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A verdict at the Newmarket courthouse is not always the last word, but the right to challenge it starts dying the day the sentence lands. Ontario's two criminal appeal routes both run on a 30 day clock that starts at sentencing, and the work that decides most appeals happens inside that window. This page walks through the first 30 days after a conviction on a Markham or York Region file: which court owns your appeal, what the real grounds are, whether you can be out of custody while it runs, and what has to happen this week.

By Fadi Matthew Kazandji, Founding Partner, Kazandji Law. Updated July 2026.

Day zero: when is a Newmarket case actually over?

Most people leave the Newmarket courthouse after a guilty verdict believing the case ended that day. Legally, it did not. A criminal case in Ontario has two distinct endings: the finding of guilt, and the sentence. For appeal purposes the second one is the date that matters. On both of Ontario's criminal appeal routes, the notice of appeal must be filed within 30 days after the day the sentence is imposed. Not the verdict. The sentence.

That distinction does real work in York Region cases. Sentencing at 50 Eagle St. W. is often adjourned for weeks after a finding of guilt, sometimes longer, while a pre-sentence report is prepared or counsel gather material. Clients tend to treat that gap as dead time. It is the opposite. It is the one stretch of the case where you can get an appellate opinion before any deadline has started running at all.

Used properly, the weeks between verdict and sentence are when the groundwork happens. We order the transcripts an appeal will eventually need, because transcript production is usually the slowest part of the whole exercise. We read what the trial judge actually said, since a ground of appeal has to be located in the record, not in a feeling that the result was wrong. And the sentencing hearing itself can be shaped with an appeal in mind, because positions taken at sentencing sometimes matter later, especially where immigration consequences are in play.

None of this commits you to appealing. A verdict can be reviewed and left alone; that happens often, and it should. But the reverse order, waiting until week four after sentencing to ask whether an appeal exists, forces everything through an extension application that never needed to happen. If you or a family member has just been found guilty at Newmarket, the useful time is now, before the sentencing date, not after it.

The first decision: which court owns your appeal

Ontario runs two separate criminal appeal systems, and a Markham file lands in one or the other based on a choice the Crown made months earlier: whether to prosecute summarily or by indictment. Nothing about your appeal, not the courthouse, not the rules, not the paperwork, gets decided until that question is answered from the court record itself.

If you were prosecuted summarily, s. 813 of the Criminal Code gives you an appeal to the Superior Court of Justice, and s. 812 fixes which one: the court sitting in the region where the case was decided. For a trial at Newmarket, that means a Superior Court judge in the same 50 Eagle St. W. complex, because Newmarket houses both the Ontario Court of Justice and the Superior Court. Your appeal moves upstairs, not out of town.

If you were prosecuted by indictment, s. 675 sends the appeal to the Court of Appeal for Ontario. That court sits in one place for the whole province: Osgoode Hall, 130 Queen St. W. in downtown Toronto (416-327-5020). Every indictable appeal in Ontario is argued there, whether the trial ran in Newmarket, Toronto or Thunder Bay.

The indictable route has internal gates worth understanding early. Under s. 675(1) you can appeal a conviction as of right on a pure question of law. Grounds involving questions of fact, or mixed fact and law, need leave of the court or a certificate from the trial judge, and any other sufficient ground also needs leave. A sentence appeal needs leave unless the sentence is one fixed by law. If a single judge refuses leave, s. 675(4) gives you seven days to file written notice asking a panel to decide the leave question afresh. Part of building an appeal well is framing your strongest complaints as questions of law.

Hybrid offences, which cover most charges we see out of York Region, follow the election: prosecuted summarily they appeal to the Superior Court, prosecuted by indictment they go to Osgoode Hall. One offence, two possible appeal worlds. We confirm the route from the information or indictment before anything else gets decided.

The 30 day rule, and the safety valve when you miss it

Both rule sets run the same clock. In the Court of Appeal, rule 8(3) of the Criminal Appeal Rules requires a convicted person appealing conviction or sentence to file the notice of appeal within 30 days after the day the sentence is imposed. In the Superior Court, rule 40.05 of the Criminal Proceedings Rules says the same for summary matters: serve and file within 30 days after the day the sentence was imposed. The symmetry is deliberate, and it means one piece of deadline math covers every Newmarket file: find the sentencing date, add 30 days.

