Criminal and Quasi-Criminal Law - SCC

The appellant challenged firearms convictions arising from a street encounter with police, alleging arbitrary detention and breach of the right to counsel before he disclosed possession of a firearm.

The Court held that a psychological detention had crystallized during the encounter, that the detention was arbitrary under s. 9, and that the failure to advise of counsel breached s. 10(b).

The Court reformulated the legal framework for detention and established a revised three-part approach to exclusion of evidence under s. 24(2), ultimately admitting the firearm because the police conduct, though unconstitutional, was not egregious and the evidence was highly reliable and essential.

The Court also held that simple movement of a firearm from place to place did not constitute a 'transfer' for the purpose of the weapons trafficking offence, and entered an acquittal on that count.

The Crown appealed a Quebec Court of Appeal decision quashing a direct indictment preferred against two young persons charged with serious drug and criminal organization offences alongside adults.

The majority held that a direct indictment under s. 577 of the Criminal Code is available in youth proceedings because it is not inconsistent with the YCJA when read with ss. 67(7), 67(9), and 140.

The Court further held that, despite the availability of direct indictment, young persons and adults cannot be tried jointly because the YCJA establishes a criminal justice system for young persons that is separate from the adult system.

The appeal was allowed, but because the direct indictment issue had become moot after a preliminary inquiry was later held, no further order was made.

The appeal concerned an accused’s attempt to obtain police disciplinary records and criminal investigation files relating to the Crown’s principal police witness after conviction on drug charges.

The Court held that the common law O’Connor regime is the general mechanism for production of third party records and is not confined to cases involving a proven reasonable expectation of privacy.

It further held that privacy in criminal investigation files and police disciplinary records is contextual, not categorical.

The Court clarified that the investigating police force stands on the same first party footing as the Crown for disclosure purposes and must provide records of serious police misconduct where the misconduct is related to the investigation or could reasonably affect the case against the accused.

Because the underlying application had become moot, the appeal was allowed, the order below was set aside, and no further order was made.

The United States sought the extradition of the appellants under the 'record of the case' method.

The appellants challenged the constitutionality of the evidentiary provisions of the Extradition Act, arguing they violated section 7 of the Charter by allowing committal on unreliable evidence.

The Supreme Court of Canada held that the provisions are constitutional because section 29(1) of the Act grants the extradition judge the discretion to refuse committal if the evidence is manifestly unreliable or unavailable for trial.

The appeals were dismissed and the committals for extradition were upheld.

The Crown appealed as of right to the Supreme Court of Canada under s. 693(1)(a) of the Criminal Code after the Quebec Court of Appeal set aside the accused's conviction for driving while disqualified.

The Supreme Court quashed the appeal, finding it lacked jurisdiction because the dissenting opinion in the Court of Appeal was based on a mixed question of fact and law, rather than a question of law alone.

The appellant was convicted of first degree murder.

During deliberations, the jury was inadvertently provided with unedited transcripts containing submissions made in their absence regarding the admissibility of certain statements.

The trial judge refused to declare a mistrial, instead retrieving the transcripts and cautioning the jury.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal.

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the appeal, finding that the trial judge did not err in law in refusing to declare a mistrial, and that the curative proviso analysis was not necessary as no error of law or miscarriage of justice occurred.

The appellant was arrested for drug trafficking after police observed him engaging in suspected drug transactions.

Following a pat-down search, police conducted a strip search of the appellant in a public restaurant, which included pulling down his pants and forcibly removing a package of crack cocaine from his buttocks.

The Supreme Court of Canada held that while the common law power to search incident to arrest includes the power to strip search, such searches require reasonable and probable grounds and must generally be conducted at a police station absent exigent circumstances.

The Court found the strip search in this case violated s. 8 of the Charter because it was conducted in a public place without exigent circumstances and in an unreasonable manner.

The appeal was allowed and an acquittal entered.

The appellant was charged with criminal negligence causing death, failing to stop at an accident scene, and impaired driving.

At the preliminary inquiry, the appellant sought to exclude statements made to the police, arguing they were obtained in violation of his Charter rights.

The preliminary inquiry judge refused to hear the application, ruling he was not a court of competent jurisdiction under s. 24 of the Charter.

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the appeal, holding that a preliminary inquiry justice does not have the jurisdiction to exclude evidence under s. 24(2) of the Charter, as their function is limited to screening cases for trial.

The respondents were charged under the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

The Crown refused to disclose a Prosecution Approval Form, claiming solicitor-client privilege.

A justice of the peace found a Charter breach, ordered disclosure, and awarded costs against the Crown.

The Crown successfully applied to quash the costs order, arguing the provincial offences court was not a 'court of competent jurisdiction' under s. 24(1) of the Charter.

