P. Andras Schreck

The appellant appealed a summary conviction, arguing that the trial Crown's cross-examination regarding alleged money laundering and outstanding fraud charges was improper.

The respondent conceded the cross-examination was improper.

However, the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no substantial unfairness or miscarriage of justice, as the trial judge explicitly instructed herself not to consider the improper questions and provided extensive reasons for rejecting the appellant's evidence.

The appellant was convicted of second degree murder following a fatal stabbing during a bar altercation.

At trial, the appellant raised self-defence and sought to introduce the deceased's criminal record and a transcript of a guilty plea to demonstrate the deceased's propensity for violence.

The trial judge excluded this evidence.

Furthermore, in response to a jury question, the trial judge instructed that 'recklessness' for murder meant foreseeing a 'risk' of death rather than a 'likelihood'.

The Court of Appeal held that the trial judge erred in excluding the propensity evidence and in the jury charge on recklessness.

The curative proviso was not applied, the appeal was allowed, and a new trial was ordered.

The appellant appealed his convictions for robbery and using a firearm, arguing the trial judge erred in relying on the uncorroborated and inconsistent testimony of three complainants who had opportunities to collude.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding the trial judge's reasons adequately addressed the inconsistencies and credibility issues.

The Crown appealed the sentence, arguing the concurrent sentence for the firearm offence was illegal under s. 85 of the Criminal Code.

The Court of Appeal allowed the sentence appeal, imposing consecutive sentences for the firearm offences, resulting in a total sentence of two years and ten months.

The young person appealed the decision of the application judge refusing a transfer to Youth Court pursuant to s. 16(9) of the Young Offenders Act.

The application judge found that the young person constituted a danger to the public based on a risk assessment, personal history, and involvement in a serious offence.

The Court of Appeal agreed with the application judge's evaluation and dismissed the appeal.

The appellant appealed his conviction for aggravated assault arising from a high school altercation where a fellow student was stabbed.

The appellant testified he did not have a knife and could not explain the injury.

The trial judge convicted the appellant after finding his explanation was not more plausible than the Crown's theory.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and ordered a new trial, holding that the trial judge improperly shifted the burden of proof to the accused and failed to consider whether the accused's evidence raised a reasonable doubt.

The appellant was convicted of second degree murder of his stepson and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole eligibility for 20 years.

He appealed both conviction and sentence, arguing the trial judge erred in instructions regarding his false alibi statements, consciousness of guilt, and the victim's prior injuries.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding the jury instructions adequate in the context of a stark 'either/or' case where either the appellant or the child's mother committed the murder.

The sentence appeal was also dismissed, with the 20-year parole ineligibility period upheld due to the heinous nature of the crime.

The appellant was convicted of second degree murder following his third trial for the death of the victim.

On appeal, he argued that the trial judge erred in admitting a surreptitiously recorded conversation between himself and the victim, claiming it was conscriptive evidence that should have been excluded under s. 24(2) of the Charter.

He also challenged the trial judge's jury instructions regarding manslaughter, false alibi evidence, and the likely time of death.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the recorded conversation was non-conscriptive and properly admitted, and that the jury instructions did not result in a miscarriage of justice.

The Crown appealed the conditional sentences imposed on two black single mothers who pleaded guilty to importing cocaine.

The trial judge had introduced his own research on systemic racial and gender bias, concluding these factors mitigated their culpability and justified conditional sentences.

The Court of Appeal held that the trial judge overstepped his role by acting as advocate, witness, and judge, and erred in principle by imposing conditional sentences for a serious offence like importing cocaine.

Although the appropriate sentences would have been custodial terms of 20 months and two years less a day, the Court dismissed the appeal because the respondents had already served 17 months of their conditional sentences, and incarcerating them now would cause undue hardship.

The Crown appealed the respondent's acquittals on charges including robbery with a firearm and assault causing bodily harm.

The Crown argued the trial judge erred in law by instructing the jury that the respondent's prior consistent statement to his girlfriend could be used for the truth of its contents.

The Court of Appeal agreed that the trial judge erred, as the statement was made after the event when a motive to fabricate existed, and thus could only be used to rebut an allegation of recent fabrication and assess credibility.

However, the Court dismissed the appeal because the Crown failed to meet its heavy onus under the Vezeau test to show that the verdict would not necessarily have been the same without the error.

The appellant, unrepresented at his summary conviction appeal, attempted to argue that the trial judge improperly handled numerous witness subpoenas he had served.

The summary conviction appeal judge repeatedly interrupted and declined to hear submissions on this issue.

The Court of Appeal held that the summary conviction appeal judge erred by refusing to hear the appellant's submissions regarding the trial subpoenas, as this went to the fairness of the trial.

The conviction appeal was allowed and a new hearing was ordered.

The appellant, an off-duty police officer, was convicted of dangerous driving following a road rage incident on a major highway where he aggressively passed the complainant, stopped his vehicle in the passing lane, and flashed his police badge.

He appealed his conviction and 30-day custodial sentence.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding the trial judge correctly applied the modified objective test for dangerous driving.

