Man charged after reinvestigation and DNA testing 17 years later
The jury instructions in a recent murder case clarified that alleged acts of unlawful confinement that formed the basis for a the first-degree murder charge were separate from the alleged act of killingby strangulation, the Ontario Court of Appeal has found.
In R. v. Riches, 2022 ONCA 684, the appellant was convicted of the first-degree murder of his then-fellow inmate at Joyceville Institution in Kingston, ON. In 1994, the inmate was found dead in his cell with a cord from a headphone set and a necklace wrapped around his face. The cause of death was ligature strangulation.
Police investigated but laid no charges. In 2011, they reopened the investigation, including new DNA testing. They charged the appellant, who allegedly committed murder while committing or attempting to commit the offence of unlawful confinement of the deceased.
The appellant made the following arguments:
- The trial judge failed to expressly instruct the jury, as part of the “same transaction” requirement under s. 231(5) of the Criminal Code, that the act of unlawful confinement and the act of killing should not be one and the same act
- An express instruction on the requirement that the act of confinement be distinct from the act of killing was necessary because the cause of death was ligature strangulation
- The instruction was ambiguous and created a risk that the jury would find that the act of strangulation amounted to unlawful confinement
- The evidence supporting that the act of confinement was separate from the act of killing almost wholly depended on the evidence of an unsavoury witness, the appellant’s former friend.
Jury instructions sufficient: appellate court
The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal. The instructions on constructive first-degree murder and unlawful confinement gave the jury a functional understanding of the issues that they had to decide, the appellate court ruled. The instructions sufficiently conveyed that the jury had to find that the appellant committed an act of unlawful confinement distinct from the act of killing, the court added.
The appellate court also held that four aspects of the jury charge showed that it adequately equipped the jury with a functional understanding of the distinct act requirement.
First, the instructions addressing unlawful confinement made the jury focus on the acts allegedly constituting unlawful confinement, the appellate court found. Specifically, the appellant allegedly dragged the deceased to his cell after punching him and knocking him down, then told his former friend to shut the cell door.
Second, reading the charge as a whole supported the conclusion that the jury would have understood that the unlawful confinement element of first-degree murder required an act of confinement distinct from the act of killing, the appellate court said.
Third, the appellate court found that the way the issues were raised during the trial supported the determination that the jury would have understood that the acts allegedly constituting unlawful confinement should be distinct from the act of killing.
Lastly, the appellate court concluded that the jury instructions fairly conveyed the issues, given the extensive pre-charge conference that lasted over four days and the lack of objections at trial.
