Law360 Canada ( August 4, 2021, 5:05 AM EDT) -- Appeal by the accused from conviction for first degree murder. The appellant admitted feeding her infant daughter a lethal quantity of sleeping pills. The appellant also took a potentially fatal dose of sleeping pills in a failed suicide attempt. The offence occurred in the context of an acrimonious marital breakdown. The theory of the Crown was that the appellant killed the child to prevent the father and his family from having custody of and access to her. The defence claimed the appellant committed the act while in a profoundly disordered mental state. The psychiatrists testified the appellant was suffering from a mental disorder that significantly compromised her mental state and impaired her ability to think in a rational way at the time. The jury found the appellant criminally responsible. The appellant alleged a miscarriage of justice resulted because trial counsel provided ineffective legal assistance and the in-court conduct of one juror, who, on more than one occasion, gestured to spectators sitting in the gallery in proximity to the father of the deceased infant and his family, gave rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias on the part of the juror....