Court of Appeal for Ontario

Date: 2025-04-07
Docket: COA-23-CR-0053
Panel: Trotter, Zarnett and Dawe JJ.A.

Between

His Majesty the King
Appellant

and

Aaron Doucette
Respondent

Counsel:
Kelvin Ramchand and Raphael An, for the appellant
Ricardo Golec, for the respondent

Heard and released orally: April 4, 2025

On appeal from the stay entered by Justice Malcolm McLeod of the Ontario Court of Justice on December 14, 2022.

Reasons for Decision

[1] This is a Crown appeal from a decision by the trial judge to stay drug charges against the respondent under s. 11(b) of the Charter.

[2] The appellant argues that the trial judge erred by not deducting 92 days as a discrete exceptional circumstance. The 92 days arose from the jointly-charged co-accused Ms. Francis’s discharge of her counsel.

[3] We do not accept the Crown’s submission that the trial judge erred in his articulation of the exceptional circumstances test. Moreover, we see no error in his determination that the Crown could have taken steps to ameliorate the delay by proceeding separately against the respondent and Ms. Francis, as it was already doing in relation to two other defendants. This was a discretionary and case-specific judgment call the trial judge was entitled to make.

[4] The appeal is accordingly dismissed.

“Gary Trotter J.A.”
“B. Zarnett J.A.”
“J. Dawe J.A.”