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.

(Publication ban in case)

Criminal law - Trial - Charge to jury - Parties to offence - Law of co-principal - Aiding and abetting - Whether the trial judge instructed the jury on co-principal liability in his main charge - If so, whether the co-principal instruction was adequate and given with proper notice to counsel - Whether the trial judge erred procedurally when he answered the jury’s question without having a clear understanding of the nature of the problem that was troubling the jury and without asking them to clarify the question - Whether the trial judge erred in his response to the jury question and in his subsequent amendment of the “actual shooter” instruction. Whether the curative proviso in s. 686(1)(b)(iii) of the Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-46, should be applied.

Pickton was convicted of six counts of second degree murder. It is alleged that he murdered each of the six victims at his farm property in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, after taking them from the downtown eastside area of Vancouver where each of them was a sex-trade worker. Pickton appealed his conviction and sought a new trial. The majority of the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal. Donald J.A., dissenting, would have allowed the appeal and ordered a new trial. In his view, the failure of the trial judge to instruct the jury on aiding and abetting and how they might apply in this case was an error of law amounting to a miscarriage of justice to which the curative provision could not be applied.