Case information

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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.

The facts, as recited by the Court of Appeal, are as follows. In July 1996, Connie Grandinetti hired a lawyer to enforce payment of child support from Jeff Grandinetti. On January 15, 1997, her lawyer applied to the court for arrears of $12,000 plus ongoing child support. The parties were unable to reach a settlement.

At the end of February 1997, Jeff Grandinetti borrowed $10,000 from a friend. There was no paper trail linking Jeff Grandinetti to the money. The Appellant’s ex-girlfriend testified that in March 1997 the Appellant told her that Jeff Grandinetti wanted Connie killed. The Appellant told his ex-girlfriend that Jeff had obtained the money and he, the Appellant, was going to kill Connie with an overdose of heroin.

The Appellant took the bus from Edmonton to Calgary on April 4, 1997. He had two vials of pure heroin with him. The friend who dropped him off at the bus depot testified he saw the barrel of a gun in the Appellant’s duffle bag. The child support action between Jeff and Connie was scheduled to proceed on this date but was adjourned to April 18, 1997.

On the evening of April 9, 1997, the Appellant was still in Calgary. He borrowed his grandfather’s truck and picked up Connie in front of her apartment building at approximately 8:00 p.m. This was the last time Connie’s sons saw her alive. The body of Connie Grandinetti was found in a ditch outside Fort Saskatchewan on April 10, 1997 after being spotted by passing motorists. She had been shot twice in the back of the head at close range.

Police had some circumstantial evidence linking the Appellant to Connie Grandinetti’s death and he became the principal suspect. In July 1997, the R.C.M.P. commenced an undercover operation in order to obtain additional evidence. A number of police officers posed as members of a criminal organization in an attempt to win the Appellant’s confidence. The undercover officers obtained the Appellant’s trust and engaged him in various criminal activities. To satisfy the officers that he was not going to be arrested for Connie Grandinetti’s murder, the Appellant confessed that he was involved and provided the officers with the details of the murder and took them to the location where she was killed.

The Appellant was arrested and convicted of first degree murder after a jury trial. He appealed his conviction on a number of grounds, in particular voir dire rulings in which the trial judge concluded that the defence had failed to meet legal or evidentiary burdens. These rulings ultimately resulted in certain evidence, including confessions and inculpatory statements, being excluded or included, and concerned alleged abuse of process and violations of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. A majority of the Court of Appeal dismissed the Appellant’s appeal.