Richard Litkowski

The appellant, Thavanathan Sithravel, appealed a nine-year imprisonment sentence for robbery, arguing for a reduction to eight years based on the parity principle.

The original sentencing judge had treated the appellant's absconding as a factor and, crucially, relied on the appellant being the "mastermind" of the robbery as a significant aggravating factor, despite this fact not being admitted during the guilty plea.

The Court of Appeal found that the sentencing judge erred in principle by relying on the "mastermind" fact as admitted, as it was specifically denied.

While absconding could diminish mitigation, it did not alter the requirement for the Crown to prove aggravating facts beyond a reasonable doubt in a Gardiner hearing.

The error impacted the sentence, leading the Court of Appeal to reduce the sentence to eight years and three months to align with the parity principle, while still accounting for the diminished mitigation due to absconding.

The court also commented on the unsatisfactory practice of not clarifying admitted facts before a guilty plea.

The appellant, R.K., appealed his conviction for sexual interference and an eight-year sentence.

The appeal raised nine grounds, including alleged errors in refusing production of the complainant's diary, improper use of the diary to enhance credibility, misapprehension of evidence, improper cross-examination on bad acts, overvaluing demeanour, improper corroboration by peripheral details, improper reliance on lack of motive to fabricate, and uneven scrutiny of evidence.

The Court of Appeal dismissed all grounds of appeal, upholding both the conviction and the sentence, finding the trial judge's credibility assessments and sentencing decision to be sound.

The appellants, Shawn Cargioli, Kendell Kamal, and Famien Morrisson, appealed their murder convictions stemming from the stabbing death of Shadi Taleb during a planned robbery.

Cargioli was convicted of first-degree murder, while Kamal and Morrisson were convicted of second-degree murder.

The appeals raised various grounds, including the admissibility of expert evidence, trial judge's rulings on witness testimony, admissibility of police statements, jury instructions on after-the-fact conduct, misapprehension of evidence, the co-conspirator's exception to the hearsay rule, and jury instructions on liability for manslaughter, murder, and first-degree murder.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeals of Morrisson and Kamal, affirming their convictions and sentences.

For Cargioli, the court found a reversible error in the first-degree murder instruction regarding the contemporaneity of mens rea and actus reus for active participation.

Given the Crown's concession, the court substituted a conviction for second-degree murder for Cargioli and remitted the matter for sentencing.

The appellant was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

He appealed his conviction and sentence, alleging four errors in the trial judge's jury charge: an inadequate rolled-up instruction, an imbalanced charge, confusing references to "accident," and improper instructions on after-the-fact conduct evidence.

The Court of Appeal rejected the first three grounds but found that the trial judge erred by failing to provide proper cautionary or limiting instructions on the use of after-the-fact conduct evidence, particularly its relevance to distinguishing between murder and manslaughter beyond assessing intoxication.

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

The sentence appeal was not addressed.

The appellant, Tyrone Chambers, appealed his convictions for second-degree murder and aggravated assault, and sought leave to appeal his sentence of life imprisonment with 18 years of parole ineligibility.

This was his second trial after a successful appeal of his initial convictions.

Chambers argued that the trial judge erred in: (1) denying his standing to challenge a search warrant; (2) admitting ammunition evidence; (3) allowing new expert evidence on a lead fragment; (4) admitting evidence of a prior incident ("Austin incident") and instructing the jury on it; and (5) delivering an inadequate jury charge.

The Court of Appeal dismissed all grounds of appeal, finding no errors in the trial judge's rulings or jury instructions, and upheld the sentence as fit.

Dellen Millard and Mark Smich appealed their first-degree murder convictions for the death of Timothy Bosma.

The appeals raised issues concerning the admissibility and jury instructions on bad character evidence in a joint trial with antagonistic defences, jury instructions on planning and deliberation, and the propriety of closing addresses by the Crown and co-counsel.

The Court of Appeal dismissed both appeals, finding no reversible error in the trial judge's decisions regarding evidence admissibility, jury instructions, or the sufficiency of corrective instructions for closing arguments.

