Phil Tsui

The accused brought a Charter application seeking to exclude evidence obtained from the execution of a tracking warrant and subsequent search warrants.

The warrants were based on information from a confidential informer indicating the accused was trafficking cocaine and possessed firearms.

The court found that the tracking warrant and search warrants were validly issued based on reasonable and probable grounds, despite minor inadvertent omissions regarding the informer's criminal record.

The court also held that the accused had standing to challenge the search of an apartment where he kept a locked safe, but ultimately dismissed the application to exclude the evidence.

Dellan McMorris was found guilty of first-degree murder in the 2012 killing of Delano Coombs.

This decision outlines the reasons for his sentence.

The court considered the circumstances of the planned and deliberate murder, the profound impact on the victim's family, and the defendant's background, including his prior criminal record and efforts to complete high school while in custody.

The mandatory sentence for first-degree murder is life imprisonment with a parole ineligibility period of 25 years, along with a lifetime firearms prohibition and a DNA order.

The court emphasized general and specific deterrence, denunciation, and the societal abhorrence for gun violence.

The defendant, Dellan McMorris, brought a motion for a directed verdict in a first-degree murder trial, arguing insufficient evidence regarding his identity as a perpetrator.

The court reviewed the legal framework for directed verdicts, which requires determining if a properly instructed jury, acting reasonably, could be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt.

The court conducted a limited weighing of the circumstantial evidence presented by the Crown, including telephone records, witness testimony, and DNA evidence on a discarded hoodie.

The motion was dismissed, as the court found that a reasonable jury could infer guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

The Crown applied to admit an edited audiorecording and transcript of a co-accused's (Jerome Bent) guilty plea to first-degree murder as substantive evidence in the defendant Dellan McMorris's trial.

Bent, who was expected to refuse to testify, had pleaded guilty to the murder of Delano Coombs.

The defence argued that a co-accused's plea is inadmissible except for credibility.

The court, applying the principled exception to the hearsay rule, found the plea and edited portions of the agreed statement of facts to meet the threshold reliability and necessity requirements, allowing their admission as substantive evidence against McMorris, but only to prove Bent's culpability, not to directly implicate McMorris.

This ruling addresses two applications concerning the admissibility of hearsay declarations by Jerome Bent in the murder trial of Dellan McMorris.

The defence sought to admit Bent's July 2012 declarations, asserting Bent was the principal shooter and McMorris merely present.

The Crown sought to admit Bent's April 2013 declarations, which implicated McMorris.

The court dismissed both applications, finding that neither set of declarations met the threshold reliability requirement under the principled exception to the hearsay rule.

The court highlighted issues with inconsistent statements, lack of contemporaneous recording, Graham's motivation and credibility, and the absence of independent confirmatory evidence directly implicating McMorris.

This ruling addresses a voir dire to determine the voluntariness and admissibility of a statement made by the defendant, Dellan McMorris, to police regarding his cell phone number.

The statement was obtained during a traffic stop where McMorris was a passenger.

The Crown sought to admit this statement in a murder trial.

The defence argued the statement was involuntary, alleging a police threat to charge McMorris with possession of a stolen vehicle if he did not cooperate, and also sought exclusion under s. 24(2) of the Charter for alleged violations of ss. 8, 9, and 10.

The court found the police officers' notes incomplete and their testimony less reliable, while the defendant's testimony regarding the threat was sufficiently credible to raise a reasonable doubt about voluntariness.

Consequently, the statement was deemed inadmissible.

The court declined to rule on the Charter application.

The accused applied under s. 487.3(4) of the Criminal Code to terminate a sealing order over materials related to an earlier search warrant that had been authorized but never executed.

The accused argued the earlier Information to Obtain was necessary to assess the credibility and reliability of confidential informant information and to prepare a Garofoli challenge to a later executed warrant that led to firearm charges.

The court held that Stinchcombe disclosure obligations in a Garofoli context are limited to materials placed before the authorizing justice for the warrant under challenge.

Because the earlier warrant materials were not before the issuing justice for the executed warrant and the accused failed to establish likely relevance, disclosure was not warranted.

The court further held that unsealing procedures cannot be used as a collateral method to obtain disclosure beyond the Garofoli framework.

The application to terminate the sealing order was dismissed.

The accused was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Delano Coombs.

At the preliminary inquiry, the Crown sought to admit a 3.5-hour audio-recorded statement made by Jerome Bent, a separately charged co-accused, to an undercover police agent (Jermaine Graham) for the truth of its contents.

The defence sought to admit a separate, unrecorded statement by Bent regarding a hoody he allegedly dropped at the scene.

The court applied the principled approach to hearsay evidence under the necessity and reliability test.

While necessity was conceded, the court found that the Crown's proposed hearsay evidence did not meet the threshold reliability standard due to multiple frailties, including: the declarant's initial untruthfulness about the accused's involvement, leading and suggestive questioning by the undercover agent, minimal corroborating evidence directly linking the accused to the murder, and the absence of visual cues critical to assessing credibility.

The defence application regarding the hoody statement was similarly rejected despite substantial corroborating evidence, as the statement lacked sufficient indicia of reliability beyond the corroboration.

Both applications were dismissed.

The accused was charged with possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking, possession of marijuana, possession of proceeds of crime, and failing to comply with a recognizance.

The accused brought an application to exclude evidence on the basis of alleged breaches of sections 8, 9, and 10(b) of the Charter.

The court found that the initial investigative detention was lawful, the search of the vehicle was a proper search incident to arrest, and the asking of the accused's name did not constitute a breach.

However, the court found a breach of section 10(b) when police failed to facilitate the accused's right to counsel for approximately one hour after securing the apartment.

Applying the section 24(2) test from R. v. Grant, the court admitted the evidence, finding that while the breach was significant, its impact was minimal and society's interest in adjudication on the merits was strong.