Victoria Tucci

During a jury trial for first degree murder, the accused brought a pre‑trial application seeking to adduce third‑party suspect evidence implicating other individuals in the killings.

The proposed evidence relied primarily on a witness’s recorded police statement alleging that one individual had confessed to committing the murders.

The court conducted a detailed hearsay analysis and held that the statement lacked threshold reliability due to the witness’s motive to fabricate, serious drug abuse, extensive criminal record, inconsistencies in her accounts, and the absence of meaningful cross‑examination.

The alleged confession was also inadmissible both as a declaration against penal interest and under the principled hearsay exception.

The court further declined to relax evidentiary rules for defence evidence because the statements were inherently unreliable.

The accused was charged with first-degree murder.

Prior to jury selection, the court heard three evidentiary applications.

The accused sought to exclude text messages based on authorship and hearsay.

The Crown sought to admit ante-mortem statements of the deceased under the principled approach to hearsay, and evidence of the accused's discreditable conduct to establish motive.

The court admitted the text messages, finding sufficient evidence of authorship.

The court admitted the ante-mortem statements, finding they met the threshold reliability test.

The court admitted some discreditable conduct evidence (prior gun possession, code of silence) as highly probative of motive, but excluded evidence of gang affiliation and drug trafficking as overly prejudicial.

The offender pleaded guilty to sexual assault and criminal harassment after following a young woman from a bus late at night, pursuing her to her residence, and squeezing her buttocks before fleeing.

The court considered aggravating factors including the victim’s age, the frightening circumstances of the stalking behaviour, and the offender’s prior criminal record including a previous sexual assault conviction.

Mitigating factors included the guilty plea, supportive family, employment stability, compliance with strict bail conditions, and a psychological assessment indicating low to moderate risk manageable in the community.

Applying the proportionality principle under s. 718.1 of the Criminal Code and emphasizing denunciation and deterrence, the court concluded the mitigating factors outweighed the aggravating factors.

A suspended sentence with three years’ probation and ancillary orders was imposed.

The applicants, charged with first-degree murder, brought pre-trial applications to exclude evidence under the Charter.

They alleged arbitrary detention, unreasonable search, and right to counsel violations.

The court found that the initial investigative detentions and arrests were lawful and that the examination of the accused's shoes did not violate section 8.

However, the court found a section 9 violation for both accused because the police deliberately delayed bringing them before a Justice of the Peace within 24 hours in order to obtain statements.

Consequently, the statements made at the police station were excluded under section 24(2).

The expert evidence regarding gunshot residue and footwear impressions was ruled admissible.

The appellant appealed a decision of the Consent and Capacity Board confirming that he was incapable of consenting to treatment with antipsychotic medication.

He argued the Board erred in applying the statutory capacity test under the Health Care Consent Act and failed to consider his understanding of treatment information and concerns about medication side effects.

The court applied a reasonableness standard of review and considered the two‑part capacity test from Starson v. Swayze requiring both understanding of relevant information and appreciation of foreseeable consequences.

The court found the Board reasonably concluded that the appellant’s delusional beliefs prevented him from both understanding and applying treatment information to his own circumstances.

The appeal was dismissed.

This is a decision on committal to trial following a lengthy preliminary inquiry into Project Corral, an investigation by the Integrated Guns and Gangs Task Force into alleged criminal organizations in northwest Toronto.

The Crown sought committal on 71 charges arising from evidence heard at the preliminary inquiry, including charges of trafficking in cocaine, marijuana, firearms and ammunition, conspiracy, counselling, obstruction of justice, and criminal organization offences.

The court analyzed voice identification evidence from intercepted communications, the meaning of coded language used by the accused, and the elements of possession, trafficking, conspiracy, and criminal organization offences.

The court ordered most accused to stand trial on the majority of charges, with some discharges on specific counts.

The accused was charged with robbery of a convenience store and concealing his face during the robbery.

The sole issue was identification.

The Crown's case rested entirely on the eyewitness identification of the store clerk, who testified that he recognized the robber as a customer he had seen approximately ten times over the previous year.

The court found the witness credible but determined that the reliability of the eyewitness identification was insufficient to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

The court acquitted the accused, finding that while the witness's familiarity with the customer bolstered the reliability of the identification, it did not, in the context of all the evidence and the absence of corroborating evidence, establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.