Paul T. Murray

The appellant, Jack Stelwagen, appealed his conviction for sexual assault, arguing that comments made by the trial judge during scheduling proceedings about his ability to hear a section 11(b) Charter application gave rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias and that a mistrial should have been declared.

The Superior Court of Justice reviewed the history of the case, including prior applications and appeals, and concluded that the trial judge’s comments did not demonstrate bias or a closed mind.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant, Jack Stelwagen, appealed his sexual assault conviction on the ground of unreasonable delay under s. 11(b) of the Charter.

The trial judge had dismissed the s. 11(b) application, finding no breach.

The appellate court found that the trial judge made several analytic and computational errors in assessing defence delay and exceptional circumstances under the R. v. Jordan framework.

Specifically, the trial judge incorrectly attributed significant periods of systemic delay (due to judicial unavailability and per diem judge scheduling issues) to the defence or as exceptional circumstances.

The appellate court recalculated the delay, finding that after subtracting only two weeks of defence delay and approximately seven months of COVID-19 related exceptional circumstances, the total delay of approximately 19 months and 1 week still exceeded the 18-month presumptive ceiling for provincial court trials.

Consequently, the court found a breach of the appellant's s. 11(b) Charter rights, quashed the conviction, and entered a stay of proceedings.

The offender pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine, obstructing a police officer, and breach of recognizance after a traffic stop where he gave a false name and was found with 25 grams of cocaine.

The Crown sought 10 months' custody, while the defence sought time served based on pre-trial custody and strict bail conditions.

The court sentenced the offender to four months' custody, credited as time served, plus 12 months of probation, noting his rehabilitation efforts and guilty plea.

The applicants, charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy, and arson, brought a Charter application to exclude cell phone records obtained by police through "tower dump" production orders.

The applicants argued the warrants violated their section 8 rights due to their broad scope and lack of reasonable and probable grounds.

The court found that the initial tower dump warrants breached section 8 as they were based on speculation rather than reasonable grounds.

However, applying the Grant framework under section 24(2), the court declined to exclude the evidence, finding the police acted in good faith, the subsequent discovery of the specific phone numbers was inevitable due to a lawful "Mr. Big" confession, and society's interest in adjudicating a serious murder charge on its merits strongly favoured admission.

The application was dismissed.

The applicants, jointly charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and arson, brought a pre-trial motion seeking leave to challenge prospective jurors for cause based on pre-trial publicity.

The media coverage included sensationalized reports of an alleged attempted prison break by one of the applicants.

The court found that despite the passage of time, the prominence and ready access to the coverage on the internet created an air of reality that the publicity could potentially undermine a prospective juror's impartiality.

The application was granted, and specific questions were approved to be put to the jury pool.

The accused, charged with first-degree murder and arson following the discovery of his wife's charred body in their garage, applied to exclude a statement he made to police.

The court found that the two-and-a-half-hour police interview constituted an investigative detention, triggering the accused's Charter rights.

The police failed to properly inform the accused of his right to silence, the reasons for his detention, and his right to counsel, resulting in serious breaches of sections 7, 10(a), and 10(b) of the Charter.

Applying the Grant framework, the court excluded the statement under section 24(2), concluding that the breaches were deliberate and admitting the evidence would bring the administration of justice into disrepute.