P. Cooper

The offender pleaded guilty to manslaughter after striking the victim with a baseball bat during a confrontation, causing the victim to fall down stairs and die.

The offender had a precarious medical condition, including a cerebral aneurysm, making incarceration potentially fatal.

The court accepted a joint submission from the Crown and defence, sentencing the offender to a 20-month conditional sentence of imprisonment after crediting 24 months for pre-sentence custody and strict bail conditions.

The accused brought an application to exclude evidence under ss. 24(1) and 24(2) of the Charter, alleging breaches of ss. 7, 8, 9, and 10 following her arrest for impaired driving after a single-vehicle accident.

The accused argued her statements at the scene were statutorily compelled, her arrest lacked reasonable and probable grounds, and she was arbitrarily detained without being advised of her right to counsel.

The court dismissed the application, finding no evidence that the statements were compelled, that the police had reasonable and probable grounds to arrest based on the constellation of facts, and that the brief investigative detention prior to arrest did not engage s. 10 Charter rights.

The accused was found guilty by a jury of second degree murder and offering an indignity to human remains by dismemberment, relating to the death of his common-law partner.

The victim's body was discovered three years later in plastic pails hidden under a cottage where the accused worked.

The court considered the egregious nature of the murder, the subsequent dismemberment, and the domestic context as significant aggravating factors.

The accused was sentenced to life imprisonment with no parole eligibility for 17 years for the murder, and a concurrent 5-year sentence for the indignity to human remains.

The accused brought a defence motion seeking to exclude proposed Crown evidence relating to a necklace fragment and a mark on a carport floor at a property where the accused had previously worked.

The Crown argued the evidence could support an inference connecting the homicide victim to the property and thereby implicate the accused.

The court held that there was no evidentiary foundation linking the necklace fragment or the unidentified mark to the victim.

Without proof connecting the items to the victim or the alleged crime scene, the evidence lacked relevance and probative value.

The court further held that allowing the jury to speculate about ownership of the necklace or the nature of the mark would be unfairly prejudicial to the accused.

The proposed evidence was therefore excluded.

The Crown applied to introduce several pre-death statements made by the deceased victim in a homicide trial.

The statements were sought to be admitted for their truth, as part of the narrative, or to demonstrate the deceased's state of mind.

The court applied the principled approach to hearsay, assessing the necessity and reliability of each statement.

Necessity was established due to the declarant's death.

The court admitted statements that were specific, reliable, and relevant to the deceased's state of mind, while excluding others that lacked detail, were too remote in time, or carried prejudicial effects outweighing their probative value.