Canada Case Law

R. v. Chiarelli

Court

Court of Appeal for Ontario

The trial judge erred by admitting or failing to give a limiting instruction for the unsolicited opinion evidence of the arresting officers that the items in the car were consistent with drug trafficking; that error could have influenced the jury in this circumstantial case, the curative proviso does not apply, and a new trial is required. The other challenged aspects of the trial (inferences from cell phones, Vetrovec caution, inference from value) were not errors.

Source excerpt

• Possession for the purpose of trafficking
• Opinion evidence
• Limiting instruction
• Vetrovec caution
• Curative proviso
• Circumstantial evidence

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R. v. Shi

Court

Court of Appeal for Ontario

The trial judge did not err: he permissibly rejected the exculpatory portions of Matthews-Bishop's testimony while accepting independent and corroborated facts; the circumstantial record independently supports conviction beyond a reasonable doubt; no legal requirement existed to import a Vetrovec jury caution into a judge's reasons; the post-sentence DNA evidence is not exculpatory and would not have affected verdict or sentence under the Palmer test; the sentencing disparity is explainable by differing moral culpability and mitigation and does not breach parity.

Source excerpt

• Robbery
• Fresh evidence (palmer test)
• Vetrovec caution
• Parity in sentencing
• Circumstantial evidence
• Dna evidence

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R. v. Ajoku

Court

Court of Appeal for Ontario

The appeal is dismissed: the trial judge reasonably relied on parts of the witness’s evidence without a Vetrovec caution, provided sufficient reasons in context, and the totality of the circumstantial evidence reasonably excluded all innocent explanations, supporting the conviction for possession for the purpose of trafficking.

Source excerpt

• Possession for the purpose of trafficking
• Knowledge of contents
• Circumstantial evidence
• Vetrovec caution
• Reasonableness standard on appeal

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R. v. Pinard

Court

Court of Appeal for Ontario

The application for bail pending appeal is dismissed because the enforceability interest, driven by the seriousness of the gun offence, outweighs the weak reviewability interest given the arguable but unsupported and fact-driven grounds of appeal (transcript and supporting materials not filed), such that detention is necessary in the public interest under s.679(3)(c).

Source excerpt

• Bail pending appeal
• Public confidence in administration of justice
• Enforceability vs reviewability
• Possession of firearm contrary to prohibition order (s.117.01)
• Possession of loaded restricted firearm (s.95)
• Jury verdict consistency

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R. v. Riley

Court

Supreme Court of Nova Scotia

The trial judge ruled that the Crown improperly elicited irrelevant sympathetic detail about the witness's prostitution and drug introduction and instructed the jury that that evidence had no probative value; the Crown's closing remarks that could lead to propensity inferences against the accused were impermissible and the jury was instructed not to use them to infer bad character; the Crown may not ask the jury to find facts absent evidentiary basis but may argue that a witness is mistaken about timing provided the submissions remain within the evidence; cell‑tower/location evidence is not d…

Source excerpt

• Vetrovec caution
• After-the-fact conduct
• Bad character evidence
• Bolstering credibility
• Void in the evidence/gaps in cell data
• Cell-site location evidence

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R. v. Cargioli

Court

Court of Appeal for Ontario

The Court upheld convictions of Kamal and Morrisson and dismissed their sentence appeals; it found reversible legal error in the jury instruction on first-degree murder for Cargioli because the jury could have been led to convict based on conduct (the gun-butt) that preceded any proven mens rea for murder, violating the requirement that actus reus and mens rea coexist for s.231(5)(e); accordingly the Court set aside Cargioli's first-degree conviction and, with Crown consent, substituted a conviction for second-degree murder pursuant to s.686(1)(b)(i); sentencing matters to follow.

Source excerpt

• Murder
• Manslaughter
• Party liability (s.21)
• Co-conspirator hearsay (carter)
• Expert evidence admissibility
• Vetrovec caution

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R. v. Commodore

Court

Supreme Court of British Columbia

The court dismissed a defence application asking the trial judge to recuse herself after making sentencing findings based on a co-accused’s jury verdict.

• Reasonable apprehension of bias
• Findings of fact after jury verdict
• Section 724(2) criminal code
• Severance
• Vetrovec caution
• Judge impartiality

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R. v. U.K.

Court

Court of Appeal for Ontario

The Court allowed the appeals: the trial judge erred by extending a fabrication instruction beyond independent evidence of fabrication in out-of-court police statements to the appellants' trial testimony and by giving a deficient fabrication instruction (omitting required distinctions and directions), and by misdirecting the jury under W.(D.) by lumping the appellants together and treating defence evidence as all-or-nothing; those errors were prejudicial and required a new trial.

Source excerpt

• Fabrication of evidence
• Post-offence conduct
• W.(d.) reasonable doubt instruction
• Vetrovec caution
• Consent and capacity
• Honest but mistaken belief in communicated consent

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R. v. Le

Court

Court of Appeal for Ontario

Reading the charge and trial record as a whole, the Court found no reversible error: the limiting instructions and Vetrovec caution were adequate; the third-party suspect and aiding instructions met legal requirements; Singh’s statement and any misstatements by the judge did not produce incurable prejudice such as to require severance; and the 23-year parole ineligibility imposed on Le was not disproportionate. Appeals against conviction were dismissed and Le’s sentence appeal was dismissed (leave to appeal sentence granted but denied on merits).

Source excerpt

• Murder
• Kidnapping
• Aiding and abetting
• Severance
• Jury instructions
• Vetrovec caution

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R. v. Ferguson-Cadore

Court

Court of Appeal for Ontario

The Court dismissed the conviction and sentence appeals: the trial judge correctly instructed the jury (including a Vetrovec caution) and left credibility assessments to the jury; the Crown's cross-examination was not improper and any potential prejudice was cured by the judge's directions; and the sentencing judge did not err in principle in imposing the global custodial sentence, which was therefore upheld.

Source excerpt

• Firearms offences
• Assault
• Sentencing
• Witness credibility
• Vetrovec caution

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