Ruling of the Court
Justice Binnie, writing for the Court, used this case to restate the approach to similar fact evidence. He stated that a "principled approach" must be used where the probative value must be weighed against the prejudicial effect.
When examining probative value several factors must be considered. First, the court must examine the strength of the evidence in showing that the past events actually occurred. The credibility of the witness must be considered and if there is any motive to lie must have an effect.
Second, the court must consider whether there was any potential of collusion between the witness and the claimant. If there was merely an opportunity to collude then the question is left to the jury, otherwise if there is "some evidence of collusion" then the onus is on the Crown to show on the balance of probabilities that no collusion occurred.
Third, the court must consider the scope of the issue in question. If it is a very broad issue, then the threshold for probative value will be very high. If it concerns a material issue in the trial, then it should be looked upon favourably.
Fourth, the court must consider whether the evidence supports the inference that the Crown is attempting to draw. This involves examining the similarities between the events. Factors include:
- the proximity in time between the events
- the extent to which the other events are factually similar
- the number of occurrences of the similar events
- the circumstances surrounding the events
- the distinctiveness of the events
- the existence of any intervening events
Next Binnie considered what prejudicial effects should be considered. He divided it into moral prejudice and reasoning prejudice. The moral prejudice includes evidence that will cause the jury to think that the accused is a bad person. This is particularly where the past events were acts that were more reprehensible than the current facts. The reasoning prejudice includes evidence that present a risk of distraction, confusion, and evidence that will consume too much time.
Using this test Binnie found that the evidence put forward by the Crown was inadmissible.
In a legal dispute, one party is initially presumed to be correct and gets the benefit of the doubt, while the other side bears the burden of proof. When a party bearing the burden of proof meets its burden, the burden of proof switches to the other side. Burdens may be of different kinds for each party, in different phases of litigation. The burden of production is a minimal burden to produce at least enough evidence for the trier of fact to consider a disputed claim. After litigants have met the burden of production and their claim is being considered by a trier of fact, they have the burden of persuasion, that enough evidence has been presented to persuade the trier of fact that their side is correct. There are different standards of persuasiveness ranging from a preponderance of the evidence, where there is just enough evidence to tip the balance, to proof beyond a reasonable doubt, as in United States criminal courts.
Prejudice is a legal term with different meanings when used in criminal, civil, or common law. Often the use of prejudice in legal context differs from the more common use of the word and thus has specific technical meanings implied by its use.
Reasonable doubt is a term used in jurisdiction of common law countries. Evidence that is beyond reasonable doubt is the standard of evidence required to validate a criminal conviction in most adversarial legal systems.
The law of evidence, also known as the rules of evidence, encompasses the rules and legal principles that govern the proof of facts in a legal proceeding. These rules determine what evidence must or must not be considered by the trier of fact in reaching its decision. The trier of fact is a judge in bench trials, or the jury in any cases involving a jury. The law of evidence is also concerned with the quantum (amount), quality, and type of proof needed to prevail in litigation. The rules vary depending upon whether the venue is a criminal court, civil court, or family court, and they vary by jurisdiction.
Admissible evidence, in a court of law, is any testimonial, documentary, or tangible evidence that may be introduced to a factfinder—usually a judge or jury—to establish or to bolster a point put forth by a party to the proceeding. For evidence to be admissible, it must be relevant and "not excluded by the rules of evidence", which generally means that it must not be unfairly prejudicial, and it must have some indicia of reliability. The general rule in evidence is that all relevant evidence is admissible and all irrelevant evidence is inadmissible, though some countries proscribe the prosecution from exploiting evidence obtained in violation of constitutional law, thereby rendering relevant evidence inadmissible. This rule of evidence is called the exclusionary rule. In the United States this was effectuated federally in 1914 under the Supreme Court case Weeks v. United States and incorporated against the states in 1961 in the case Mapp v. Ohio, both of which involving law enforcement conducting warrantless searches of the petitioners' homes, with incriminating evidence being descried inside them.
