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The Supreme Court held that delay caused by a co-accused’s counsel in a joint trial can be a discrete exceptional circumstance under s. 11(b), so the stay was set aside.
The court dismissed a s. 11(b) stay application, holding two short periods were defence delay and that the overall delay fell just under the Jordan ceiling.
After attributing 2.5 months to defence delay for failure to timely elect/request preliminary inquiry and attributing 2 months 17 days to defence for unavailability of defence counsel for offered pre-trial/trial dates, the net delay is 27.5 months which is below the 30-month presumptive ceiling; accordingly there is no s.11(b) breach and the application for a stay is dismissed.
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The Court dismissed the conviction appeal because the application judge reasonably found that at least 60 days were attributable to COVID-19 exceptional circumstances and did not double-count the separately conceded 7 days of defence delay; the sentencing reasons disclosed no error in principle and the sentence was not demonstrably unfit, so the sentence appeal was dismissed despite leave being granted.
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The court dismissed a Charter s. 11(b) stay application, finding 22 months of net delay after deducting defence delay and waiver from 40 months elapsed.
The net delay from laying of the information to the scheduled trial (28 months, 5 days) exceeded the 18-month provincial court presumptive ceiling; no delay was correctly allocated to the defence; the prosecution failed to demonstrate exceptional circumstances (pandemic or lack of judicial resources) on the record; accordingly the delay is presumptively unreasonable and a judicial stay of proceedings was ordered.
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Oral ruling on a s. 11(b) Charter stay application in a drug trafficking case. The court stayed proceedings against Mandeep Sharma but not Meghan Sharma.
After deducting a defence waiver of 2.5 months, 22 days for exceptional circumstances relating to the Covid emergency and police deployment, and a further two months judged attributable to defence review/election time, the net delay remained approximately 19 months, exceeding the Jordan 18-month ceiling; the s.11(b) breach requires a stay of proceedings.
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The Supreme Court held that a late re-election of mode of trial could be treated as defence delay, and dismissed the appeal, upholding the convictions.
The Court held the application judge erred by failing to characterize the 65-day period commencing August 14, 2019 as defence delay because the record showed an implicit, clear and unequivocal waiver by the defence at the August 13, 2019 appearance; when that period is attributed to the defence the net delay falls below the Jordan ceiling, so the stay was set aside and the matter remitted for trial.
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