Tanya M. Kranjc

The appellants, Joshua and Jordan Powell, appealed their convictions for assault causing bodily harm and mischief (Jordan only) stemming from a group altercation.

They raised five grounds of appeal, including unreasonable verdicts, misunderstanding of mens rea, deficient reasons, improper rejection of exculpatory police statements, and erroneous rejection of a witness's testimony based on unraised bias.

The Court of Appeal dismissed both conviction appeals, finding that the trial judge's verdicts were reasonable, the mens rea for assault causing bodily harm was correctly applied, the reasons were sufficient, and the handling of exculpatory statements and witness credibility did not infringe the appellants' rights or legal principles.

The appellant was convicted of sexual assault and sexual interference against his wife and daughter.

At trial, the Crown introduced extensive evidence of the appellant's uncharged prior discreditable conduct, primarily occurring in China before the family immigrated to Canada.

The trial judge admitted the evidence to show animus and explain the lack of earlier reporting.

On appeal, the Court of Appeal found that the trial judge erred by failing to properly assess and balance the reasoning prejudice of this evidence against its probative value.

The volume and highly discreditable nature of the uncharged conduct created a real risk that the jury convicted the appellant for his prior bad acts rather than the charged offences.

The appeal was allowed and a new trial ordered.

The appellant, Aghayere Justin Omoragbon, sought leave to appeal a global sentence of seven years (net four years after pre-sentence custody credit) for 11 offences, including firearms and drug trafficking.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario dismissed the appeal, finding no demonstrable unfitness or error in principle in the trial judge's sentencing.

The court upheld the trial judge's diminished weight given to youth as a mitigating factor due to the appellant's lengthy record and escalating seriousness of offences, affirmed the application of the totality principle, and rejected the claim for enhanced credit for lockdown days without evidence of adverse effect.

The Crown appealed the acquittal of the respondent, Dhanbir Shergill, on a charge of careless driving under the Highway Traffic Act, following a fatal collision involving a TTC bus he was driving.

The trial judge had dismissed the charge, relying on an inapplicable legal principle and misapprehending critical evidence regarding pedestrian right-of-way and the bus's movement.

The Superior Court found that the trial judge erred in relying on the Globocki principle and in failing to consider key evidence from witnesses and accident reconstruction.

The appeal was allowed, the acquittal set aside, and a new trial ordered, as the appellate court deemed it inappropriate to enter a conviction without a proper assessment of evidence by a trier of fact.

The appellant, Mr. Liu, appealed his conviction for impaired driving by alcohol.

He argued that the trial judge erred in rejecting his defence of non-insane automatism and in finding that his impairment was due to alcohol rather than drugs.

The Superior Court dismissed the appeal, affirming that non-insane automatism is not a defence to impaired driving where drugs or alcohol are voluntarily consumed, regardless of the intent to drive.

The court also found that the trial judge correctly rejected the expert's opinion regarding drug-induced impairment due to a lack of factual basis for the amount of alcohol consumed by the appellant.

The appellant appealed his summary convictions for multiple counts of assault and theft arising from an intimate relationship.

At trial, the judge engaged in a vetting procedure that excluded approximately 45 photographs the defence intended to use during cross-examination of the complainant to challenge her credibility and narrative of the relationship.

The summary conviction appeal judge found the vetting process was flawed, applied the wrong legal test for excluding defence evidence, and improperly curtailed the appellant's right to make full answer and defence.

Because the case turned almost entirely on the complainant's credibility, the error was deemed serious and the curative proviso was not applied.

The appeal was allowed and a new trial ordered.

The applicant, Akeem Bailey, sought to quash his committal for trial on five counts of attempted murder following a preliminary inquiry.

The application for certiorari argued that the preliminary inquiry judge erred in finding sufficient evidence to establish the specific intent to kill required for attempted murder, particularly concerning the applicant's role as a getaway driver and the probative value of post-offence conduct.

The court reviewed the preliminary inquiry judge's assessment of circumstantial evidence, including the applicant's vehicle positioning for a quick getaway and his awareness of the shooting.

The court concluded that there was evidence upon which a reasonable jury, properly instructed, could convict the applicant of attempted murder, and therefore, the preliminary inquiry judge did not commit a jurisdictional error.

The application was dismissed.

The accused pleaded guilty to aggravated assault following a violent altercation in which he struck the victim multiple times with a homemade axe, causing compound fractures to both arms and multiple lacerations.

The sentencing judge imposed a custodial sentence of 33 months after considering the severity of injuries, the nature of the attack, the accused's criminal history including prior alcohol-related offences, and mitigating factors including family support and work history.

The court rejected the Crown's submission for 4 years and the defence submission for 18 months to 2 years less a day, finding that a penitentiary-length sentence was necessary to adequately denounce the offender's moral blameworthiness and address principles of deterrence.