This month the SCC denied leave to appeal in the case of R. v. Carpenter, 2010 BCCA 27. This was an appeal of the British Columbia Supreme Court decision in R. v. Carpenter, 2006 BCSC 1936. The primary issue was whether or not a judge, before admitting similar fact evidence, must be convinced beyond a [...]

Aptly described by Fish J. as the “third chapter in a tale of two statements,” the SCC’s recent decision in R. v. S.G.T., 2010 SCC 20, provides clarity on the confessions and derived confessions rules. The plot of the “tale” involved  a stepfather, S.G.T., accused of allegedly sexually assaulting his teenage stepdaughter A. S.G.T. was [...]

TheCourt.ca commented recently on the SCC decision in R. v. National Post, 2010 SCC 16 where it was affirmed that the use of the Wigmore criteria was a practical method to judicially approve a promise of journalist-source confidentiality on a case-by-case basis. The purpose of this post is to briefly comment on Wigmore and a [...]

On May 14, 2010 the SCC released its judgment in R. v. Hurley, 2010 SCC 18, which addresses the current state of the law with respect to Vetrovec warnings. In the proceeding, the prosecution relied on the testimony of a jailhouse informant who had a motive to lie and was thus considered to be lacking [...]

Background and Facts R. v. National Post, 2010 SCC 16 is a case stemming directly from the “Shawinigate” scandal involving former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. According to a timeline provided by the National Post, the genesis of “Shawinigate” was the sale of a golf course and adjacent hotel by the former PM and his [...]

Introduction In light of the extraordinary staying power of the SCC’s decision in Grant—the continuous discussions, winning the title of “Judgment of the Year”, and nearly sweeping the “Ozzys”—we’ve decided to revisit the case again and ask the question: Does it even matter? Two months after Grant was released, my colleague Soloman Lam surveyed the [...]

In R. v. Morelli (2010 SCC 8) the Supreme Court of Canada was faced with a number of complex and intertwined legal issues. The child pornography case turned on the validity of a search warrant obtained on a faulty and problematic ITO (Information to Obtain a Search Warrant). The majority and the dissent had dueling [...]

Introduction This past Monday (March 1, 2010), the Ontario Court of Appeal heard arguments from Rob Ramage’s lawyers in the appeal of their client’s convictions and sentence for dangerous driving and impaired driving. What is of note in this case, beyond the former Toronto Maple Leaf captain’s public image, is the application of the recent Grant decision [...]

On December 17 of last year, the Supreme Court of Canada handed down its decision in R. v. Dudley, 2009 SCC 58, which dealt with some of the finer points of criminal procedure; specifically, in the case of “hybrid” or “dual procedure” offences, whether the Crown’s invalid election to proceed summarily outside of the limitation period voids [...]