If you are in custody, the rules meet you where you are. An inmate can start an appeal by delivering the notice to the senior official of the institution, and it counts as filed that day. Families should still call counsel immediately, because everything else, transcripts, release applications, grounds review, has to be built outside the walls.

Missing the deadline is serious, not fatal. Section 815(2) of the Criminal Code lets the appeal court or a judge extend the time for a summary appeal, and rule 8(2) preserves the same power in the Court of Appeal. Extension applications turn on familiar considerations: whether you formed the intention to appeal within the 30 days, whether there is a reasonable explanation for the delay, and whether the proposed appeal has enough merit to be worth hearing. Courts grant extensions regularly where those answers are good, and refuse them where the delay looks like a change of heart after the fact.

Two practical warnings. The strength of an extension application decays with time; the person who calls at day 45 has a far easier conversation than the person who calls at month eight. And do not confuse the appeal clock with anything else in the case. Probation reporting dates, fine due dates and appeal deadlines all run on separate calendars, and watching the wrong one has cost people their appeal rights. If there is any doubt about when your sentence was imposed, we pull the court record and settle it the same day.

The grounds audit: what section 686 actually lets us argue

An appeal is not a second trial, and the fastest way to waste money is to file one on the theory that a different judge might see things your way. The Criminal Code allows a conviction appeal on three grounds, all in s. 686(1)(a), and every viable appeal fits one of them.

The first: the verdict is unreasonable or cannot be supported by the evidence. This is not an invitation to reargue credibility. The appeal court asks whether the verdict is one a properly instructed trier of fact, acting judicially, could reasonably have reached on this record. Verdicts fail that test rarely, but they do fail it, most often where a conviction rests on evidence that cannot logically carry the weight the trial judge placed on it.

The second: a wrong decision on a question of law. This is where most successful appeals live. Evidence admitted that should have been excluded, a misdirection on the burden of proof, a misstatement of the elements of the offence, a flawed ruling on a Charter application. Legal errors get no deference. Either the judge got the law right or did not.

The third: a miscarriage of justice on any ground, the residual category that captures unfairness in how the trial ran, including problems that only surface after the verdict.

Then comes the part defence counsel must be honest about: the curative proviso. Under s. 686(1)(b)(iii), the court may dismiss an appeal despite a legal error where no substantial wrong or miscarriage of justice occurred, and s. 686(1)(b)(iv) does similar work for procedural irregularities that caused no prejudice. In plain terms, winning the point is not winning the appeal. The error has to have mattered. Choosing grounds that survive the proviso is much of the craft.

If the appeal succeeds, s. 686(2) requires the court to quash the conviction and either enter an acquittal or order a new trial. In defined situations s. 686(3) allows a substituted verdict instead. Which outcome to ask for is itself strategic; a new trial means the case starts again, with everything that implies for someone who has already lived through one. Findings of fact get deference. Legal rulings do not. The discipline of appellate work sits inside those two sentences, and it is why our grounds audit reads the record for legal error first.

Can you stay out while it runs? Bail pending appeal

A jail sentence does not pause because a notice of appeal was filed. It runs. For anyone taken into custody at Newmarket, the release application is as urgent as the appeal itself, and the two are usually prepared together in the first days.

On the indictable route, s. 679 lets a single judge of the Court of Appeal release an appellant pending the appeal.

The first two branches are usually manageable for a person with a real ground of appeal and a stable surrender plan. The third is where release is won or lost. In R. v. Oland, 2017 SCC 17, the Supreme Court held that the public interest criterion has two components, public safety and public confidence in the administration of justice, and that public confidence involves weighing two competing interests: enforceability, the idea that sentences are meant to be served, and reviewability, the idea that no one should serve a sentence a court later sets aside. The stronger the grounds look on paper, the harder reviewability pulls. That is the practical lesson: bail pending appeal is argued on the quality of the appeal, so the draft grounds have to be persuasive before the release application goes in, not after.

