Law360 Canada ( March 14, 2018, 8:40 AM EDT) -- Appeal by the Crown from the sentence imposed on the accused for sexual offences involving the accused’s former students; appeal by the accused from conviction of the offences. The appellant suffered from Bipolar Mood Disorder. Forensic psychiatrists had opined that the appellant’s condition rendered the appellant not criminally responsible for the offences she committed while ill. The Crown’s forensic psychiatrist said it did not. The trial judge preferred the Crown’s psychiatrist’s opinion and convicted the appellant. The judge struck down as unconstitutional the mandatory minimum penalties that mandated incarceration and imposed a 15-month conditional sentence, two years’ probation and various ancillary orders. On appeal, the Crown argued the trial judge wrongly found the mandatory minimum punishments were unconstitutional and that the conditional sentence imposed was legally unavailable, or otherwise inadequate. The appellant advanced four grounds on her conviction appeal, namely, that the trial judge’s reasons reflected reversible error by requiring the appellant to testify, misapprehending or ignoring the expert and lay evidence the appellant called, and in his treatment of the expert evidence....