Roger Anthony Sydney Pinnock

The applicant brought a motion to compel a proposed witness, a former Crown attorney who had since been appointed to the bench, to be examined orally before a special examiner regarding his affidavit.

The Crown and the proposed witness argued for written interrogatories.

The Court of Appeal granted the motion, holding that oral examination was in the interests of justice to effectively test the reliability of the witness's memory without impairing his current judicial role.

The appellant appealed his conviction, arguing the trial judge erred in applying the doctrine of recent possession and in dismissing his application for unreasonable delay under s. 11(b) of the Charter.

The Court of Appeal held that the trial judge properly applied the doctrine of recent possession without reversing the burden of proof.

The Court also found no error in the trial judge's decision to treat the appellant differently from his co-accused regarding the delay, given his greater number of charges, role in the offences, and minimal prejudice.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant appealed his conviction and sentence for a convenience store robbery, arguing the trial judge erred in finding the object used was a handgun.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding no basis to interfere with the trial judge's conclusion, which was supported by witness testimony and video surveillance.

The sentence appeal was also dismissed as the appellant received the statutory minimum sentence.

The appellant appealed his long term offender designation.

On consent of the Crown and the appellant, the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and accepted a joint submission.

The appellant was declared a long term offender and sentenced to ten years and four months imprisonment, with six years of pre-sentence custody credit, resulting in a further four years and four months of incarceration.

This is to be followed by an eight-year long term supervision order.

The appellant, an inmate, was convicted of extortion after leaving a voicemail demanding $1,000 from a lawyer under threat of death to the lawyer and his family.

He was sentenced to six years' imprisonment.

On appeal, the appellant abandoned his conviction appeal but argued the sentence was outside the appropriate range.

The Court of Appeal agreed, noting the trial judge relied on distinguishable cases involving counselling murder.

The sentence was varied from six years to four years, to run concurrently with his existing sentences.

The appellant appealed his convictions and sentence, seeking to strike his guilty pleas.

The trial judge had held a full hearing and found the pleas were voluntary, fully informed, and unequivocal, supported by duty counsel's testimony.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal.

However, the Crown conceded that the dangerous offender proceeding was invalid because it occurred without the consent of the Attorney General as mandated by s. 754 of the Criminal Code.

The sentence appeal was allowed and the matter remitted for a new sentence hearing before a different judge.

The young person appealed their convictions for sexual assault and carrying a concealed weapon, as well as the sentence imposed.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding no error in the trial judge's appreciation of the identification evidence or in refusing to direct a verdict of acquittal on the concealed weapon charge.

However, the Crown conceded that the trial judge erred in applying s. 39(1)(d) of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

Given the time already spent in custody, house arrest, and community service, the Court allowed the sentence appeal, reducing the sentence to time served and striking out the probation order.

The appellant challenged historical sexual offence convictions and custodial sentences arising from Youth Court and Superior Court proceedings, primarily alleging ineffective assistance of trial counsel.

The Court of Appeal applied the governing incompetence and miscarriage of justice framework and held that most factual predicates for the complaints were not established, while one impugned cross-examination in the Superior Court proceedings, though bordering on incompetence, did not undermine trial fairness or verdict reliability.

The court also rejected the challenge to the Youth Court judge’s credibility assessment, finding proper self-instruction under the governing credibility principles.

Leave to appeal sentence in the Youth Court matter was granted but dismissed, and the sentence appeal in the Superior Court matter was also dismissed.

The appellant appealed his conviction for sexual assault.

The Court of Appeal found that the trial judge's reasons were inadequate because they failed to articulate a satisfactory basis for the conviction, particularly regarding the central issue of the complainant's credibility.

The trial judge failed to resolve crucial points undermining the complainant's evidence, such as the timing of when she started crying and evidence suggesting a friendlier relationship with the appellant than she admitted.

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

The appellant appealed his conviction for first-degree murder, arguing that improper cross-examination, erroneous jury instructions regarding his criminal record, and limitations on cross-examining a Crown witness undermined his credibility and rendered the trial unfair.

The Court of Appeal acknowledged several errors by the trial judge and Crown counsel, including improper suggestions during cross-examination and incorrect instructions on the use of the appellant's criminal record.

However, the Court concluded that these errors did not affect the fairness of the trial or cause a miscarriage of justice, given the overwhelming Crown case and the appellant's incredible testimony.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellants appealed their convictions for conspiracy to commit extortion, extortion, and possession of bugging equipment.

The charges arose from a private investigation business where female operatives were hired to lure targets into surreptitiously recorded sexual encounters to extort money.

The Court of Appeal quashed the conspiracy convictions, finding insufficient evidence that the appellants had formed an agreement with the alleged co-conspirators to commit extortion.

However, the court upheld one appellant's conviction for extortion, ruling that threatening to have a debtor fired to collect a legitimate debt lacked reasonable justification or excuse.

