Cases · Law · Commonwealth
Courts make mistakes, and courts correct them. MyAppeal follows wrongful conviction cases across Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and beyond: the ones that were overturned, and the ones that were not. Read what worked, what failed, and what you can do next.
Matthew Berg argued the trial judge rejected his evidence simply because he believed the complainant. The Supreme Court of Canada found no error on these facts, but used the case to say that a conviction can never rest only on accepting the complainant's account.
R. v. Berg, 2026 SCC 21
A seven judge majority held the trial judge should have kept Awale Hussein's youth findings and violent convictions from the jury. Yet the evidence on identity and intent was so strong that the Court applied the curative proviso and dismissed the appeal.
R. v. Hussein, 2026 SCC 2
A babysitter pleaded guilty to criminal negligence causing a toddler's death without being told that peer reviewers had found the pathologist's opinions unreasonable. The Court of Appeal quashed the conviction but only stayed the charge. The Supreme Court replaced the stay with an acquittal, splitting five to four on why.
R. v. Bouvette, 2025 SCC 18
The Crown refused a judge-alone trial that would have finished on time. The Supreme Court held that the old "transitional" excuse for delay no longer applied, set aside the jury's verdicts and stayed the prosecution for breach of the right to be tried within a reasonable time.
R. v. Hanan, 2023 SCC 12; [2023] 1 SCR 467
We report the losses as carefully as the wins. They show what courts actually need to see.
Headlines from courts, commissions and newsrooms as the reporters find them. Linked as published and not yet analysed by us.