Court File and Parties

COURT FILE NO.: CR-21-70000-372 DATE: 20220413 ONTARIO SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE

BETWEEN: HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN – and – CONNOR MADISON

Counsel: Simon Heeney, for the Crown Selwyn Pieters, for Connor Madison

HEARD: March 28, 2022

Reasons for Ruling

M. Dambrot J.:

[1] Connor Madison was tried by me, with a jury, on a charge of second degree murder. The Crown alleged that Mr. Madison stabbed the deceased, Stephon Knights-Roberts, to death at about 11:30 p.m. on June 25, 2020, in a public park near 280 Wellesley Street East in Toronto. The jury found Mr. Madison guilty on March 31, 2022.

[2] At a pre-charge conference conducted prior to the closing addresses of counsel on Friday, March 25, 2022, after hearing argument, I advised counsel that I would not allow the defence of self-defence to go to the jury, because, I concluded, that the defence had no air of reality in this case. I did not give formal reasons for my decision at that time.

[3] Counsel made their closing arguments to the jury on Monday, March 28, 2022. I charged the jury on March 31, 2022, and the jury returned a guilty verdict that same day. The matter was adjourned to April 13, 2022, for sentence.

[4] In these reasons, I will briefly explain why I concluded that self-defence had no air of reality.

[5] To begin, it is necessary to outline very briefly the pertinent evidence adduced in this case.

[6] In the evening of June 25, 2020, a number of friends and acquaintances were sitting at or around some picnic tables in a park at the intersection of Ontario Street and Wellesley Street East in Toronto. Immediately before 11:30 p.m., Ryan Dwyer was sitting with about six people at one of the tables, talking, drinking and smoking marihuana. The accused came over to the table and joined the group. He was there for 10 to 15 minutes. Mr. Dwyer observed that Mr. Madison had a 26-ounce bottle of a dark liquor with him and was drinking it straight from the bottle at the table, but Mr. Madison seemed sober to Mr. Dwyer. At about the same time, the deceased arrived at the table, greeted the group and then asked to speak to the accused separately. They left together and walked over to the west side of the swimming pool. The events at the side of the swimming pool and most of the events thereafter were video recorded by surveillance cameras.

[7] When Mr. Madison and Mr. Knights-Roberts reached a spot beside the pool, they met with a third man who was waiting there. The three men began by shaking hands and interacted for a while without any physical contact, and then the tenor of the get-together changed. There was a bit of a struggle. Mr. Knight-Roberts was the primary aggressor. When the struggle began Mr. Knight-Roberts put the accused in a headlock or choke hold, and then Mr. Knight-Roberts and the third man took Mr. Madison to the ground. The third man went through the accused’s pockets and removed his gun. Once this was accomplished, Mr. Knight-Roberts and the third man started to walk away.

[8] Mr. Madison caught up with Mr. Knight-Roberts, the two men exchanged words and Mr. Knight-Roberts walked away again. Mr. Madison hopped a fence, picked something up from the ground, disappeared behind a small building and then emerged with what appears to have been a knife in his right hand. Mr. Madison and Mr. Knight-Roberts exchanged words again, and then Mr. Knight-Roberts and the third man began to walk northward along a driveway. Mr. Madison followed them.

[9] At this point, the third man ran ahead of Mr. Knight-Roberts. Mr. Madison caught up with Mr. Knight-Roberts and some pushing and shoving took place. Mr. Dwyer and Chris Rutty, who had also been at the picnic tables, rushed over to try to separate Mr. Madison and Mr. Knight-Roberts. When they got there, Mr. Dwyer saw a 14-inch-long blade in Mr. Madison’s hand. The deceased did not have a weapon. The accused was enraged, and Mr. Dwyer heard the accused say, “You son of a bitch, you son of a bitch, you took my stick.” Mr. Dwyer knew the word “stick” to mean “gun” on the street. He heard the deceased say, “Can someone get him off me?” Mr. Dwyer and Mr. Rutty tried to pull Mr. Madison away from Mr. Knight-Roberts. Mr. Madison shrugged them off and stabbed Mr. Knight-Roberts in the area of his gut with the knife. Mr. Dwyer said that when Mr. Madison stabbed Mr. Knight-Roberts, he said, “Motherfucker, this is payback.” Mr. Knight-Roberts grabbed his gut, staggered back and said, “Son of a bitch, you stabbed me” and “Motherfucker, this is payback.” Mr. Dwyer left at that point and ushered his friends to safety.

