Due to a lack of judges, the sexual and physical assault charges were dropped

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A shortage of judges in Toronto ultimately led to a man’s sexual and physical assault charges being dropped following a ruling by an Ontario Superior Court judge last month.

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Emron Constantine was charged in October 2019 with four counts of assault, two counts of sexual assault and one count of making threats against his former partner.

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She accused him of physical assaults in 2011, 2014 and 2015 and sexual assaults between February and March 2019.

Constantine’s trial was scheduled to begin Monday in Toronto and conclude by Friday.

However, the case was stayed by Judge Catherine Rhinelander in April, more than four and a half years after the charges were filed, after finding that his constitutional right to a due process had been violated.

“This matter would have been resolved within the … time limits had a judge been available,” Rhinelander wrote in a decision released May 6.

The trial date was initially set for June 2021, but Constantine suffered an ankle injury that required surgery.

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Because his mobility was restricted for weeks after the trial, a new trial date was set for June 2022.

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Some “misunderstandings or problems” on the part of the Crown led to a further delay and a new trial date set for September 25, 2023.

When that day came, Constantine showed up in court only to be told there was no judge available.

“The parties were willing to proceed, but no judge was available to hear the trial,” Rhinelander wrote. “The parties were instructed to reconvene at 9:30 a.m. the next morning.”

Constantine returned to court the next day but was told, “We don’t have a judge for you.”

“It was determined that the matter would not be finalized because there was no judge available to begin the trial and only four court days were available the following week,” Rhinelander wrote.

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Both parties agreed on a new end date for the trial, May 17th.

While delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic — which forced the closure of Ontario’s courts for 210 days and created a backlog of cases — and other “exceptional circumstances” were deducted from the total time of 1,689 days, Rhinelander ruled that 1,079 days waiting for the trial The expected 30-month limit of 913 days in total has been far exceeded.

The Crown had argued the net delay should have been 602 days, well below the cap of more than 900.

“I do not accept the Crown’s contention that ‘the unavailability of the court for a proceeding of this seriousness is exceptional and directly related to the pandemic backlog,'” the judge wrote. “This argument is undermined in terms of the gravity of the case given the intention to proceed summarily.”

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