The appellant, Mario Inacio, appealed his dangerous offender designation and indeterminate sentence following convictions for robbery, unlawful confinement, assault, threatening death, and extortion.

He argued the trial judge erred by finding a pattern of repetitive aggressive behaviour, concluding the behaviour was intractable, and imposing an indefinite term of imprisonment.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the trial judge correctly identified a behavioural pattern based on the appellant's consistent use of weapons, threats, and violence for financial gain, and that the finding of intractability was supported by compelling expert testimony regarding his high risk of reoffending violently.

The indeterminate sentence was upheld based on the totality of evidence, including the appellant's poor insight, lack of remorse, and long history of anti-social and violent conduct.

The appellant was convicted of fatally injuring his roommate's dog and sentenced to nine months' custody.

On appeal, he argued the trial judge erred by shifting the burden of proof regarding his level of intoxication, effectively requiring him to prove he was too intoxicated to form the requisite specific intent.

The Superior Court of Justice dismissed the appeal, finding that the trial judge properly considered the intoxication evidence and did not reverse the burden of proof.

Furthermore, the court held that injuring an animal under section 445(1)(a) of the Criminal Code is a general intent offence, meaning intoxication short of automatism is not a valid defence.

The appellant was convicted of child luring and related offences after responding to a police-created ad on an online escort website.

The appeal turned on whether 'Project Raphael', a buyer-side undercover sting operation run by the York Regional Police on Backpage.com, constituted a bona fide inquiry under the entrapment doctrine.

The Court held that the police had reasonable suspicion over a sufficiently precise virtual space — namely, ads within the York Region escort subdirectory of Backpage that emphasized extreme youth — and that the child luring offences offered were rationally connected and proportionate to the s. 286.1(2) offence the police suspected was occurring.

The appeal was dismissed and the stay of proceedings denied.

The appellant, convicted of first-degree murder and attempted murder for the benefit of a criminal organization, appealed a Superior Court judge's decision denying his application for a reduction in parole ineligibility under s. 745.6(1) of the Criminal Code.

The appellant argued the application judge erred by treating non-acknowledgment of guilt as a precondition, placing undue weight on gang membership, and misinterpreting R. v. Swietlinski.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no material error in the application judge's discretionary decision, affirming that guilt acknowledgment is not a precondition but relevant to assessing responsibility, and that the judge's weighing of factors was reasonable.

The appellant was convicted of first-degree murder, deemed so under s. 231(6) of the Criminal Code due to the murder occurring while committing criminal harassment.

The appellant appealed on four grounds: errors in jury instructions regarding post-offence conduct, improper admission and use of prior misconduct evidence, improper admission and use of ante mortem statements of the deceased, and insufficient evidence/inadequate jury instruction on the criminal harassment route to first-degree murder.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no reviewable errors in the trial judge's instructions or evidentiary rulings, and concluding there was ample evidence to support the conviction.

The appellant, Michael Laforme, appealed his conviction for second-degree murder and sought leave to appeal his sentence of life imprisonment with a 16-year period of parole ineligibility.

The conviction appeal alleged errors in the trial judge's jury charge, specifically regarding the understanding of legal principles, fairness, balance, and warnings about post-offence conduct evidence.

The sentence appeal argued that the trial judge failed to give meaningful effect to Gladue principles, resulting in an unduly harsh sentence.

The Court of Appeal dismissed both the conviction appeal and the sentence appeal, finding no reversible errors in the jury charge and affirming that the sentencing judge properly considered Gladue principles while balancing other relevant factors, including the brutality of the offence and the appellant's extensive criminal record.

Mark Holland was convicted of sexual assault from 2008.

The sentencing was significantly delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Crown sought 16 months imprisonment, while the defence sought "time served" or a conditional sentence.

The court addressed the constitutionality of s. 742.1(f)(iii) of the Criminal Code, which precludes conditional sentences for sexual assault prosecuted by indictment.

The judge found this section to infringe ss. 7 and 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and declared it of no force or effect, following R. v. R.S. and R. v. Sharma.