Sentence-only appeals are narrower. Under s. 679(4), once leave to appeal sentence is granted, release requires sufficient merit that serving the sentence in the meantime would cause unnecessary hardship, along with the same surrender and public interest elements. Every release order under s. 679 carries a condition to surrender as directed (s. 679(5)).

On the summary route the mechanism is s. 816: an in-custody summary conviction appellant stays in custody unless the Superior Court makes a release order, which likewise includes a surrender condition. That application is heard in the same Newmarket complex where the appeal itself will be argued.

One distinction worth keeping straight, because the names sound alike: a bail review attacks a bail order made before trial, while an appeal attacks the verdict or sentence after it. Different applications, different tests, different courts.

Sentence appeals: fitness, not sympathy

Sentence appeals have their own logic. Under s. 687, the appeal court considers the fitness of the sentence and may vary it within the limits the law allows, or dismiss the appeal. Leave is required on the indictable route, and the Superior Court hears sentence appeals from summary files inside the same 30 day window.

Fitness is a legal standard, not a sympathy test. Appellate courts extend real deference to sentencing judges. What moves them is legal error in how the sentence was constructed, or a sentence that sits so far outside what the offence and the offender called for that it cannot be defended as fit. A few months of disagreement, standing alone, is usually not enough; a sentence built on wrong principles usually is.

For non-citizens, one Supreme Court decision matters enormously. In R. v. Pham, 2013 SCC 15, the Court confirmed that a sentencing judge may take collateral immigration consequences into account, provided the sentence ultimately imposed stays proportionate to the gravity of the offence and the offender's degree of responsibility. Those consequences cannot be allowed to skew the sentence in either direction, but within a fit range they are a legitimate factor. In Pham itself the Court varied a sentence of two years to two years less a day. Treat that figure with care: the case predates the six month threshold that now governs when a permanent resident loses the immigration appeal right, so the number that matters today is not the number that mattered then. The principle survives intact. Where a lawful sentence can be structured to avoid an immigration cliff, that argument belongs in the sentencing court and, if it was missed, on appeal. The immigration side, including where today's thresholds sit, is mapped on our page about deportation risk after a criminal conviction.

Fresh evidence and trial lawyer failures: the honest lanes

Two kinds of appeal generate the most phone calls and the most misunderstanding. Both are real. Both are narrow. Neither is a do-over.

Fresh evidence first. Section 683(1) of the Criminal Code lets the court of appeal receive new evidence where it considers it in the interests of justice. The governing framework comes from Palmer v. The Queen, [1980] 1 S.C.R. 759, as restated by the Supreme Court in R. v. G.D.B., 2000 SCC 22, and it asks four questions. Could the evidence have been obtained for trial by due diligence? Is it relevant? Is it credible? And could it reasonably be expected to have affected the result? Strategic second thoughts fail this test. A witness who was available but not called because the defence chose a different theory is not fresh evidence; a document that did not exist at trial, or a recantation that came later, might be. The Supreme Court has also confirmed that the due diligence criterion will be met where the evidence was not led because of the incompetence of counsel, which connects this lane to the next one.

Ineffective assistance of counsel is a ground of appeal, and G.D.B. sets the structure. The claim has a performance component and a prejudice component: the appellant must establish first that trial counsel's acts or omissions amounted to incompetence, measured on a reasonableness standard, and second that a miscarriage of justice resulted. The analysis starts from a strong presumption that counsel's conduct fell within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance, and the wisdom of hindsight has no place in it. Where no prejudice is shown, courts usually will not even assess the performance question. The court also expects trial counsel to be given notice and an opportunity to respond, which means these appeals are built on affidavits, file records and correspondence, not on frustration.

We say this to every caller: being unhappy with your trial lawyer's style is not a ground of appeal, and many trial decisions that look wrong in defeat were defensible when made. But genuine failures happen. Evidence never investigated. Instructions ignored. A guilty plea entered without the advice the law required, a problem with particular bite for non-citizens. When the failure is real and it changed the outcome, the law provides the lane, and it demands new counsel to drive it, because the lawyer whose work is under review cannot argue their own competence.

