Shawn D. Porter

The appellant was convicted of driving 'over 80' after the trial judge refused to hear his section 7 Charter application due to an inadequate Notice of Application under Rule 30.

The summary conviction appeal court dismissed the appeal.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, finding that the trial judge erred in principle by rigidly applying the procedural rule to foreclose the Charter argument without considering whether the Crown suffered any actual prejudice.

Because the Charter argument was factually straightforward and legally routine, the Crown was not prejudiced, and a new trial was ordered.

The appellant appealed his convictions for sexual assault with a weapon, forcible confinement, and uttering a death threat.

The primary issue on appeal was whether the police's retention of the appellant's fingerprints, which were taken during a previous arrest for charges that were subsequently withdrawn, violated his s. 8 Charter rights against unreasonable search and seizure.

The Court of Appeal held that the retention of fingerprints after charges are withdrawn does not automatically violate s. 8.

The police policy of destroying fingerprints upon request strikes a reasonable balance between the individual's privacy interests and the state's law enforcement objectives.

Since the appellant never requested the destruction of his fingerprints, their retention and subsequent use to identify him in the sexual assault investigation were reasonable and lawful.

The appeal was dismissed.

The appellant appealed his convictions for aggravated assault and assault with a weapon, as well as his four-year sentence.

The offences arose from an altercation at a party where the complainant was attacked with broken beer bottles.

The appellant argued that the trial judge erred in her jury instructions regarding reasonable doubt, the absence of a witness, the response to a jury question, and the use of the complainant's criminal record.

The Court of Appeal found no errors in the jury instructions, noting that the charge as a whole properly conveyed the burden of proof.

The court also upheld the sentence, finding that the disparity between the appellant's sentence and his co-accused's conditional sentence was justified by their differing levels of involvement and personal circumstances.

The appeal against conviction and sentence was dismissed.

The applicant hospital administrators moved under s. 672.76 of the Criminal Code to suspend a disposition of the Ontario Review Board ordering the transfer of the respondent accused from a maximum to a medium secure hospital facility, pending their appeal.

The court dismissed the motion, noting that the accused was fourth on the waiting list for the medium secure facility and it was highly unlikely he would be transferred before the appeal was heard in 13 days, making the suspension order unnecessary.

The appellant appealed convictions for sexual offences involving two stepdaughters and also appealed a nine-year sentence.

The court held that although the jury charge pre-dated the governing reasonable doubt instruction case and did not expressly address the third branch of the credibility framework, the charge as a whole adequately conveyed the presumption of innocence, the burden of proof, and the requirement that the verdict be based on the evidence.

The court rejected challenges to the answer to a jury question, the gross indecency charge, and the use of similar fact evidence, noting the limiting instruction and the strength of the Crown's case.

The sentence was held to be fit given the repeated abuse of trust and serious abuse of children in the appellant's care.

Both appeals were dismissed.

The appellant appealed convictions arising from an incident involving two taxi drivers, arguing identity and challenging the legal basis for certain convictions.

The court rejected the identity argument and upheld the robbery conviction, finding the injury to the first driver was sufficient to constitute bodily harm and that robbery under s. 343(c) did not require an actual theft.

Applying the Kienapple rule, the court stayed the assault causing bodily harm conviction as an included offence of robbery arising from the same delict.

The court also quashed the conviction for personating a police officer because that summary conviction offence had been improperly joined and tried in superior court following a preliminary inquiry.

The remaining conviction appeals were dismissed.

The applicant brought a second original application for bail pending appeal from a second degree murder conviction after an earlier bail application and review had been dismissed.

The court held that a fresh application may proceed only where there has been a material change in circumstances affecting one or more of the statutory factors in s. 679(3) of the Criminal Code.

The court found such a change based on significantly stronger grounds of appeal, improved evidence that the applicant would surrender, and extraordinary delay caused by the pursuit of fresh evidence.

Balancing enforceability against reviewability under the public interest branch, the court concluded that further detention was not necessary and granted release pending appeal.

The appellant appealed convictions for first degree murder and related offences arising from the kidnapping, confinement, sexual assault, and deaths of two teenage victims.

He admitted the predicate offences and argued that another participant alone committed the killings, leaving him guilty only of manslaughter.

The court rejected challenges to the admission of similar fact evidence and expert evidence on battered woman syndrome, found no reversible error in the jury charge on burden of proof, party liability, or credibility, and upheld the jury selection procedure under s. 635(1) of the Criminal Code.

The appeal was dismissed in full.

The appellant appealed both conviction for attempted murder and an eight-year penitentiary sentence arising from a stabbing of his wife.

The Court of Appeal rejected arguments that the trial judge ignored a reasonable doubt, reversed the burden of proof, improperly treated psychiatric evidence concerning specific intent, or wrongly relied on post-offence statements.

On sentence, the court held that protection of the spouse was the dominant consideration and that the appellant’s mental illness did not necessarily reduce the otherwise fit sentence where the illness created future risk.

Fresh evidence concerning day parole and psychiatric conditions of release did not justify appellate intervention.

The appellant appealed his murder conviction and sentence, relying on fresh recantation evidence from a key civilian witness and an inmate informant, as well as new DNA testing undermining aspects of the Crown's theory.

The court rejected the civilian witness recantation as incredible, but admitted the inmate recantation and the DNA evidence under the Palmer framework.

Although the fresh evidence significantly weakened the Crown case and impaired important inculpatory evidence, the court held it was not so conclusive as to justify an acquittal and the verdict was not shown to be unreasonable under the governing standard.

The conviction was set aside and a new trial ordered on second degree murder.

Leave to appeal the counselling sentence was granted and that sentence was reduced to time served.

The appellant appealed his conviction for first degree murder, challenging the trial judge's approach to dealing with DNA evidence.

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the appeal, finding no error in the trial judge's conduct of the voir dire or his charge to the jury, which were deemed fair and balanced.

The Court substantially agreed with the reasons of the Ontario Court of Appeal.