Witness impeachment, in the law of evidence of the United States, is the process of calling into question the credibility of an individual testifying in a trial. The Federal Rules of Evidence contain the rules governing impeachment in US federal courts.
Makin v Attorney General for New South Wales is a famous decision of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council where the modern common law rule of similar fact evidence originated.
The criminal law of Canada is under the exclusive legislative jurisdiction of the Parliament of Canada. The power to enact criminal law is derived from section 91(27) of the Constitution Act, 1867. Most criminal laws have been codified in the Criminal Code, as well as the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, Youth Criminal Justice Act and several other peripheral statutes.
In the law of criminal evidence, a confession is a statement by a suspect in crime which is adverse to that person. Some secondary authorities, such as Black's Law Dictionary, define a confession in more narrow terms, e.g. as "a statement admitting or acknowledging all facts necessary for conviction of a crime," which would be distinct from a mere admission of certain facts that, if true, would still not, by themselves, satisfy all the elements of the offense. The equivalent in civil cases is a statement against interest.
R v Béland [1987] 2 S.C.R. 398 is a leading Supreme Court of Canada decision where the Court rejected the use of polygraph results as evidence in court.
The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that "in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right…to be confronted with the witnesses against him." Generally, the right is to have a face-to-face confrontation with witnesses who are offering testimonial evidence against the accused in the form of cross-examination during a trial. The Fourteenth Amendment makes the right to confrontation applicable to the states and not just the federal government. The right only applies to criminal prosecutions, not civil cases or other proceedings.
A balancing test is any judicial test in which the jurists weigh the importance of multiple factors in a legal case. Proponents of such tests argue that they allow a deeper consideration of complex issues than a bright line rule can allow. But critics say that such tests can be used to justify any conclusion, upon which the judge might arbitrarily decide.
R v Mohan1994 CanLII 80, [1994] 2 SCR 9 is a leading Supreme Court of Canada decision on the use of expert witnesses in trial testimony.
The hearsay provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 reformed the common law relating to the admissibility of hearsay evidence in criminal proceedings begun on or after 4 April 2005.
Huddleston v. United States, 485 U.S. 681 (1988), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court removed a procedural obstacle to admitting evidence of a witness's motive, plan, or knowledge that had been imposed by some courts of appeals after reading Rule 404(b) of the Federal Rules of Evidence. The Court reaffirmed that there are adequate other mechanisms present in the Rules to ensure that overly prejudicial evidence does not reach the jury.
Old Chief v. United States, 519 U.S. 172 (1997), discussed the limitation on admitting relevant evidence set forth in Federal Rule of Evidence 403. Under this rule, otherwise relevant evidence may be excluded if the probative value of the evidence is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, misleading the jury, or considerations of undue delay, wasting time, or needless presentation of cumulative evidence. In this case, Old Chief offered to stipulate to the fact of a prior conviction, which was an element of the crime with which he was charged. The prosecution resisted this stipulation, arguing that it had the right to present its case in any manner it chose. In Old Chief, the Court applied Rule 403 to the particular situation presented by this case, and concluded that Rule 403 required the trial court to accept the defendant's stipulation to a prior conviction over the prosecution's objection.
Relevance, in the common law of evidence, is the tendency of a given item of evidence to prove or disprove one of the legal elements of the case, or to have probative value to make one of the elements of the case likelier or not. Probative is a term used in law to signify "tending to prove." Probative evidence "seeks the truth". Generally in law, evidence that is not probative is inadmissible and the rules of evidence permit it to be excluded from a proceeding or stricken from the record "if objected to by opposing counsel." A balancing test may come into the picture if the value of the evidence needs to be weighed versus its prejudicial nature.
R v W (D), [1991] 1 S.C.R. 742 is a leading decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on assessing guilt based on the credibility of witnesses in a criminal trial. More specifically, W.D. examines sexual assault cases and burdens of proof in evidence law.
Mahomed v R [2011] NZSC 52 was a case in the Supreme Court of New Zealand concerning the admissibility of propensity evidence against defendants facing criminal prosecution.
