The court found that the jury instructions 'did not properly equip the jury to decide' the case
The Ontario Court of Appeal has ordered a new trial for a man convicted of second-degree murder and assault, ruling that a trial judge provided flawed jury instructions that hampered jury members’ ability to determine whether the man had acted in self-defence.
The OCA added that the trial judge exacerbated the issue by failing to adequately answer the jury’s questions about how to define “force.”
“It is well settled that jury instructions are not to be held to a chimeric standard of perfection. Appellate courts are to take a functional approach, viewing the instructions as a whole, informed by the conduct of the trial,” the OCA said in its decision released Thursday. “The question is not whether the instructions are of textbook quality, but whether they properly equipped the jury to decide the case.”
The court concluded, “The above instructions did not properly equip the jury to decide this case.”
Tyler Sels stabbed three people in 2018 at a memorial event that took place in a duplex. Sels told the court that he had attended the event to “babysit” his friend’s mother, Theresa Grasley, who had been heavily drinking and had snorted “speed pills.”
After behaving erratically, Grasley was asked to leave the event, which was taking place next door to her apartment. Grasley left but continued antagonizing the group from her unit, blocking their path, grabbing hats off guests’ heads, and lunging at people.
At one point, Sels, who had returned to Grasley’s apartment, heard Grasley scream his name. He ran toward her front door and saw multiple people physically attacking Grasley, who was frail and had mobility issues. Sels said he saw two women punching Grasley in the head and shoulders, and a man with his hands on her.
Sels pulled Grasley back into her unit, prompting the three attackers and four others to approach and yell at him. He grabbed a knife and told the group to back up, testifying that he was frightened that the group would attack him next.
Two of the people punched Sels in the head, and the group began trying to push into Grasley’s apartment. Sels began swinging his knife, injuring two members of the group and stabbing one of the men multiple times in the abdomen. The man died.
Sels was charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault, and assault with a weapon. At trial, he testified that he had acted to defend himself and Grasley. However, he was convicted on all three charges.
Sels appealed his convictions with the OCA, arguing the trial judge failed to properly instruct the jury on the self-defence argument.
The OCA agreed. The appellate panel said that the trial judge’s instructions “invited the jury to artificially segment the appellant’s conduct into three separate responses to three separate instances of force or threats of force.” While those instructions were appropriate, the OCA said, the trial judge should have also instructed the jury to “consider the cumulative impact of the events as a whole.”
The appellate panel noted that Sels had been assaulted when he tried to intervene in the altercation involving Grasley, and that he perceived the people trying to get into the apartment as an “angry mob” whom he had to protect himself and Grasley from.
“The reasonableness of the appellant’s response did not hinge on a single moment in time, or the conduct of a single victim. The appellant testified that he was reacting to the global threat arising from the amalgam of events that evening – the earlier hostility toward Grasley, the assault on her, the assault on him, and his perception that an ‘angry mob’ was moving toward him threateningly,” the panel said. It added that “there is no evidence to suggest that the appellant consciously targeted the people he stabbed.”
The Crown argued that the trial judge provided the jury a detailed summary of all the witnesses’ evidence, including Sels’, but the OCA said this was not enough to fix the judge’s “fragmentation error.”
“It is one thing to summarize evidence for a jury; it is another to relate the evidence to the legal issues that they must determine,” the OCA said.
“Unfortunately, and with respect, it was not accomplished here,” the OCA said, adding, “The risk is that the jury may have thought that they were to assess the self-defence argument as though the appellant was, in each instance, facing a single assailant.”
The appellate court also took issue with how the trial judge addressed the jury’s questions on whether a group of people can be considered a “force,” or whether a group needs to “show some form of action to be considered force.” The trial judge’s answers to those questions were respectively no and yes.
The OCA found that although the judge’s answers were not “technically incorrect,” they were “likely nonresponsive.” Conceptually, a group of people is not force. But depending on its object, the behaviour of a group may constitute force or a threat of force.
“The problem is that the trial judge’s response to the question obscured the group element from the legal analysis, and risked leaving in shadow the significance of the threat of force that can be manifest by a group’s presence and subtle cooperation with main actors,” the OCA said.
“The question was not whether the group as a whole used force against Grasley. The question was whether it was reasonable for the appellant to apprehend a threat of force from the presence of the group in the circumstances at issue.”
Because the jury “was not given the tools necessary to properly evaluate the appellant’s claim of self-defence,” the OCA quashed Sels’ convictions, allowed his appeal, and ordered a new trial.
Andrew Furgiuele, a lawyer at Furgiuele Law who represents the accused, told Law Times on Friday, “This is a strong decision regarding the importance of a broad and holistic approach to considering the actions and threats that can trigger self-defence."
He added that the decision clarifies “how a group dynamic – when an individual is confronted, and threatened, by a large group of people – must be taken into account at each stage of the self-defence analysis.”
An Ontario attorney general’s office spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
