Peter Walter Samuel Copeland

The defendants, commercial trucking companies, were charged under s. 84.1 of the Highway Traffic Act after wheels separated from their vehicles on a highway.

The offence is one of absolute liability, expressly precluding the defence of due diligence, but carries no risk of imprisonment.

The defendants argued that the creation of an absolute liability offence violated their rights under ss. 7 and 11(d) of the Charter.

The Court of Appeal held that s. 11(d) does not prevent the legislature from eliminating a common law defence.

Furthermore, the court found no violation of s. 7, concluding that the diminished stigma attached to a regulatory offence and the absence of imprisonment do not trigger the security of the person guarantee.

The Crown's appeal was allowed and the defendant's appeal was dismissed.

The Crown appealed a summary conviction appeal judge's reduction of a fine imposed on the respondent for insider trading.

The respondent had traded shares of a junior mining company while possessing undisclosed material facts, avoiding significant losses.

The Court of Appeal held that the phrase 'by reason of the contravention' in s. 122(4) of the Securities Act does not require the Crown to prove the direct effect of the non-disclosure on the market price, but simply means the loss was avoided by virtue of the insider engaging in the impugned trading.

The Court also held that shares not beneficially owned by the respondent should not be included in the loss avoided calculation.

Despite correcting the legal interpretation, the Court upheld the $2,000,000 fine imposed by the appeal judge.

The appellant appealed his convictions for trafficking in a substance held out to be cocaine, extortion, threatening death, and breach of probation, as well as his sentence.

The Court of Appeal found no error in the trial judge's assessment of credibility and reliance on the Crown witnesses' evidence.

However, the Crown conceded that the threatening counts should have been stayed as they were subsumed in the extortion count.

The threatening counts were stayed, but the appeal was otherwise dismissed, and the total sentence was upheld.

The appellant appealed his convictions and sentences for trafficking in a substance held out to be cocaine, extortion, uttering threats, and breach of probation.

The Court of Appeal found no error in the trial judge's assessment of credibility and reliance on confirmatory evidence.

However, based on a Crown concession, the Court stayed the threatening counts as they were subsumed in the extortion count.

The appeal was otherwise dismissed and the totality of the sentences was upheld.

The appellant appealed his convictions for fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud arising from the operation of a food bank.

He argued the trial judge misapprehended accomplice evidence, failed to apply a Vetrovec warning, and erred in drawing inferences from fraudulent non-profit receipts.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no misapprehension of evidence, sufficient caution applied to the accomplice's testimony, and that the trial judge's inferences regarding the receipts were reasonably supported by the record.

The appellant appealed his conviction for a drug offence.

The Court of Appeal found several serious errors in the trial, including the trial judge's failure to instruct the jury on the element of control when answering a question about possession, failing to follow the proper procedure for answering jury questions, and improperly admitting highly prejudicial hearsay evidence suggesting guilt by association.

However, the Court declined to enter an acquittal, finding there was sufficient evidence for a properly instructed jury to convict.

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

The appellant appealed his first-degree murder conviction, arguing that DNA evidence obtained from discarded chewing gum and a subsequent blood sample should have been excluded.

The police had tricked the appellant into chewing and discarding gum to obtain his DNA after he refused to provide a sample.

The Court of Appeal held that while the warrantless seizure of the gum violated section 8 of the Charter, the evidence was admissible under section 24(2).

The court also dismissed grounds of appeal relating to the voluntariness of a police statement and the jury instruction on reasonable doubt, finding any errors to be harmless or in substantial compliance with legal standards.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant was convicted of possession of explosive substances with intent to endanger life or cause serious damage to property, and conspiracy to commit the same offence.

The main issue at trial was whether the appellant possessed the pipe bombs.

The trial judge instructed the jury on actual possession but failed to adequately explain the elements of constructive possession, particularly the requirement of control, in response to a jury question.

The Court of Appeal held that this omission was a fatal error, as constructive possession was a live issue.

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

The youthful appellants pleaded guilty to numerous offences, including robbery and break-ins, committed over a six-month period spanning their eighteenth birthdays.

The sentencing judge rejected a joint submission for a reformatory sentence and instead imposed penitentiary sentences.

On appeal, the Court of Appeal held that the joint submission was within an acceptable range and that it was contrary to the public interest to send these first-time adult offenders to the penitentiary.

The appeals were allowed and the joint submission was substituted.

The requesting state appealed an order discharging fugitives at an extradition hearing on heroin conspiracy charges.

The Court of Appeal held that the extradition judge misapplied s. 18(1)(b) of the Extradition Act by focusing on proof of the foreign offences and territorial situs rather than asking whether the conduct underlying the foreign charges, wherever it occurred, would if committed in Canada establish a prima facie case of any Canadian extradition offence.

Applying the proper conduct-based double criminality analysis, the court found sufficient evidence of conspiracy to traffic in heroin and trafficking in heroin to justify committal.

The fugitives' separate application alleging a 25-month appellate delay under s. 7 of the Charter was dismissed because they took no steps to expedite the appeal and showed no real prejudice affecting fairness.

The appellant appealed his murder conviction and sentence, relying on fresh recantation evidence from a key civilian witness and an inmate informant, as well as new DNA testing undermining aspects of the Crown's theory.

The court rejected the civilian witness recantation as incredible, but admitted the inmate recantation and the DNA evidence under the Palmer framework.

Although the fresh evidence significantly weakened the Crown case and impaired important inculpatory evidence, the court held it was not so conclusive as to justify an acquittal and the verdict was not shown to be unreasonable under the governing standard.

The conviction was set aside and a new trial ordered on second degree murder.

Leave to appeal the counselling sentence was granted and that sentence was reduced to time served.