Crown Meaghan Cunningham and Justice Maria Carroccia are shown in this courtroom sketch in London, Ont.Alexandra Newbould/The Canadian Press
Two years ago, before Justice Maria Carroccia presided at the Hockey Canada trial, she was behind the bench for a long and complicated murder case in her hometown of Windsor, Ont.
Three men were accused of killing a young woman in a dispute over drugs and money. The trial stretched out more than four months under the spotlight of local attention.
Justice Carroccia had worked for decades as a leading criminal-defence lawyer in Windsor, where long-time colleagues say no one was involved in more trials. She was appointed to the bench in 2020.
The murder trial saw twists. The defence accused the Crown’s main witness of being the actual killer. At the end, to a packed courtroom, a jury found the three accused guilty.
In her five years as a judge, Justice Carroccia has overseen high-profile and complex cases, from the Windsor murder trial to sexual assaults. But none of it has generated the national attention and scrutiny as her pending verdict – set for July 24 – in the Hockey Canada trial.
Alex Formenton arrives at the courthouse in London, Ont. on May 2 for the sexual assault trial against him and four other former members of Canada’s world junior hockey team.Geoff Robins/The Canadian Press
Five men, former world junior players who all went on to the National Hockey League, have each been charged with sexual assault in connection with an alleged attack on a woman at a hotel in London, Ont., after a Hockey Canada gala in 2018. All five – Michael McLeod, Carter Hart, Alex Formenton, Dillon Dubé and Cal Foote – have pleaded not guilty.
“She’s good with the law,” said lawyer Christopher Hicks of Justice Carroccia’s legal grounding.
Mr. Hicks, a top Toronto criminal-defence lawyer who has represented clients at the Supreme Court of Canada in more than a dozen cases, was counsel for one of the accused in Windsor. Big trials on serious allegations demand a judge’s savvy with voluminous and ever-evolving case law.
“She’s very steady, very calm,” said Mr. Hicks. “She would listen to you. I want to be able to discuss the law with the judge.”
Justice Carroccia’s work during the Hockey Canada trial, which started in late April in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice and concluded in mid-June, focused on the difficult nuances of sexual-assault law.
The case, however, more broadly sits at a centre of public attention: a country’s long obsession with hockey, a continuing societal reckoning around sexual violence, and what is − and isn’t − consent.
Thursday’s verdict was supposed to come from a jury but Justice Carroccia declared a mistrial soon after the trial began. The case then almost imploded in a second mistrial in mid-May, as another jury was dismissed, and instead got to the finish line with Justice Carroccia going it alone behind the bench without a jury.
These are among the torrent of crucial decisions she has made. On the always-present crux in sexual-assault cases of admissibility of evidence, she twice ruled against the Crown on allowing a text message into the official record that could have bolstered the case against the accused men.
And now, instead of guilty or not-guilty verdicts from jurors, Justice Carroccia’s decision will land alongside detailed legal reasoning.
Many people, in the legal profession and across Canada, will judge her every word.
Justice Carroccia is ready for the moment. She believes the work of a Superior Court judge needs to be rendered in human terms. “A judge’s decision ought to make sense to an ordinary person, not just to lawyers, scholars and other judges,” she wrote in her application to join the court.
Her verdict on Thursday will be a culmination of a career steeped in criminal law.
Hockey Canada trial judge faces tough call on the invisible question of consent
Justice Carroccia is the daughter of Italian immigrants, the oldest of four children. Her father, Angelo, came to Canada in 1954 in his mid-20s and settled in Windsor. He was a construction crane operator. Her mother, Assunta, was a homemaker.
Her parents, who didn’t finished grade school, encouraged her education and she graduated in 1987 from the University of Windsor law school. She worked with Windsor lawyer Michael Gordner and struck out on her own in 2001.
“You have to have compassion for people,” said Mr. Gordner of Justice Carroccia’s success as a defence lawyer. “You have to be intelligent, to really understand criminal law, the philosophical basis of the law. That’s an academic side. She understands the law.”
Her work covered everything from drug dealing and murder to police accused of wrongdoing. She also twice served as president of the local branch of the Criminal Lawyers’ Association, speaking out on issues such as overcrowding in Ontario jails.