The Court of Appeal reversed this decision.

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the Crown's appeal, holding that a provincial offences court has the power to order costs against the Crown for a Charter breach based on a functional and structural approach to its jurisdiction.

During a murder investigation, police used a 'crime boss' undercover scenario to elicit a confession from the accused.

At the voir dire, the trial judge granted a publication ban on the identity of the undercover officers and the investigative techniques used.

The appellant newspaper appealed the ban directly to the Supreme Court of Canada.

The Court allowed the appeal, applying the Dagenais/Mentuck test.

It held that a ban on the investigative techniques was not necessary and its deleterious effects on freedom of expression outweighed its salutary effects.

However, a ban on the officers' identities was necessary to protect ongoing operations, but was limited to a period of one year.

The appellant was convicted of second degree murder after an elderly woman was robbed, hog-tied, and left to die of asphyxiation.

The appellant appealed, arguing the trial judge misdirected the jury by applying the 'beyond de minimis' standard of causation from Smithers rather than the 'substantial cause' standard from Harbottle.

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the appeal, holding that the Smithers standard applies to all homicide offences, including second degree murder, while the Harbottle standard applies only to first degree murder under s. 231(5) to determine if the accused's participation warrants the increased stigma and penalty.

The Court suggested that trial judges may express the Smithers standard positively as a 'significant contributing cause'.

The appellant appealed his conviction for fraud and sought leave to appeal his sentence.

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the appeal against conviction for substantially the reasons of the majority in the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal.

The Court also denied leave to appeal the sentence, finding that the courts below addressed the relevant guiding principles and no issue of general importance was raised.

The accused were acquitted at trial.

The Crown appealed to the Court of Appeal, which allowed the appeal and set aside the acquittals.

The accused appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada.

The Supreme Court allowed the appeal and restored the acquittals, finding that the trial judge did not commit any error of law that would give rise to a Crown appeal under s. 676(1)(a) of the Criminal Code, and that the Court of Appeal erred in substituting its own assessment of the facts for that of the trial judge.

The appellant fatally shot his live-in companion during an argument and was convicted of second degree murder.

At trial, he claimed the shooting was an accident, but the jury rejected this defence.

On appeal, he argued the trial judge erred by failing to instruct the jury on the defence of intoxication vitiating intent, which could have reduced the conviction to manslaughter.

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the appeal, holding that while the strict capacity test from Beard no longer governs, the evidence of intoxication in this case was insufficient to permit a reasonable inference that the appellant did not in fact foresee the consequences of his actions.

The accused, a police officer, was charged with attempting to purchase the sexual services of a person under 18.

During the investigation, he made a statement to police without being informed of his right to counsel.

The trial judge excluded the statement from the Crown's case in chief under s. 24(2) of the Charter.

When the accused testified at trial, the Crown sought to use the excluded statement to impeach his credibility during cross-examination.

The trial judge refused, and the accused was acquitted.

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the Crown's appeal, holding that the proposed use of the statement for impeachment was not a material change of circumstances that warranted reconsidering the initial ruling that its admission would bring the administration of justice into disrepute.

The appellants were convicted of second degree murder following a severe beating of the victim.

At trial, the judge found that the appellants had the capacity to form the intent to commit murder despite evidence of their intoxication.

The Supreme Court of Canada allowed the appeal and ordered a new trial, holding that the trial judge misdirected himself by focusing on the capacity to form intent rather than whether the appellants possessed the actual specific intent to kill, applying the newly established framework from R. v. Robinson.

The appellant appealed his conviction for the sexual assault of a minor, arguing that the trial judgment was unreasonable due to a lack of corroborative evidence and issues with witness credibility.

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the appeal as of right, agreeing with the majority of the Manitoba Court of Appeal that the trial judgment was not unreasonable.

The accused was convicted of sexual assault at trial.

The Court of Appeal set aside the conviction, finding that the trial judge erred in excluding portions of the defence evidence.

The Crown appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada.

The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal, substantially for the reasons of the majority in the Court of Appeal.

The appellant appealed from a judgment of the British Columbia Court of Appeal dismissing his appeal from an extradition judge's order committing him for surrender, and dismissing his application for judicial review of the Minister of Justice's decision ordering his surrender.

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the appeal substantially for the reasons of the Court of Appeal, finding that the surrender did not infringe the appellant's rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The appellant appealed from a judgment of the Ontario Court of Appeal dismissing his appeal from an extradition judge's order committing him for surrender and dismissing his application for judicial review of the Minister of Justice's decision ordering his surrender.

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the appeal substantially for the reasons of the court below, finding that the surrender did not infringe the appellant's rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.