The court also upheld the conviction for possessing bugging equipment, finding the devices were primarily useful for surreptitious interception.

The 10-month sentence was affirmed.

The appellant appealed convictions for multiple sexual assaults committed against boys in his foster care and appealed a global ten-year penitentiary sentence.

The court upheld the admission of each complainant’s evidence as similar fact evidence, finding a high degree of connectedness arising from exploitation of vulnerable boys under the appellant’s care and no material risk of misuse by the jury given the charge as delivered.

The court also rejected challenges to the jury instructions on similar fact evidence, good character evidence, and delayed reporting.

However, the sentence appeal was allowed because the sentencing judge placed the case in too high a range when compared with the governing authority, given the absence of physical violence, threats, or extortion and the presence of substantial mitigating factors.

The global sentence was reduced from ten years to seven and a half years.

The appellant was convicted of second-degree murder for killing his ex-girlfriend.

At trial, he conceded guilt for manslaughter but argued his intoxication and emotional state raised a reasonable doubt regarding the specific intent for murder.

On appeal, he argued the trial judge erred by using a two-step 'capacity' and 'actual intent' charge for intoxication, and by improperly answering a jury question about the difference between the intent for murder and manslaughter.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the jury charge did not mislead the jury into believing capacity was the only relevant inquiry, and the trial judge correctly answered the jury's question.

The appellant appealed his designation as a long-term offender and his sentence of 8.5 years imprisonment followed by 8 years of community supervision for 17 predicate offences, including arson and harassment.

He argued that the assessing psychiatrist improperly relied on a police statement that had been ruled inadmissible at trial due to a Charter breach.

The Court of Appeal held that while the statement should not have been considered, the error was trivial and did not affect the outcome, applying the proviso in s. 686(1)(b)(iii).

The court also upheld the sentence, finding that the custodial term and community supervision serve discrete purposes and were not disproportionate.

The appellant appealed his conviction, arguing that the police stop and search of his backpack violated his Charter rights.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, upholding the trial judge's findings of fact that there was no improper purpose for the stop and that the search was incidental to the arrest.

Consequently, there was no Charter violation and no need to consider section 24(2).

The appellant appealed his conviction, arguing that the trial judge erred in assessing the credibility of a Crown witness who had given a prior inconsistent statement, and that the verdict was unreasonable.

The Court of Appeal found no error in the trial judge's review of the evidence or credibility assessment.

The court agreed with the summary conviction appeal judge that the verdict was not unreasonable, as it was open to the trial judge to accept the witness's evidence despite the prior inconsistency.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant appealed his convictions for unlawful confinement and assault following a judge-alone trial.

The trial judge's decision relied heavily on credibility assessments, ultimately rejecting the appellant's exculpatory evidence.

In doing so, the trial judge misapprehended a crucial piece of the appellant's testimony regarding the complainant's emotional state.

The Court of Appeal applied the test from R. v. Morrissey, finding that the misapprehended evidence played an essential part in the trial judge's reasoning process and adverse credibility finding.

Consequently, the conviction was not based exclusively on the evidence, resulting in a miscarriage of justice.

The appeal was allowed and a new trial was ordered.

The appellant appealed his convictions for sexual assault and invitation to sexual touching involving a nine-year-old complainant.

He argued that the trial judge erred in permitting the complainant to testify under oath, that the verdict was unreasonable, and that the evidence did not support a conviction under section 152 of the Criminal Code.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no reversible error in the trial judge's inquiry into the complainant's understanding of an oath, as no objections were raised at trial.

The court also held that the verdict was reasonable and that section 152, interpreted purposively, encompasses a request by an accused to permit him to touch a complainant's private parts.

The appellant was convicted of historical sexual offences against his younger sister, younger brother, and a childhood friend, receiving a total sentence of five years.

On appeal, he argued that proceeding with the charges 15 years after an initial police decision not to charge was an abuse of process, and challenged evidentiary rulings including the admission of similar fact evidence and the exclusion of s. 276 evidence.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal, finding no abuse of process and upholding the trial judge's evidentiary rulings.

However, the sentence appeal was allowed; the court found the trial judge erred by not treating the appellant's early admissions as mitigating and by failing to consider his youth at the time of the offences.

The total sentence was reduced to three and a half years, and a s. 161 prohibition order was deleted.

The appellant appealed his conviction for second-degree murder, arguing that a statement he made to police should have been excluded at trial.

Although the statement was made after the appellant had consulted with counsel, it followed a 14-hour interrogation process during which his s. 10(b) Charter rights were repeatedly breached.

The Court of Appeal found that the statement was temporally and contextually connected to the prior breaches, and was therefore obtained in a manner that infringed the Charter.

Concluding that the admission of this conscriptive evidence would render the trial unfair and bring the administration of justice into disrepute, the Court allowed the appeal, quashed the conviction, and ordered a new trial.