Case information

Charter of Rights and Freedoms — Right to be tried within a reasonable time — Co-accused being tried jointly — Delay for accused, including period of delay caused only by unavailability of co-accused’s counsel for available court dates, exceeding presumptive Jordan ceiling — Where it is in the interests of justice to pursue a joint prosecution, how is the Jordan framework to be applied as to each accused — What is the scope and proper application of the contextual approach to delay set out in R. v. Hanan, 2023 SCC 12?

Case summaries are prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch). Please note that summaries are not provided to the Judges of the Court. They are placed on the Court file and website for information purposes only.

Mr. Jacques-Taylor and a co-accused were jointly charged with firearms offences. On July 6, 2022, each co-accused’s defence counsel, Crown counsel, and a trial coordinator appeared in court to set a trial date. Mr. Jacques-Taylor’s counsel was available for the first available court date of August 8, 2022 or for any date in August but was not available in September. Crown counsel was available for the first available court date of August 8, 2022. Counsel for Mr. Jacques-Taylor’s co-accused was not available for any date in August. Counsel agreed on trial dates from October 2 to 4, 2022. Time from laying of charges to the anticipated start of trial was 22 months and 2 weeks. Mr. Jacques-Taylor filed a motion to stay the proceedings against him for unreasonable delay in breach of his right to be tried within a reasonable time guaranteed by s. 11 (b) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The motions judge, after attributing delay, calculated net delay to be 2 weeks over the 18-month presumptive ceiling. The motions judge declined to attribute 25 days of the delay following the appearance to schedule trial dates that were caused only by the unavailability of counsel for the co-accused as defence delay. Had those 25 days been attributed to the defence, the net delay would have been below the presumptive ceiling. The motions judge granted a stay of proceedings. The Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal.