The Ontario Court of Appeal heard arguments on Thursday, March 16, in the case of Mustafa Ururyar, the York University graduate student who was found guilty of sexually assaulting PhD student Mandi Gray in 2015. Ontario Court Justice Marvin Zuker sentenced Ururyar to 18 months. His lawyers immediately appealed, and he was released on bail pending that appeal. Superior Court Justice Michael Dambrot will hand down his decision on June 8, but it's a no-brainer that the conviction will be overturned.
Ururyar's grounds for appeal focus on what his lawyers claim were errors in Zuker's decision. These included judicial bias (although there were no defence objections to bias during the trial); Zuker's criticism of defence lawyer Lisa Burstow's use of what he identified as rape myths; and the "uncontested academic material" (read "feminist") that Zuker partially relied on in making his finding of guilt.
