Shelby Alexis Odom

This criminal trial concerned the defendant, Cory Leclair, who was charged with illegal possession of a firearm and being an accessory after the fact to discharging a firearm.

The charges stemmed from an altercation where Jamie Labelle, a companion of the defendant, brandished a handgun.

The Crown alleged Leclair took the bag containing the firearm from Labelle and hid it.

The court found the defendant guilty of illegal possession of a prohibited firearm (counts 4 and 8), concluding that the only reasonable inference from the circumstantial video evidence was that the defendant knew the gun was in the bag when he took possession of it.

However, the court found the defendant not guilty of being an accessory after the fact to discharging a firearm (count 9), as there was reasonable doubt whether Labelle had actually fired the weapon, despite some witness testimony.

The Crown sought an adjournment of a criminal trial continuation due to the unavailability of a key witness.

The defendant opposed the application, arguing the Crown failed to meet the "laches or neglect" prong of the R. v. Darville test.

The court found that the Crown's office was negligent in failing to notify the police of the continuation date until six days prior, attributing this to a systemic resourcing issue where one person was responsible for all subpoenas.

Despite acknowledging resource constraints, the court held that such deficiencies cannot imperil a defendant's rights.

The application for adjournment was dismissed.

The Applicant, Billy Persaud-Hearns, sought a recusal order against Justice Shannon L. Pollock, alleging a reasonable apprehension of bias.

The Applicant's position was that the judge's prior authorization of a DNA warrant in an ex parte application related to a separate but similar set of allegations against the Applicant created a perception of bias.

The Crown opposed the recusal, arguing that judges are presumed impartial and capable of disabusing themselves of prior knowledge.

The court, applying the test for reasonable apprehension of bias, found that the Applicant had not met the high threshold required.

The judge's prior involvement was limited to an ex parte authorization on a separate matter, with no findings of fact or credibility made against the Applicant.

The application for recusal was dismissed.

This ruling addresses an application under s. 11(b) of the Charter for a stay of proceedings due to unreasonable delay.

The defendant faced multiple charges, including firearms and driving offences, across five different informations sworn between 2018 and 2020.

The court found that even after deducting defence-attributable delay and exceptional circumstances (COVID-19 pandemic), the net delay for all informations exceeded the presumptive Jordan ceiling of 18 months for provincial court matters.

The court apportioned responsibility for a significant period of confusion regarding trial vs. preliminary hearing between the Crown and defence.

The case was not deemed particularly complex to justify the delay.

Consequently, the court found the defendant's s. 11(b) rights were violated and ordered a stay of all charges.