Canada's Court: Oral Arguments from the SCC

• Episode 1: R. v. Bilodeau

  Mr. Bilodeau was convicted by a jury as a party to manslaughter per s. 21(2) of the Criminal Code of Canada, after he directed his eldest son to bring a firearm to the scene. The eldest son followed his father’s directions, and upon his arrival, fatally shot the two victims. Mr. Bilodeau had chased the two victims in his truck, after he saw the two men, who were also in a truck, stop in front of his home. Mr. Bilodeau believed them to be thieves. At the end of the chase, the two trucks came to a stop near a T-intersection, where one of the two victims broke one of Mr. Bilodeau’s truck windows and began punching Mr. Bilodeau. The shooter, Mr. Bilodeau’s eldest son, arrived on scene and shot both victims, fatally. The eldest son was convicted of second-degree murder and manslaughter. Mr. Bilodeau appealed his conviction, citing errors in the jury’s instructions on the issue of whether or not Mr. Bilodeau formed a common intention with his son to commit an unlawful act. An unlawful act, which, in order to convict, must be one that the accused knew, or ought to have known was a probable consequence of the common intention. In other words, the path to conviction for Mr. Bilodeau rested on whether or not he knew, or ought to have known, that either of the victims could have been killed by instructing his son to bring a firearm to the scene of the altercation. A majority of the Alberta Court of Appeal found that while there were errors in the jury instructions, many of them actually benefited Mr. Bilodeau. A dissenting judge would have allowed the appeal, and would have ordered a new trial.

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• Episode 7: R. v. Chicoine-Joubert (French)

  Au terme d’un procès devant jury présidé par le juge Blanchard de la Cour supérieure, l’appelant, Maxime Chicoine-Joubert, a été déclaré coupable d’un chef de meurtre au deuxième degré et d’un chef de voies de fait armées. En appel, M. Chicoine-Joubert soutenait que le juge avait erré dans ses directives relatives à l’homicide involontaire coupable et dans sa réponse aux questions du jury, en omettant de mentionner la mens rea nécessaire.La Cour d’appel du Québec, pour les motifs du juge Vauclair, auxquels a souscrit le juge Hamilton, a rejeté l’appel de M. Chicoine-Joubert. Elle a conclu que les directives au jury étaient correctes dans le contexte de l’affaire. Comme M. Chicoine-Joubert concédait sa culpabilité au verdict d’homicide involontaire, la question du jury sur cette infraction n’exigeait pas que le juge l’aborde. Le juge Bachand, dissident, aurait accueilli l’appel et ordonné la tenue d’un nouveau procès aux motifs que le juge du procès n’avait pas répondu adéquatement aux questions du jury et qu’il existait une possibilité raisonnable que les jurés se soient mépris sur la mens rea requise en matière de meurtre au deuxième degré. Le juge dissident est en accord avec la majorité pour conclure que les directives initiales n’étaient entachées d’aucune erreur justifiant l’intervention de la cour, mais il a conclu que le juge du procès ne s’était pas acquitté de son obligation de répondre de manière claire, correcte et complète aux questions des jurés. Jamais il n’a instruit les jurés sur l’homicide involontaire coupable et ne leur a donné aucun exemple.

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• Episode 6: R. v. Stuart Michael George Sabiston

  During a search incident to arrest, Mr. Sabiston told police that he had a firearm in his backpack. The officers subsequently seized a loaded prohibited firearm. The Crown ultimately stayed the charges from Mr. Sabiston’s initial arrest and proceeded to trial on the firearms offences only.The trial judge concluded that the arrest and subsequent search were unlawful, resulting in ss. 8 and 9 Charter violations. However, on the s. 24(2) analysis, she found that the officers would have had a legal basis to detain Mr. Sabiston for investigative purposes, and that the firearm would have been discoverable during a search incident to such detention. The discoverability of the firearm mitigated the seriousness of the breaches. The firearm was admitted into evidence and Mr. Sabiston was convicted.A majority of the Court of Appeal for Saskatchewan held that the trial judge erred in concluding that there was a reasonable suspicion that would justify an investigative detention, which is a question of law reviewable on a standard of correctness. This error undermined the trial judge’s s. 24(2) analysis. Upon a fresh s. 24(2) analysis, the majority excluded the firearm from evidence and substituted an acquittal. In dissent, Tholl J.A. would have dismissed the appeal. He held that there was no error in the trial judge’s conclusions with respect to a reasonable suspicion for investigative detention.The Crown appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada as of right.

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• Episode 5: R. c. Varennes (French)

  En 2015, l’appelant est accusé du meurtre au deuxième degré de sa conjointe. Avant son procès, une juge de la Cour supérieure du Québec accueille sa requête pour que son procès se déroule devant juge seul, suivant le par. 473(1) du Code criminel, en dépit de l’absence de consentement de l’intimé poursuivant. La juge est d’avis que la décision du poursuivant de consentir à un procès devant juge seul n’est pas au cœur de son pouvoir discrétionnaire, mais qu’il s’agit plutôt d’une décision stratégique, soumise au pouvoir de la cour de contrôler sa procédure. En tenant compte des particularités du cas d’espèce, la juge est d’avis que l’accusé s’est déchargé de son fardeau de démontrer que la décision du poursuivant est déraisonnable ou inéquitable dans les circonstances. Au terme d’un procès sans jury, l’accusé est acquitté de meurtre au deuxième degré, mais déclaré coupable d’homicide involontaire coupable.La Cour d’appel accueille l’appel de l’intimé poursuivant et ordonne la tenue d’un nouveau procès sur l’accusation de meurtre au deuxième degré devant un jury. La cour est d’avis que la juge de première instance a erré en appliquant la norme de la décision déraisonnable afin de réviser le refus de consentement du poursuivant alors que l’accusé avait à prouver que ce refus constituait un abus de procédure. La cour conclut que l’accusé échoue à faire cette démonstration et que le jugement contesté est donc vicié par une erreur de droit qui a eu pour effet d’accorder au tribunal une compétence qu’il n’avait pas. Le procès de l’accusé est donc nul.

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• Episode 4: R. v. Stevenson

  Years after a restaurant was robbed by two masked assailants, an unsavoury witness, or rather, a witness that required a Vetrovec caution at trial, came forward to police and identified the appellant as one of the masked robbers. Until then, the case had remained unsolved for years. The trial judge convicted the appellant, relying almost solely on the identification of the appellant by the unsavoury witness. Because the robbery was captured on video surveillance, the trial judge reasoned that there were points of corroboration between the video and the witness testimony, even though both assailants were completely masked. The Court of Appeal agreed with the trial judge, and found that because the trial judge dutifully reasoned why the Vetrovec concerns did not outweigh the weight of the identification evidence, the conviction was sound. The dissenting judge disagreed however, and opined that appellant intervention was required due to the error in law committed by the trial judge when considering the inherent dangers in the unsavoury witnesses’ evidence. The dissenting judge would have ordered a new trial.

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