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| John L. Hill |
Karl Hallman, now 34, pleaded not guilty in the death of his friend, Nicholas Baltzis, 25, who was found beaten and stabbed at his home in London's Westmount neighbourhood on Jan. 6, 2019. Baltzis suffered close to 20 stab wounds, with one of them piercing his heart, leading to massive bleeding. He also was stabbed in the lungs, liver, skull and eye. His nose was shattered and he had a skull fracture. Blood loss was the cause of death.
In a videotape played for the jury that was taken the day after his arrest, Hallman admitted to police that he and Baltzis were drinking and taking drugs, including Xanax, before Baltzis began acting erratically. Baltzis, Hallman said, pulled a knife and held it to his throat. The pair struggled over the knife, and Hallman said he stabbed and beat his friend in self-defence. He told the officer he didn’t know when to stop the assault for fear Baltzis would come back at him. The defence was self-defence or, alternatively, provocation.
When charging the jury, the trial judge, Justice Kelly A. Gorman, provided the jury with decision trees, including questions to answer to determine whether there was provocation sufficient to reduce the charge to manslaughter.
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The Ontario Court of Appeal reviewed the interchange in answering the jurors’ questions (R. v. Hallman, 2025 ONCA 123). The Appeal Court reiterated the principles found in some older Supreme Court decisions that spelled out that jury questions “merit a full, careful and correct response” (R. v. W. (D.), [1991] 1 S.C.R. 742 and that “it is essential that the recharge on the issue presented by the question be correct and comprehensive” (R. v. S. (W.D.), [1994] 3 S.C.R. 521). The Ontario Court of Appeal has also held that jurors’ questions must be answered fully, even if the question has been reviewed in the main charge (R. v. Shaw, 2024 ONCA 119).
The questions were important in this case as they focused on a defence put forward at trial. The jury sought instruction to clarify its confusion about the meaning of “sudden” in applying the instructions regarding provocation: did it refer to the deceased’s provoking conduct, or did it refer to the speed at which the accused reacted to the conduct? A simple repetition of what was in the original charge was insufficient and an explanation of the point may be required to clarify the jury’s understanding of the instruction (R. v. Layton, 2009 SCC 36). The jury was confused by which of Baltzis’s acts had to be “sudden” to substantiate provocation — putting the knife to Hallman’s neck or the totality of his conduct?
Confusion was created in answering the jury’s question when she directed the jurors that the “conduct” of Baltzis they were to consider was “everything that was said and/or done, not just what we referred to as the Assault with the Weapon.” Although it was not incorrect that the jury had to “consider” all of this conduct, the instruction could have been misinterpreted as indicating that Baltzis’s erratic behaviour had to be sudden.
The ratio decidendi of this appeal was summarized in one paragraph: “The trial judge’s answers did not clarify the essential point. Rather than telling the jury that what had to be ‘sudden’ was the deceased’s provocative act of holding a knife to the appellant’s throat, the trial judge told them that the suddenness requirement was not ‘confined to just that,’ and that they had to ‘take into account everything that was said, or done … including any previous exchanges that may have occurred between them.’ Although the second part of this answer was correct in one sense — the jury did have to ‘take into account everything’ as context — the jury might well have misunderstood that the defence would fail if the overall encounter between Mr. Baltzis and the appellant was not ‘sudden.’”
The jury was not adequately instructed on a key element of the accused’s defence and the trial judge failed to answer the jury’s questions.
Hallman was sentenced to life imprisonment without eligibility for parole for 10 years. That conviction and sentences were quashed and a new trial was ordered.
John L. Hill practised and taught prison law until his retirement. He holds a J.D. from Queen’s and an LL.M. in constitutional law from Osgoode Hall. He is also the author of Pine Box Parole: Terry Fitzsimmons and the Quest to End Solitary Confinement (Durvile & UpRoute Books) and The Rest of the (True Crime) Story (AOS Publishing). Contact him at johnlornehill@hotmail.com.
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