CHARGES STAYED DUE TO 35 HOUR DETENTION

A reminder from the Supreme Court of Canada regarding release: R. v. Reilly, 2020 SCC 27. The lower cases have all the details: R. v. Reilly, 2019 ABCA 212 and R. v. Reilly, 2018 ABPC 85, where the trial judge wrote:

Section 503(1) sets out the 24-hour limit that a person may be kept in custody but in my view, this should not be seen as the focus.  In other words, the state should not be satisfied that an individual is released from custody with the 24-hour time period.  This objective should be to have persons released as quickly as possible.

CONVICTION OVERTURNED IN IDENTITY CASE

Mr. Stewart was convicted of dangerous driving, impaired driving, and driving while his blood alcohol content exceeded the legal limit, causing the death of two people and causing bodily harm to a third person. The identity of the driver was the sole issue at trial. Mr. Stewart did not deny that he was impaired or that he initially drove the Mercedes. However he testified that he was not the driver at the time of the single vehicle rollover because he had switched seats with a passenger. The trial judge rejected that evidence and concluded he was the driver, on the basis of circumstantial evidence. A new trial was ordered because the Court of Appeal held that there were fundamental flaws in the reasoning; that is, that the trial judge made findings of fact which were incompatible with evidence that she neither contradicted nor rejected. R. v. Stewart, 2020 SKCA 116

SENTENCE CASES

A reminder that conditional sentences are not available for driving cases where bodily harm or death was caused: R. v. Tuglavina, 2020 NLCA 30

A 7 year jail sentence, with a 15 year driving prohibition, was upheld in R. v. Virani, 2020 ABCA 342

ENTRAPMENT ARGUMENT REJECTED

Ms. Larlham asserted that a conservation officer’s statement about appearing “fine to drive” set her up to commit an offence, that being a .08.  The trial judge rejected that argument:

The conservation officer’s comment was made briefly without any specific direction and, in my view, there is no reasonable link or proximity between the statement and the accused’s criminal conduct. The accused put the events into motion when she drove her truck to the lake and decided to consume alcohol without planning for a safe and sober ride home. To take the conservation officer’s statement as a presentation of an opportunity to commit a criminal offence one hour after the statement was made is to stretch the words beyond any reasonable interpretation of them. R v Larlham, 2020 SKPC 27

MANDATORY ALCOHOL SCREENING CASE CONVICTION UPHELD

A conviction that resulted from the use of the Mandatory Alcohol Screening provision has been upheld in the case of R. v. Labillois, 2020 ABQB 200:

Drinking and driving is a serious crime that is prevalent throughout society. Parliament has recognized this through countless amendments to the Criminal Code, the most recent of which included Criminal Code s. 320.27(2). The evidence of the breath sample is highly probative in the case at bar.