“Her commitment was profound, her willingness to help others,” said Windsor lawyer Frank Retar, who has known her for years.
When she was appointed to the Ontario Superior Court, a brief biography noted that Justice Carroccia was married and the mother of two daughters. “I view myself as a trial lawyer who ‘works in the trenches,’” she wrote in her judicial application.
The Hockey Canada trial shows how we need to be talking to young men
People who know her say Justice Carroccia has an easy smile and a hearty laugh, and likes to drive big black SUVs. In court, she is said to speak clearly and concisely. She has a reputation for patience, and presiding over cases with authority and empathy. She has also taken a tough-on-crime approach at times, such as cases involving the drug fentanyl, after decades seeking leniency as defence counsel.
An Ontario Superior Court spokesman declined to answer questions of why Justice Carroccia was chosen for the Hockey Canada trial, citing judicial independence. Judicial experts say experience and expertise are key when assigning a judge to a trial and the expected avalanche of public interest would have been a factor, a judge’s ability to navigate the legal shoals amid all the attention.
Questions about Justice Carroccia’s record as a judge, the number of jury trials or sexual-assault cases she has worked, were declared inappropriate to answer by the court spokesman. But in a Globe and Mail analysis of legal databases, incomplete but covering dozens of cases, Justice Carroccia has a range of experience in her half-decade on the bench, as she did as a lawyer.
Some of her judicial work is clear in two sexual-assault cases she handled that were reconsidered at the Ontario Court of Appeal.
One case was a 2021 conviction levied by Justice Carroccia in a domestic sexual assault that involved forced sex and choking. The person, sentenced to four years, on appeal argued that Justice Carroccia at trial mishandled the complainant’s evidence and made errors in accepting the complainant’s credibility. The Court of Appeal in 2024 dismissed the appeal.
In a second case, sexual interference with a 10-year-old girl, a man was sentenced to 4½ years. In her reasons for judgment in mid-2021, Justice Carroccia said: “As with most cases of this nature, the issue is credibility.”
Later, according to court documents, she noted Supreme Court of Canada guidance and said of the accused: “I do not believe his evidence, nor does it leave me with any reasonable doubt.”
On appeal, the man argued that Justice Carroccia misapprehended some evidence and erred in using other evidence. But the appeal court, in part of its 2023 ruling, said: “The trial judge did not err in her assessment of the evidence.” The appeal was dismissed.
Such reassessments of a trial judge’s work in sexual-assault cases are common at appeal courts. It is tough legal terrain. There are challenges of managing a trial and many issues on which there can be missteps, alongside the changing landscape of the law.
The Supreme Court, just last month, issued a unanimous ruling written by Chief Justice Richard Wagner that quashed a sexual-assault conviction and ordered a new trial. At issue was how the trial judge handled the admissibility of evidence of social-media messages.
“Trial management is really difficult,” said professor Janine Benedet, an expert in sexual-assault law at the University of British Columbia’s law school.
The Supreme Court, in a 2019 judgment, emphasized the important role of a trial judge in such cases as a gatekeeper. Challenges include defence cross-examinations. A trial judge, on the fly, has to make sure the defence doesn’t push beyond what’s allowed but also can’t unduly curtail questioning.
In the Hockey Canada case, when a second mistrial loomed, Justice Carroccia made the assertive push to carry on alone. The Crown was reluctant, having presented its case for a jury, but both sides ended up agreeing, in part because the complainant had gone through nine hard days of testimony.
Mr. Hicks, the Toronto defence lawyer who was part of the 2023 murder case in Windsor, said the fact that the trial didn’t fall apart reflects well on Justice Carroccia. “They all got on board because of her,” he said.
One person who has closely watched Justice Carroccia at work, from the vantage of grief, is Brenda Gingras. She is the mother of Madisen Gingras, the 20-year-old murdered in 2020 in Windsor and whose killers were convicted in Justice Carroccia’s court by a jury in 2023.
Brenda Gingras sat in court every single day of the months-long trial.
“I felt like she really listened to everyone,” said Ms. Gingras of Justice Carroccia. “I always wanted to meet her and thank her. Even though she was doing her job, I was grateful for her. I have the utmost respect for her.”