Both lanes share one feature: they are evidence-building exercises that take time, and the 30 day clock does not wait for them. The notice of appeal goes in first; the fresh evidence application is developed inside the appeal.

What we actually do in the first meeting

Appeals are screened, not sold. Here is what the first meeting on a Newmarket conviction looks like.

Deadline math first: the exact date sentence was imposed, days remaining, and whether a notice of appeal should be filed protectively while the merits are assessed. Then the route: summary or indictable, confirmed from the court record rather than memory, because the answer decides which court, which rules and which building.

Next, record triage. We identify what exists: transcripts already prepared, exhibits, the judge's reasons, pre-trial rulings. Grounds of appeal live in specific passages, so the honest answer to whether you have an appeal usually comes after the reasons are read, not before. Where reasons were delivered orally, transcript ordering starts immediately because it controls the whole calendar.

Then a grounds shortlist, ranked by strength: legal errors first, unreasonable verdict arguments assessed with cold eyes, any fresh evidence or ineffective assistance possibilities identified early because of the extra machinery they need. If custody is in play, bail pending appeal gets assessed in the same meeting, since the strength of the draft grounds is most of that application.

And sometimes the advice is not to appeal. A conviction with no identifiable legal error, a sentence in the middle of the range, a proviso problem that swallows the best ground: we say so plainly, with reasons. A doomed appeal costs money and can foreclose better options elsewhere. What you leave the first meeting with is a written view of your realistic options, the deadline status, and what each path costs to explore further. On overall cost, the honest answer is that it tracks the size of the trial record, which is why we will not quote a number before seeing the file.

When the Crown appeals your acquittal

Appeals run both ways. The Crown has its own appeal rights under the Criminal Code, narrower than a convicted person's but real: on indictable matters it can appeal an acquittal on a question of law, and it can seek leave to appeal a sentence it considers unfit. On summary files the prosecution has mirror rights before the Superior Court.

If that happens, you become the respondent, and the timeline is no longer yours. The notice arrives, often within weeks of the acquittal you thought ended the case, and the response gets built at appellate speed: identifying the ruling the Crown attacks, framing why the trial judge got the law right, and preparing for the possibility of a new trial if the appeal succeeds. Winning at trial and keeping the win are related skills, but they are not the same skill.

We act for respondents as well as appellants, at Osgoode Hall and at the Superior Court in Newmarket. If a Crown notice of appeal has arrived, the first thing counsel owes you is a calm reading of it: what is actually being argued, and what the realistic outcomes are.

Why Kazandji Law for a Markham appeal

Appellate work is record work. It rewards counsel who read transcripts line by line, frame issues as questions of law, and write persuasively. Fadi Matthew Kazandji leads every appeal file personally, from the grounds audit through to argument, whether the appeal sits at Osgoode Hall or upstairs at Newmarket.

Geography helps too. Our Thornhill office at 7191 Yonge St., Suite 310 serves Markham and York Region clients, so meetings about a Newmarket file do not require a trip downtown. Our Toronto headquarters at 180 John St., Unit 320 is a short walk from Osgoode Hall, where every Ontario indictable appeal is heard. North York and Oakville offices round out the GTA coverage. Trial defence across York Region runs through our Markham criminal defence practice, and the appellate work connects to it: knowing how trials are fought at 50 Eagle St. W. is an advantage when attacking one on paper.

For the province-wide legal framework, our Ontario appeals lawyers page covers the law without the York Region logistics. For convictions out of Toronto's trial courts, our Toronto appeals lawyers page maps that city's two appeal venues, station by station.

This page is general legal information for people dealing with a York Region criminal case, not legal advice, and reading it does not create a lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the Criminal Code of Canada (current to May 26, 2026), the Criminal Appeal Rules of the Court of Appeal for Ontario, the Criminal Proceedings Rules of the Superior Court of Justice and the cited decisions as of July 2026. Appeal rights and outcomes turn on the record of each case. Speak with a lawyer about yours.