Grounds for Appeal

I filed an appeal on my trespassing conviction this morning. Here are the official grounds for appeal which I submitted to the court as part of my application. (Yes, I know, I spelled Appellant wrong. Get over it.)

GROUNDS FOR APPEAL

1.         The trial judge erred when she failed to find that the University of Winnipeg had acted arbitrarily or maliciously in banning the Appelant from its property: in particular,

a)    when she found the University was justified in basing its decision on the perceptions of others as to the nature of the Appelant’s conduct, rather than its own findings as to the Appelant’s actual conduct;

b)    when she failed to take into account that the University had based its decision on false and inaccurate reports of the Appelants behavior; and,

c)    when she failed to take into account that the University had denied the Appelant a fair opportunity to challenge and refute the false accusations made against him that led to their no-trespassing order.

2.         At the trial, the trial judge improperly discouraged  the Appelant from examining and cross-examining witnesses on events that took place in 2011 and 2012 when he was a student at the university, and instead urged him to concentrate on the immediate events of 2013 associated with the no-trespassing order; and then subsequently, in her decision, relied heavily on those earlier events to justify the no-trespassing order.

3.         The trial judge erred when she refused to allow the Appelant to call as a witness the person whose hearsay testimony accused him of violent and outrageous behavior; and she misled the Appelant when she told him she would not draw adverse inference against him from those hearsay accusations, but then proceded to conclude that the witness would have been in danger if she ordered the witness’s name disclosed to the Appelant.

4.         The trial judge mis-apprehended the evidence when she found that the Appelant was not a student at the University when he was first banned from the property; drew conclusions that were not supported by the evidence when she found that neither of the no-trespassing orders had  a serious negative impact on the Appelant’s life; and erred when, on the basis of those errors, she concluded  that the “due process” rights accorded the Appelant were sufficient in the circumstances.

5.         The trial judge drew conclusions not supported by the evidence when she found that the University had given the Appelant adequate opportunity to dispute the truth of the allegations against him, and erred when she found on that basis that the University had afforded him adequate due process. 

6.         The trial judge erred when she over-ruled the objection of the appelant to the Crown questioning him on his opinions as to why his professors disliked him.

7.         In finding that the University’s concern for the safety of staff and students was reasonable, the Trial Judge erred when she relied in part on incidents when the Appelant spoke out of turn in class and wrote essays in which he exercised his Charter rights by disagreeing with the opinions of his professors.