew the case he had to meet and the date played no part in his defence.

The appellant appealed the six-year global sentence imposed for historical sexual offences against multiple child victims.

The Court of Appeal found that the trial judge properly considered the appellant's prior sentences and lack of insight.

The court upheld the global sentence as fit for a sexual predator abusing young victims, but adjusted the allocation for specific offences to respect statutory maximums and credited 42 days for pre-trial custody.

The appeal was otherwise dismissed.

The appellant appealed his conviction for possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking and sought leave to appeal his 10-month sentence.

He argued that the trial judge was biased, the verdict was unreasonable, and his trial counsel was incompetent for failing to call him or other witnesses to testify and for abandoning a section 8 Charter application.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no reasonable apprehension of bias, that the verdict was reasonable based on the evidence, and that trial counsel's decisions fell within the range of reasonable professional assistance.

The appellant appealed a decision regarding his security level on habeas corpus.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal as moot because the appellant had already been moved to the level of security he sought, noting that alternate remedies exist for concerns relating to his corrections record.

The appellant appealed his convictions for possession of drugs for the purpose of trafficking and possession of the proceeds of crime, challenging the search warrant for his home.

He argued the trial judge erred in restricting cross-examination of the affiant of the Information to Obtain (ITO) and that the ITO lacked sufficient information to justify the warrant.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the trial judge properly restricted cross-examination to avoid a fishing expedition and that the corroborated information from a confidential informant, combined with surveillance evidence, provided reasonable and probable grounds for the warrant.

The appellant was convicted of second-degree murder in 1995 for the death of her two-and-a-half-year-old son, based largely on the flawed pathological evidence of Dr. Charles Smith, who testified the child died of asphyxia.

Following a reinvestigation of Dr. Smith's cases, the Supreme Court of Canada remanded the matter to the Court of Appeal to consider fresh evidence.

The fresh expert evidence demonstrated that the cause of death was unascertained and that Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP) could not be excluded.

The Court of Appeal admitted the fresh evidence, found the conviction constituted a miscarriage of justice, allowed the appeal, and ordered a new trial.

The aboriginal appellant appealed his sentence of 30 months' imprisonment for breaching the alcohol abstention condition of his long-term supervision order.

The appellant argued the sentence was unfit, the judge misapprehended evidence, denied enhanced pre-sentence custody credit, and failed to adequately consider his aboriginal status.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that protection of the public was paramount given the appellant's history of violent offences while intoxicated, and that his aboriginal status did not warrant a reduction in this specific context.

The appellant appealed his custodial sentence for impaired driving causing bodily harm and failing to remain at the scene of an accident, arguing for a conditional sentence based on fresh evidence of his medical condition.

The Court of Appeal found no error in principle by the trial judge and held that the fresh evidence did not warrant a reduction in sentence.

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

The appellant appealed convictions for indecent assault arising from a jury trial on multiple sexual offence counts involving family members.

The appeal turned on whether the trial judge properly admitted similar fact evidence from an additional witness and whether the evidence on each count was admissible across all other counts.

Applying the post-trial framework in the Supreme Court authorities on similar fact evidence, the court held that the issue had been defined too broadly as credibility and that the alleged acts lacked the necessary persuasive degree of connection across all counts.

The prejudicial effect of the impugned evidence outweighed its probative value on several counts.

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

The appellant appealed a decision of the Ontario Review Board ordering his transfer from a medium security facility to a maximum security facility (Oak Ridge).

The appellant conceded he posed a significant threat to public safety but argued the Board unreasonably assessed issues of risk and trust.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the Board's decision was reasonably supported by uncontradicted expert evidence regarding the appellant's lack of progress, risk level, and need for a highly structured environment.

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 a jury conviction for second degree murder and sought leave to appeal sentence.

The Court of Appeal held that the trial judge wrongly excluded post-arrest utterances that were capable of supporting defence psychiatric evidence on cocaine intoxication and cocaine psychosis, and also erred in refusing to leave provocation with the jury because there was some evidence on which a properly instructed jury could find the partial defence.

The court rejected the argument that a later hospital statement was admissible to rebut recent fabrication, found no reversible error in the intoxication charge, and declined to interfere on motive.

The conviction was quashed and a new trial ordered, making it unnecessary to address sentence.