SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE
HIS MAJESTY THE KING
v.
NICHOLAS MICHAEL FROST
PROCEEDINGS
BEFORE THE HONOURABLE JUSTICE C. CONLAN
on March 24, 2026 at GUELPH, Ontario
APPEARANCES:
S. Turner
Counsel for the Crown
R. Hintsa
Counsel for Nicholas Michael Frost
TUESDAY, MARCH 24, 2026
RULING
This court had the benefit of reviewing the materials in advance, in detail, and this court also had the benefit of having conducted more than one thorough judicial pretrial conference in advance of today’s proceeding.
This court, under s. 672.34 of the Criminal Code, renders a verdict that Mr. Frost committed the acts in question but is not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder.
The warrant of committal shall provide that Mr. Frost is detained in a mental health facility or a hospital pending a disposition hearing to be conducted by the Ontario Review Board.
This court declines to hold a disposition hearing itself, or make any disposition itself, and has resorted to the process specifically outlined in s. 672.47(1) of the Criminal Code.
Under s. 16(1) of the Criminal Code, “No person is criminally responsible for an act committed or an omission made while suffering from a mental disorder that rendered the person incapable of appreciating the nature and quality of the act or omission or of knowing that it was wrong.”
In our case, on the basis of the evidence presented, in particular the two reports authored by Doctor Pallandi, there is no question that Mr. Frost was suffering from a serious mental disorder at the time that he committed the acts in question.
It is clearly the case, on the basis of the medical evidence, that Mr. Frost was incapable at the time that he committed the acts in question of knowing that they were wrong. Every person is presumed not to suffer from a mental disorder so as to be exempt from criminal responsibility, unless the contrary is proven on a balance of probabilities; we know that from s. 16(2) of the Criminal Code.
The burden of proof that an accused was suffering from a mental disorder so as to be exempt from criminal responsibility is on the party that raises the issue. In our case, that party is Mr. Frost. The burden of proof is on Mr. Frost. The standard of proof is on the balance of probabilities.
In our case, the only expert evidence that is before the court comes from Doctor Pallandi. Doctor Pallandi is a very well respected, very experienced mental health professional, and his reports have been accepted by many courts in Ontario over the years.
Doctor Pallandi’s first report, the lengthier of the two, the one dated March 1, 2025, ends with a very firm conclusion. At page 14 of the report Doctor Pallandi writes, “For all of these reasons, I would conclude that Mr. Frost would not have been able to know the wrongfulness of his behaviours when committing the offence of murder.”
Doctor Pallandi’s report, dated March 1, 2025, unequivocally supports the verdict of not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder.
The supplementary report prepared by Doctor Pallandi, dated October 2, 2025, does nothing to take away from the doctor’s conclusion. In fact, in that report, Doctor Pallandi indicates that the additional information that he reviewed only serves to strengthen his professional opinion that Mr. Frost was incapable at the time of knowing that his actions were wrong, and thus meets the test for a verdict of not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder.
All of the medical history of Mr. Frost, his very serious, long-standing, multiple psychiatric diagnoses, all of that information is outlined in detail in Doctor Pallandi’s report dated March 1, 2025. There is no utility in this court summarizing all of that here. The report has been entered in evidence.
In terms of what is meant by the phrase “knowing that the act was wrong”, the leading authority on this question is the seminal decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in the case of R. v. Oommen, 1994 CanLII 101 (SCC), [1994] 2 S.C.R. 507.
According to Oommen, at paras. 20 and 21, the inquiry regarding criminal responsibility is broader than the question of whether the accused had abstract knowledge that the act would be viewed as wrong by society. Rather, it extends to the inability of the accused to rationally apply knowledge of right and wrong, and hence to conclude that the act in question is one which one ought not to do. In other words, the inquiry focuses not on the general capacity of the accused to know right from wrong but rather on the ability to know that a particular act was wrong in the circumstances.
The accused must possess the intellectual ability to know right from wrong in an abstract sense, but he or she must also possess the ability to apply that knowledge in a rational way to the alleged criminal act.
In the subsequent decision of the Court of Appeal for Ontario in R. v. Dobson, 2018 ONCA 589, 48 C.R. (7th) 410, Justice Doherty for the Court of Appeal had this to say at para. 24, “an accused who has the capacity to know that society regards his actions as morally wrong and proceeds to commit those acts cannot be said to lack the capacity to know right from wrong.” And thus, as Justice Doherty indicates in the decision, such a person is not entitled to an NCR defence.
In this case, for the reasons outlined earlier, I am of the view that Mr. Frost is clearly entitled to an NCR defence.
In saying that, I recognize that it will provide no comfort to the victim’s family and friends. But this court has to recognize that there is a difference between an offender like Mr. Frost and those that we more commonly see in the criminal court.
It ought not to be looked upon as a weakness in the system that someone like Mr. Frost is found to be not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder. Rather, it ought to be seen as a strength in our system that we do differentiate among offenders on the basis of their criminal responsibility.
I would like to thank both counsel for your hard work in this case, and I will endorse the matter accordingly.
MATTER CONCLUDES