Criminal and Quasi-Criminal Law - OCA

The appellant, convicted of four counts related to sexual luring of a child and sentenced to 3.5 years, appealed his conviction and sentence.

He argued his Asperger's Syndrome affected his testimony, but the trial judge had already considered this.

The Court of Appeal dismissed both the conviction and sentence appeals, finding no error.

The court also addressed a Kienapple conditional stay issue, correcting the trial judge's error by quashing the conviction on count 3 and entering a conditional stay, while lifting the stay on count 4 and entering a conviction, confirming the original sentence on count 4.

The appellant appealed his convictions for aggravated assault, dangerous operation of a motor vehicle, break and enter, and other offences.

He argued the trial judge erred in assessing exculpatory eyewitness identification evidence, accepting the testimony of a witness to whom he confessed, and dismissing a lost evidence application regarding a glove and mitten.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no error in the trial judge's assessment of the identification evidence, deferring to the credibility findings regarding the confession, and upholding the factual findings on the lost evidence application.

This decision addresses the appellant's desire to abandon his appeal, raising concerns about his current mental capacity.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario determined it has the discretion to reject a Notice of Abandonment if the appellant lacks capacity, likening the test to that for entering a guilty plea.

The court decided to proceed to a second stage of analysis to determine whether to accept the abandonment, setting a case management conference to explore the evidentiary record on capacity and offering to appoint counsel for the appellant for this limited purpose.

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.

The appellants brought a motion to raise new issues on appeal regarding the eligibility of a juror who was a former auxiliary police officer.

They sought to argue that the juror was ineligible under the Juries Act and, alternatively, under the Charter.

The Court of Appeal permitted the appellants to advance the statutory interpretation argument but denied permission to advance the Charter argument, with full reasons to follow in the appeal judgment.

The appellant was convicted of assault and break and enter to commit assault arising from a home invasion.

She was sentenced to two years less a day imprisonment followed by two years of probation.

On appeal, she argued the trial judge erred by not imposing a conditional sentence.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the trial judge correctly concluded a conditional sentence was unfit given the seriousness of the offence, the appellant's role as a principal, and the need for denunciation and deterrence.

The appellant sought leave to appeal a decision of the Summary Convictions Appeal Court dismissing his appeal from a sexual assault conviction.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the motion for leave, finding that the case was essentially a matter of credibility and raised no issue of law with significance beyond the particulars of the case.

The court noted that even if leave were granted, the appeal would be dismissed on its merits.

The appellant appealed his conviction, arguing the motions judge erred in her s. 24(2) Charter analysis after finding an unlawful arrest.

The appellant contended that the motions judge's finding of good faith was inconsistent with her finding that the officers lacked reasonable and probable grounds to arrest.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, holding that the motions judge accepted the officers' evidence that they believed they had authority to arrest, and it was open to her to consider the high crime area in assessing police conduct under s. 24(2).

The appellant was convicted of sexually assaulting the complainant.

He appealed the conviction, arguing the trial judge erred by relying on his passive demeanour and lack of eye contact to reject his testimony, and by allowing the Crown to cross-examine him on why the complainant would lie.

The Court of Appeal found that the trial judge's reliance on the appellant's demeanour was legally flawed and vitiated the conviction.

The appeal was allowed and a new trial was ordered.

The appellant appealed his conviction for failing to report a change of address.

The Court of Appeal held that spending weekends at a girlfriend's house while keeping personal effects at his mother's house did not constitute a change of address.

The appeal was allowed and an acquittal entered.

The Crown appealed an acquittal entered by the trial judge.

The trial judge found that the search warrant was based on information obtained from a prior unreasonable search, rendering the subsequent search warrantless and in violation of section 8 of the Charter.

The trial judge excluded the evidence under section 24(2) of the Charter, emphasizing the seriousness of the breach.

The Court of Appeal found no error in the trial judge's analysis and dismissed the appeal.

The appellant appealed his conviction for possession of a weapon dangerous to the public peace.

He argued that the trial judge's reasons were insufficient under the Sheppard standard and that she erred in interpreting the elements of the offence under section 88 of the Criminal Code.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the trial judge's reasons clear and comprehensive, and her interpretation of section 88 consistent with the Supreme Court of Canada's analysis in R. v. Kerr.

The appellant, a young person, appealed his conviction and sentence for sexual assault.

He argued a reasonable apprehension of bias because the trial judge had accepted a guilty plea from his co-accused six weeks prior to his trial, during which facts implicating the appellant were read in.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, noting the high threshold for reasonable apprehension of bias and that trial judges routinely disabuse their minds of prior prejudicial information.

The sentence appeal was allowed in part to quash a sentence for breach of probation, as the appellant was not convicted of that charge, but the sentence for sexual assault was upheld.

The appellant appealed from a sentence, challenging a probation term excluding him from Muskoka and the trial judge's refusal to vary a probation term prohibiting contact with the complainant.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the geographic restriction appropriate given the appellant's intention to leave the area for rehabilitation.

The court also upheld the refusal to vary the no-contact order due to the nature of the offences and the short time since the appellant's release.

The appeal was dismissed without prejudice to a future application to vary.

The appellant pleaded guilty to his involvement as the central figure in a large-scale marijuana grow operation and was sentenced to 18 months' incarceration.

He appealed the sentence, arguing for a conditional sentence.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no error in principle in the trial judge's decision to prioritize general deterrence and concluding the sentence was demonstrably fit.

The appellant appealed his conviction, arguing the trial judge misapprehended his evidence and misapplied the W.(D.) framework by approaching the case on an 'either/or' basis.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the trial judge properly weighed all the evidence, rejected the appellant's testimony, and accepted the evidence of the two young complainants who described similar incidents without collusion.

The appellant was convicted of armed robbery, use of an imitation firearm, and disguise with intent.

The Crown's case relied heavily on the testimony of the appellant's former girlfriend, who initially provided a false alibi but later recanted and testified that the appellant confessed to her.

The trial judge drew an adverse inference from the appellant's failure to testify, treating it as an exception under Noble because he found the alibi was fabricated.

The Court of Appeal held that the trial judge erred in drawing this adverse inference, as the defence did not advance an alibi at trial.

The appeal was allowed and a new trial ordered.

The appellant appealed his convictions and sentence for sexual offences.

He argued the trial judge rendered inconsistent verdicts by convicting him of some acts and acquitting him of others based on the same complainant's evidence.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding the allegations were logically severable and the acquittals did not imply the complainant was untruthful.

The court also dismissed grounds relating to incomplete Crown disclosure and the trial judge's approach to a conditional sentence.

The Crown appealed the respondent's acquittal.

The respondent fled the jurisdiction, and the court appointed an amicus curiae to represent his interests.

The Crown argued the amicus should be paid at legal aid rates by analogy to s. 684 of the Criminal Code, while the amicus sought payment from $300,000 seized from the respondent upon his arrest, pursuant to s. 462.34.

The court ordered the federal Crown to pay the amicus at a reasonable rate and recover the sum from the seized funds.

The appellant appealed convictions for sexual offences arising from allegations by his stepdaughter following a judge-and-jury trial.

The Court of Appeal held that Crown counsel repeatedly breached the duty of fairness by personalizing the prosecution, misstating the appellant's evidence, engaging in improper and sarcastic cross-examination, and reading a misleading excerpt from Supreme Court of Canada authority to the jury.

The trial judge compounded the unfairness by repeating an inaccurate version of the appellant's evidence and failing to correct the improprieties.

The cumulative prejudice deprived the appellant of a fair trial.

A new trial was ordered.