Considering aggravating and mitigating factors, including the extraordinary delay, the court imposed an eight-month conditional sentence, to be served in the community, along with other standard orders (DNA, SOIRA, weapons prohibition).

The appellant appealed his conviction for possession of a loaded prohibited firearm and sought leave to appeal his six-year custodial sentence.

He argued the trial judge erred in not finding various Charter infringements (ss. 7, 9, 10(a), 10(b), 11(d)) that should have led to the exclusion of the firearm, and in her assessment of circumstantial evidence.

He also contended his sentence was unfit.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no reversible error in the trial judge's Charter analysis, her factual and credibility findings, or her conclusion on circumstantial evidence.

Leave to appeal sentence was denied as the sentence was deemed fit and not demonstrably unfit.

The appellant, Kirk Williams, sought leave to appeal his dangerous offender designation and indeterminate sentence for sexual assault causing bodily harm and choking.

He argued the sentencing judge erred in finding the statutory pathways for designation were met and in assessing future harm and treatment prospects.

The Court of Appeal granted leave but dismissed the appeal, finding no error in the sentencing judge's conclusions regarding the dangerous offender pathways, the consideration of medical treatments, or the assessment of recidivism risk.

The court upheld the indeterminate sentence as necessary for public protection.

The appellant, Jerome Turner, appealed his conviction and sentence for five counts of armed robbery.

The appeal raised issues concerning the trial judge's similar fact evidence ruling, the admission of post-offence conduct evidence, and Section 8 Charter rulings regarding cellphone data obtained via production order.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no errors in the trial judge's application of the similar fact test, the admission of post-offence conduct evidence, or the Section 8 analysis.

The court also found the sentence was not demonstrably unfit, noting the appellant's prior criminal history and the timing of the offences.

The appellants, Jasmine and Richard Doxtator, appealed their first-degree murder convictions.

Their primary argument was that the trial judge erred by not instructing the jury on the included offences of second-degree murder and manslaughter for Jasmine Doxtator, which they argued also impacted Richard Doxtator's trial.

The Court of Appeal, in a majority decision, agreed that there was an "air of reality" to the lesser included offences for Jasmine Doxtator, and the trial judge's failure to leave these options to the jury constituted a legal error that tainted the verdict for both appellants.

The court rejected the Crown's argument to apply the curative proviso.

Consequently, the appeals were allowed, and a new trial was ordered for both Jasmine and Richard Doxtator.

The appellant, Kumaraguruparan Manickam, appealed his conviction for two counts of fraud over $5,000 and one count of uttering a forged document, and in the alternative, his sentence of 18 months' imprisonment.

The trial judge found the appellant wilfully blind to a fraudulent cheque deposit scheme involving fake business accounts and counterfeit cheques, resulting in over $250,000 loss to banks.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding no palpable and overriding error in the trial judge's finding of wilful blindness or credibility assessment, despite some imprecise language.

The court also granted leave to appeal the sentence but denied the appeal, affirming that the sentencing judge properly applied the principle of restraint while imposing a significant jail sentence due to the seriousness and premeditated nature of the fraud.

The appellant appealed convictions for aggravated assault and assault with a weapon stemming from two separate incidents.

The appeal challenged the trial judge's assessment of unsavoury witnesses under Vetrovec principles and the use of "prefer" language in evaluating witness credibility.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the trial judge properly applied Vetrovec by seeking corroboration and that the use of "prefer" was a linguistic slip, not a misapprehension of the burden of proof, given the overall context of the reasons and the trial judge's self-direction on the standard of proof.

The appellant appealed his convictions for assault, aggravated assault, assault causing bodily harm, and uttering threats to property, as well as his dangerous offender designation and indeterminate sentence.

The appeal raised issues regarding the trial judge's use of prior consistent statements, explanation of the complainant's conduct (Stockholm Syndrome), burden of proof, and reliance on the "ring of truth." The appellant also challenged the dangerous offender finding, arguing the trial judge failed to consider treatability and intractability at the designation phase and misapprehended expert evidence regarding recidivism and "burnout." The Court of Appeal dismissed all appeals, finding no reversible error in the conviction or the dangerous offender designation and sentence.