[10] Mr. Knight-Roberts then proceeded southward down the roadway towards Wellesley Street, sort of hopping sideways, with Mr. Madison in pursuit. Mr. Madison caught up with Mr. Knight-Roberts, Mr. Knight-Roberts fell to the ground and the accused stabbed him several times. Another witness, Mr. Downes-Coote, tried to separate the two men several times at this second location, but Mr. Madison kept returning and continued stabbing the deceased with his knife. This part of the incident was audio recorded on a cell phone. As the stabbing continued, Mr. Downes-Coote can be heard to say to Mr. Madison, “Fuck get out of here bro what are you doing?” and then “Yo what the fuck are you doing bro, yo what are you doing bro?” and then “What are you doing? What are you doing? Why are you doing this?” Mr. Madison replied, “He just took my strap off me bro.” A few seconds later, Mr. Downes-Coote said, “Stop no, why did you stab him like that, just stop bro.” Mr. Madison replied, “He took my fucking stick off me bro.” A few seconds later Mr. Downes-Coote said, “You fucked up my hand bro and look at my shit and bro and stop fam … please stop.” Mr. Madison replied, “The kid cost me money.”

[11] Ultimately, Mr. Madison leaned over Mr. Knight-Roberts and lifted Mr. Knight-Roberts’ arm to create a clear path to the area of his vital organs before inflicting the last stab into his chest and torso. Mr. Knight-Roberts was still alive when the last blow was struck.

[12] The forensic pathologist who conducted the autopsy of Mr. Knight-Roberts on June 26, 2022, said that the deceased suffered 15 sharp force injuries, including 7 stab wounds of the chest, 1 superficial incised wound of the chest, 2 stab wounds of the abdomen, 2 stab wounds of the back, 1 stab wound of the buttocks and 2 incised wounds to the right hand. Some of the stab wounds penetrated the deceased’s chest wall and entered his organs, including his liver, lungs and heart, and that these wounds caused his death.

[13] The accused did not testify and called no other witness in his defence. He asked me to put three defences to the jury: provocation, intoxication and self-defence. While there was scant evidence of intoxication in this case, and very little evidence of provocation, I permitted both of those defences to go to the jury. I took a different view of self-defence.

[14] Before the defence of self-defence can be put to the jury, there must be an air of reality to the defence, which consists of three elements, sometimes referred to as: (1) reasonable belief; (2) purpose; and (3) reasonableness. There must be some evidentiary basis for the jury to find, or have a reasonable doubt, that, when he stabbed Mr. Knight-Roberts: (1) Mr. Madison believed, on reasonable grounds, that Mr. Knight-Roberts was using force or threatening to use force against him; (2) Mr. Madison assaulted Mr. Knight-Roberts for the purpose of defending or protecting himself from that use or threat of force; and (3) Mr. Madison’s conduct was reasonable in the circumstances.

[15] In this case, there was no evidentiary foundation for any of these findings.

[16] With respect to the first element of self-defence, the force that Mr. Madison was said to be responding to was the robbery of Mr. Madison by Mr. Knight-Roberts and another man minutes earlier. However, that robbery involved no weapon and had come to an end. Mr. Knight-Roberts had walked away from the scene of the robbery and offered no further threat to Mr. Madison, who chose to pursue Mr. Knight-Roberts and then stabbed the unarmed Mr. Knight-Roberts. There is nothing in this evidence from which it could be inferred, or from which a reasonable doubt could arise, that when Mr. Madison stabbed Mr. Knight-Roberts, he believed, on reasonable grounds, that Mr. Knight-Roberts was using force or threatening to use force against him.

[17] Similarly, with respect to the second element, there is nothing in the evidence from which it could be inferred, or from which a reasonable doubt could arise, that Mr. Madison stabbed Mr. Knight-Roberts for the purpose of defending or protecting himself from a use or threat of force. Indeed, all of the evidence that does exist suggests something quite different. I am referring here to the evidence that, when the first stabbing occurred, Mr. Madison said, “You son of a bitch, you son of a bitch, you took my stick”, and “Motherfucker, this is payback”, and the incontrovertible evidence that as the stabbing proceeded, when asked what he was doing by Mr. Downes-Coote, who was trying to stop him, Mr. Madison said, “He just took my strap off me bro”, “He took my fucking stick off me bro” and “The kid cost me money.” In other words, the only evidence is that Mr. Madison’s stabbing of Mr. Knight-Roberts was an act of revenge, or payback.

[18] Counsel for Mr. Madison argued that self-defence was available here because Mr. Madison was acting to prevent any later use of Mr. Madison’s gun by Mr. Knight-Roberts against Mr. Madison or others. However, there is no evidence that this was Mr. Madison’s intent. In any event, even if there was such evidence, it would be insufficient to make self-defence available to Mr. Madison. While force or the threat of force need not be imminent in all cases, in order to avail himself of the defence of self-defence on this basis, the accused would have to have a reasonable apprehension of danger and a reasonable belief that he could not extricate himself from it other than by killing Mr. Knight-Robert. That is very far from this case.

[19] Finally, with respect to the third element, there was no basis for the jury to infer, or have a reasonable doubt, that Mr. Madison’s repeated stabbing of an unarmed and disabled Mr. Knight-Roberts was reasonable.

[20] It is for these reasons that I removed the defence of self-defence from the jury.

M. Dambrot J. Released: April 13, 2022