Literally caught red-handed?

To be fair, this isn't the Star's error.  Rather, it's a direct quotation from a decision of Ontario Superior Court Justice Anne Molloy:

(See http://canlii.ca/t/fq2d0 for the decision.)

This is a classic misuse of the word "literally".  When something is being described literally, it means that the thing is exactly as being described, with no exaggeration or figures of speech.  It cannot be used merely for emphasis or dramatic effect.  So you might literally turn red when you're embarrassed, but you can never literally eat your words, no matter how much you regret them.

In this case, the subject might have been caught "red-handed" (that is, in the act of committing a crime or with clear evidence of it about him), but probably wasn't literally caught red handed (unless his hands were actually red when the police showed up).

(Sidenote: according to my Google searches, "red-handed" originates from finding the blood of a victim on a murderer's hands.)