Peter J. Connelly

The appellants, who were youthful offenders, participated in an unprovoked machete attack on a randomly selected victim, causing serious injuries.

They were convicted of aggravated assault and sentenced to seven and a half years' imprisonment.

On appeal, they argued the sentencing judge failed to give sufficient weight to their youth and erred in not granting enhanced pre-trial custody credit for poor institutional conditions.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the sentence was not demonstrably unfit given the severity of the violent crime, and that there was no specific evidence of hardship to justify enhanced pre-trial custody credit.

The appellant appealed his conviction.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, quashed the conviction, and ordered a new trial because it could not be certain from the trial judge's reasons that the defences of reflex response or self-defence were properly addressed.

The appellants appealed jury convictions and sought to adduce fresh evidence that a knife said at trial to belong to one appellant was actually the victim's knife dropped at the scene.

The Crown conceded the fresh evidence justified a new trial for one appellant, but argued it was not admissible or decisive for the other under the Palmer criteria.

The court held the Crown's joint venture theory and the way the knife evidence was used at trial bound the appellants together for purposes of the fresh evidence analysis.

The appeals were allowed, the convictions set aside, and a new trial ordered for both appellants.

The appellants were convicted of first-degree murder after the victim was brutally beaten and robbed in an underground parking garage.

On appeal, they argued the trial judge erred by excluding out-of-court statements from a deceased third party who had confessed to the murder, by misdirecting the jury on reasonable doubt, and by misdirecting the jury on the elements of first-degree murder based on unlawful confinement.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the third party's hearsay statements lacked threshold reliability, the reasonable doubt instruction was adequate, and unlawful confinement in the course of a robbery can provide the basis for first-degree murder under s. 231(5)(e) of the Criminal Code.

The appellant appealed his conviction, arguing ineffective assistance of counsel because his trial counsel failed to apply to strike his guilty plea after learning of a second DNA test.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that counsel had informed the appellant of the test and its significance.

The court held that counsel's decision not to seek to set aside the plea was within the bounds of competency, as the second DNA test would have had minimal impact given the strong independent evidence confirming the complainant's testimony.

The appellant appealed his conviction for aggravated assault and his sentence of two years less one day.

He argued the trial judge failed to adequately consider evidence supporting his claim that he was an innocent bystander and erred in relying on the identification evidence of a specific witness.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding the trial judge's assessment of the evidence was reasonable and supported by the record.

The sentence appeal was also dismissed, as the unprovoked, racially motivated, and gang-related machete attack warranted the sentence imposed.

The appellant appealed his conviction for first-degree murder, seeking to introduce fresh evidence regarding the credibility of a jailhouse informant and arguing that the trial judge erred in his jury instructions on intoxication, the common sense inference of intent, and reasonable doubt.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the fresh evidence would not have affected the verdict and that the jury instructions, read as a whole, did not contain reversible errors.

The Crown appealed a decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal that had stayed proceedings against several young offenders due to unreasonable delay.

The Supreme Court of Canada allowed the appeal, holding that the time required for an application to transfer a young offender to adult court is part of the inherent time requirements of a case under the Young Offenders Act.

Applying the Morin framework, the Court found the delay was not unreasonable and remitted the case to the Court of Appeal to dispose of the remaining issues.