Earlier in February of 2024, the Supreme Court of Canada (“SCC”) granted leave to hear the appeal of British Columbia Court of Appeal (“BCCA”) case R v Kinamore, 2023 BCCA 337 [Kinamore]. The appeal concerns the uneven scrutiny of competing evidence and the application of the s. 276 of Criminal Code, RSC 1985, c C-46 […]
The Supreme Court of Canada (“SCC”) has granted leave to appeal the long and complex case of R v Pan 2023 ONCA 362 [Pan]. At trial, four co-accused – Jennifer Pan (“Pan”), Daniel Chi-Kwong Wong (“Wong”), Lenford Crawford (“Crawford”), and David Mylvaganam (“Mylvaganam”) – were all convicted of first-degree murder and attempted murder in the […]
Canada’s self-defence laws, which were recently reformed to provide greater clarity for that defence, have stirred up new uncertainty. In R v Hodgson, 2022 NUCA 9, the Court of Appeal of Nunavut (“NUCA”) overturned an acquittal of a second degree murder charge stemming from an act of self-defence based on the multiple perceived legal errors […]
In May 2022, the Supreme Court of Canada (the “SCC” or the “Court”) released two important decisions in R v Brown, 2022 SCC 18 [Brown] and its companion case, R v Sullivan, 2022 SCC 19 [Sullivan]. This article discusses Brown. For more information on Sullivan, refer to the case comment here. In Brown, Justice Nicholas […]
Can the police target an online community that is known to match interested parties with underage escorts? The Supreme Court’s (“SCC”) latest grants of leave to appeal from R v Haniffa 2021 ONCA 326 [Haniffa] and R v Dare, 2021 ONCA 327 [Dare] will be a welcome advancement to how entrapment is conceptualized in online […]
For many people, self-defence means a person was desperate, in a kill-or-be-killed situation, and makes a split-second choice to save their own life. After R. v. Khill, 2021 SCC 37 (“Khill”), we know that’s not quite right. An accused's role may be broad, made up of any conduct that shows whether they acted reasonably—not just […]
In the case of R v Khill, 2020 ONCA 151 [Khill], Mr. Khill was initially found not guilty of second-degree murder in 2018 for fatally shooting Mr. Styres, an Indigenous man, in 2016. However, the Crown appealed the verdict, and the Court of Appeal overturned the decision on the basis that the trial judge failed […]
As state actors, police officers “must respect the rights and freedoms” of the public that they serve, including when conducting criminal investigations that are in the public interest (R v Ahmad, 2020 SCC 11, para 1) [Ahmad]. As a result, police methods of investigation, while broad, are imposed with necessary constraints to ensure the public’s […]
In December, the Supreme Court of Canada (“SCC” or “The Court”) granted the Crown leave to appeal the Ontario Court of Appeal’s (“ONCA”) ruling in R v Sullivan, 2020 ONCA 333 [Sullivan]. In this jointly-heard case, the ONCA ruled that s. 33.1 of the Criminal Code, RSC, 1985 c C-46 [the Code]—which prohibits self-induced intoxication […]
If an individual is hit in the head with a baseball bat and subsequently shoots and kills his attacker, were they acting in self-defence? What if the individual fired four shots in less than five seconds and did not know his attacker was running away? The Ontario Court of Appeal (“ONCA”) recently considered these facts […]