The sentence appeal was allowed in part only to credit the appellant for 10 days of pre-sentence custody, reducing the sentence to 20 days.

The court upheld the custodial nature of the sentence, emphasizing the appellant's abuse of authority and the danger posed to the public.

The appellant appealed her conviction on the basis that highly prejudicial evidence from a confidential informant was placed before the jury without a limiting instruction.

The Court of Appeal found that while the evidence was admissible to show the officers' state of mind, it was not admissible for its truth.

Because the Crown cross-examined the appellant on this evidence and referred to it in closing, and the trial judge referred to it in the charge, the curative proviso could not be applied.

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

The appellant appealed his convictions for assault and sexual assault on several grounds, including inconsistencies in the complainant's evidence, flawed pre-trial identification, an alibi that he was out of the country, discrepancies regarding his physical appearance, and the trial judge's reliance on prior inconsistent statements.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the trial judge properly addressed the evidentiary issues and that any minor errors did not result in a substantial wrong or miscarriage of justice.

The appellants were convicted of two counts of first degree murder following a lengthy trial.

The Crown's case relied heavily on the testimony of three unsavoury witnesses, including a jailhouse informant.

On appeal, the appellants sought to introduce fresh evidence of post-trial recantations by two of these witnesses and argued that the trial judge made several errors, including failing to give an adequate Vetrovec warning and improperly admitting highly prejudicial evidence of a prior manslaughter conviction.

The Court of Appeal admitted the fresh evidence of one witness's recantation and found that the trial judge erred in his Vetrovec warning and evidentiary rulings.

The cumulative effect of these errors warranted a new trial.

The appeal was allowed and the convictions were quashed.

The appellant was convicted of four counts of bank robbery and one count of disguise with intent.

He appealed on the grounds that his unrecorded inculpatory statements to police were involuntary and that the trial judge erred in instructing the jury on eyewitness identification.

The Court of Appeal found that the police deliberately interrogated the appellant without recording equipment, rendering the statements suspect and inadmissible.

The court also found errors in the jury charge on identification evidence.

Without the statements, the verdicts on four counts were unreasonable.

The appeal was allowed, acquittals entered on four counts, and a new trial ordered on the remaining count.

The appellant was convicted of importing heroin after customs officers found over a kilogram of the drug in his shoes upon his return from Ghana.

On appeal, he argued the trial judge erred by allowing the Crown to introduce evidence of his receipt of Employment Insurance benefits to establish a financial motive, claiming it amounted to propensity reasoning based on poverty.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding the financial evidence was properly admitted to show financial pressure rather than propensity, and that a flawed jury instruction on evaluating evidence did not mislead the jury.

However, the sentence appeal was allowed, as the trial judge erred in treating the appellant's role as a courier as an aggravating factor.

The sentence was reduced to seven years and three and one-half months.

The appellants were convicted of importing heroin and possession for the purpose of trafficking after 42 kilograms of heroin were found hidden in the washrooms of their flight.

They appealed their convictions and sentences on several grounds, including that a mistrial during jury selection should have annulled the trial judge's pre-trial Charter rulings.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeals, holding that a mistrial during jury selection does not affect pre-trial rulings made under s. 645(5) of the Criminal Code.

The court also upheld the admission of a video re-enactment, the jury's access to the heroin exhibits, and the 18-year sentences given the massive quantity of drugs involved.

The appellant and his co-accused were charged with the second degree murder of their 14-month-old child.

Following a preliminary inquiry, the co-accused was committed for trial and the appellant was discharged.

The Crown successfully applied for certiorari to quash the discharge and commit the appellant to trial.

The appellant appealed the certiorari order.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the preliminary inquiry justice must have engaged in impermissible weighing of evidence, thereby committing jurisdictional error.

The appellant was convicted of first degree murder and offering an indignity to human remains.

He appealed his conviction, arguing that the trial judge violated his right to be present at his trial under s. 650 of the Criminal Code by holding an in camera meeting with the federal Crown and an investigating officer to determine an informer privilege claim over RCMP records.

The appellant also challenged the trial judge's jury instructions regarding the 'other suspect' defence, Vetrovec warnings for unsavoury witnesses, and the fact-finding process.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, holding that the in camera meeting was part of a separate proceeding under s. 37 of the Canada Evidence Act, not the trial itself, and that the appellant had expressly consented to the procedure.

The Court also found no reversible error in the jury instructions.

The appellant was committed to stand trial for first degree murder after forcibly confining his former partner and subsequently stabbing her tenant to death.

The preliminary inquiry judge found that s. 231(5) of the Criminal Code, which classifies murder as first degree if committed while committing an enumerated offence (here, forcible confinement), does not require the victim of the murder and the enumerated offence to be the same person.

The Supreme Court of Canada held that while such an alleged error by a preliminary inquiry judge is jurisdictional and reviewable on certiorari, the judge did not err in his interpretation.

Section 231(5) only requires a close temporal and causal connection between the murder and the enumerated offence, not that the victims be identical.

The appeal was dismissed.