Thomas E. Evangelista

Michael Malabre was convicted following a jury trial of possessing cocaine and fentanyl for the purpose of trafficking and possessing the proceeds of crime under $5,000.

The Crown sought a penitentiary sentence of five to seven years, while the defence requested a conditional sentence of 18 to 24 months, citing pre-trial custody conditions and the effects of anti-Black racism.

The court found a conditional sentence inappropriate, imposing a sentence of four years and nine months incarceration.

The judge considered aggravating factors including the dangerous nature and quantity of drugs (fentanyl), the commercial scale of the trafficking, evidence of prior sales, and the mixing of drugs.

Mitigating factors included the offender's youth, difficult upbringing, and harsh pre-trial detention and stringent bail conditions.

The court found insufficient evidence to connect anti-Black racism to the offender's moral blameworthiness in this specific case.

The applicant, Kasheen Wilson, brought an application to exclude evidence obtained by police, alleging violations of his Section 8 (unreasonable search) and Section 10(b) (right to counsel) Charter rights.

The Crown conceded a breach of the Section 10(b) right due to a significant delay in facilitating access to counsel at the police station.

The court found the Section 10(b) breach to be moderate to serious but its impact on the accused's interests minimal, as no evidence was elicited during the delay and he eventually spoke to counsel.

Regarding the Section 8 claim concerning a strip search, the court found no breach, concluding that the search was conducted with reasonable grounds and minimal deviation from guidelines.

Ultimately, the court dismissed the application to exclude evidence, finding that its admission would not bring the administration of justice into disrepute given the serious nature of the charges (fentanyl trafficking, weapons) and the minimal impact of the Charter breaches on the accused's rights.

The accused, Michael Malabre, applied for a mistrial during his jury trial for drug trafficking and proceeds of crime.

The application was based on a police officer's testimony that the accused refused to identify himself at the time of arrest, which the defence argued was inadmissible and highly prejudicial, infringing on the right to silence.

The court dismissed the application, finding that a prompt and clear mid-trial instruction to the jury, combined with defence counsel's cross-examination, effectively cured any potential prejudice.

The court emphasized that a mistrial is a remedy of last resort and that the instruction removed the impugned evidence from the jury's consideration.

The defendant, Bardott Walters, was charged with three counts of assault against her two daughters and husband.

The court found significant credibility and reliability issues with the complainants' testimony, noting a strong motive to fabricate due to ongoing acrimonious family law proceedings and evidence of collusion among the complainants.

The Crown failed to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, leading to the defendant's acquittal on all counts.

The Crown sought to admit evidence of prior physical, verbal, and emotional abuse by the accused toward her two daughters in an assault trial.

The accused opposed the admission, arguing the evidence was unreliable, irrelevant, and unfairly prejudicial.

The court ruled that none of the proposed evidence of prior disreputable conduct was admissible, citing a lack of evidentiary foundation, vagueness, the historical nature of many allegations, potential for collusion between complainants, an unexplored family law context, and the significant prejudice such evidence would cause in a jury trial.

The applicant, Matthew Blake, sought to exclude evidence obtained via search warrants for his residence and vehicle, arguing a Section 8 Charter violation due to insufficient grounds in the Information to Obtain (ITO).

The court found that while there were reasonable grounds to believe the applicant was a drug trafficker, the ITO lacked specific grounds to believe evidence would be found at his residence, relying instead on generalized assumptions about drug traffickers.

This violated the applicant's Section 8 Charter rights.

Applying the Grant test, the court weighed the seriousness of the state conduct (lack of specific grounds for search), the high impact on the applicant's privacy in his home, and society's interest in adjudication on the merits.

Despite the reliability and criticality of the evidence, the court concluded that admitting it would bring the administration of justice into disrepute.

The application to exclude the evidence was granted.