Background
In the early hours of June 1, 2021, Jay Jones Slade killed, decapitated, and scalped his sister’s common law partner at his mother’s home, then attacked his mother and sister with a hatchet. He had been discharged from hospital just days earlier following treatment for cannabis-induced psychosis. After the attacks, Slade called 911 himself, reported a “domestic incident,” and waited outside for police to arrive.
At trial before the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, the defence argued that Slade suffered from a major mental illness featuring command delusions — specifically, that God had ordered him to act in order to prevent World War III — rendering him incapable of appreciating the moral wrongfulness of his actions. Three psychiatric and psychological experts testified. The defence experts, Dr. Gojer and Dr. Wright, concluded that Slade had longstanding delusional illness predating the offences and that his conduct was delusionally motivated. The Crown’s expert, Dr. Iosif, attributed his psychosis to cannabis use and suspected malingering, though she conceded that confirmed command hallucinations would negate moral appreciation.
Justice Johnston of the Superior Court accepted the evidence of Dr. Gojer and Dr. Wright, found that Slade suffered from a major mental illness at the time of the offences, and entered a verdict of not criminally responsible (NCR) by reason of mental disorder on counts of first-degree murder, indecent interference with human remains, and two counts of assault causing bodily harm. The Crown appealed on questions of law.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeal for Ontario, per Paciocco, Sossin, and Madsen JJ.A., dismissed the Crown’s appeal. On the Crown’s first ground — that the trial judge misapplied the legal test governing expert evidence by ignoring temporally connected circumstantial evidence and failing to find necessary factual foundations before accepting expert opinions — the court held that the trial judge’s lengthy reasons demonstrated extensive engagement with all three experts’ evidence, the respondent’s own testimony, and the sister’s account. The trial judge was entitled to accept opinions substantially supported by the evidence, and his comment that “one side is right and one side is wrong” was a reference to the binary nature of the NCR finding, not a misdescription of his analytical process.
On the Crown’s second ground — that the trial judge failed to address whether the respondent retained the capacity to know his actions were morally wrong by the standards of reasonable people — the court found no legal error. Applying R. v. Oommen, [1994] 2 S.C.R. 507, and R. v. Campione, 2015 ONCA 67, the court confirmed that the relevant inquiry is whether mental disorder deprived the accused of the capacity to know the particular act was wrong according to everyday standards of reasonable people. The trial judge was properly focused on that question and reached a legally sound conclusion: because Slade suffered from command delusions that caused him to believe he was saving society by preventing World War III, he was incapable of appreciating the moral wrongfulness of his actions, even though he understood his acts were legally wrong.
The court found that the trial judge had adequately resolved the factual issues germane to s. 16 of the Criminal Code and was not required to make findings on every inconsistency in the evidence. The NCR verdict was upheld in full.
Key Takeaways
- A trial judge assessing NCR under s. 16 of the Criminal Code need not resolve every evidentiary inconsistency, provided the factual findings necessary to meet the legal test are adequately addressed.
- Expert opinions on mental disorder may properly rest on an accused’s own testimony as a factual foundation, so long as the trial judge engages with the evidence as a whole, including inconsistencies and credibility concerns.
- The moral wrongfulness branch of the NCR test (drawn from R. v. Oommen) focuses on whether mental disorder deprived the accused of the capacity to know the act was wrong by the everyday standards of reasonable people — an accused who knows an act is legally wrong may still qualify as NCR if a command delusion negates moral appreciation.
- The Crown may appeal an NCR verdict only on a question of law (s. 676(1)(a) of the Criminal Code); factual and credibility findings by the trial judge are not subject to appeal.
Why It Matters
This decision reaffirms the boundaries of appellate review of NCR verdicts in Canada, underscoring that credibility assessments and the weighing of competing expert testimony are exclusively within the trial judge’s domain. Defence counsel and Crown prosecutors can take from this case that a trial judge who engages thoroughly with conflicting expert evidence — even without resolving each factual contradiction — will be upheld on appeal, provided the reasons address the two-part s. 16 test.
The case also illustrates the continuing vitality of the Oommen moral wrongfulness standard in cases involving command delusions. Where a trier of fact accepts that an accused acted under a delusional belief that the act was morally necessary or divinely commanded, an NCR finding can stand even where the accused otherwise demonstrated some purposeful, organized behaviour — such as calling 911 after the offences.