Case information

None.

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.

Criminal law – Verdict – Defence – Evidence – Alibi – Charge to jury – Argument – Murder – Whether appeal court can set aside guilty verdict and order new trial despite stating that it does not have all relevant material required to make such order, without this affecting integrity of appeal process – Extent to which Crown’s cross-examination and argument can relate to choices made by accused who is late in providing alibi and who tries to explain his lack of cooperation with police investigation – Whether Court of Appeal erred in law in finding Crown’s argument and judge’s charge to jury concerning interest of defence witnesses inappropriate.

Mr. Usereau was charged with first degree murder and attempted murder. The issue at trial was the assailant’s identity. None of the witnesses who saw the assailant shoot the victims was able to identify him. Since Usereau and the victim Melkonian knew each other and had once been in competition for a management position at a security firm, the police decided to follow Usereau to obtain a DNA sample. Samples of Usereau’s DNA were taken from a glass and a straw he had abandoned and were then used to obtain a warrant from a justice authorizing the taking of other bodily substances from him, and the resulting samples were used for forensic DNA analysis. Usereau’s DNA profile was found on the hood of a jacket seized at the scene of the crime. Usereau admitted that he owned the jacket but said that it had been stolen from his locker at work. In defence, Usereau also provided an alibi, namely that, at the time of the murder, he had been spending the evening with his wife on her birthday.