L'importance du rôle de l'avocat de la défense dans le contexte d'un régime contradictoire pour tester la valeur de la preuve à charge et assurer l'équité du procès

Vachon c. R., 2011 QCCA 2103

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[63]        Dans R. v. Joanisse, (1995)1995 CanLII 3507 (ON CA), 102 C.C.C. (3d) 35 (C.A. Ont.), le juge Doherty rappelle l'importance du rôle de l'avocat de la défense dans le contexte d'un régime contradictoire pour tester la valeur de la preuve à charge et assurer l'équité du procès :

64     The importance of effective assistance of counsel at trial is obvious. We place our trust in the adversarial process to determine the truth of criminal allegations. The adversarial process operates on the premise that the truth of a criminal allegation is best determined by "partisan advocacy on both sides of the case": U.S. v. Cronic, 104 S. Ct. 2039 (1984), per Stevens J. at p. 2045. Effective representation by counsel makes the product of the adversarial process more reliable by providing an accused with the assistance of a professional trained in the skills needed during the combat of trial. The skilled advocate can test the case advanced by the prosecution, as well as marshal and advance the case on behalf of the defence. We further rely on a variety of procedural safeguards to maintain the requisite level of adjudicative fairness in that adversarial process. Effective assistance by counsel also enhances the adjudicative fairness of the process in that it provides to an accused a champion who has the same skills as the prosecutor and who can use those skills to ensure that the accused receives the full benefit of the panoply of procedural protections available to an accused.

[64]        L'appelant n'a pas eu cette chance.

[65]        À cela s'ajoute la question des honoraires invoquée par l'appelant à l'ouverture du procès. Il est clair qu'un différend subsistait entre l'appelant et son avocat. Par contre, ce litige devait être réglé bien avant le vendredi précédent le début du procès. À ce sujet, l'appelant doit être cru et rien ne permet de rejeter son affirmation selon laquelle l'avocat l'a menacé en lui disant que « ça irait mal » s'il ne trouvait pas les 7 000 $. Dans ces circonstances, on ne peut reprocher à l'appelant, comme l'a fait le juge de première instance, d'avoir réagi tardivement.

[66]        Toujours dans Joanisse, précité, le juge Doherty ajoute :

65     Where counsel fails to provide effective representation, the fairness of the trial, measured both by reference to the reliability of the verdict and the adjudicative fairness of the process used to arrive at the verdict, suffers. In some cases the result will be a miscarriage of justice. This court is under a statutory obligation to quash convictions which are the product of a miscarriage of justice: Criminal Code s. 686(1)(a)(iii). The accused who is the victim of a miscarriage of justice is entitled to at least a new trial.

[67]        Bref, je suis d'avis que l'appelant n'a pas été représenté par un avocat compétent, selon le seuil établi par les tribunaux, qu'il en a subi un préjudice grave et que le procès a été inéquitable. Seul un nouveau procès pourra rétablir la situation.

En règle générale, la déclaration extrajudiciaire vidéo d'un accusé peut être expurgée afin d'éviter tout préjugé indu et d'éliminer les éléments qu'il vaut mieux que le jury ignore, car trop préjudiciable

R. v. Calnen, 2015 NSSC 318 

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[12]        The applicable legal principles are not controversial.  As a general rule, the statement of an accused person may be edited to avoid undue prejudice and eliminate matters which it is best the jury not know:  R. v. Weaver (1966), 51 Cr. App. R. 77.  The editing process must ensure, however, that the remaining portions of the statement retain their proper meaning in relation to the whole of the statement:  R. v. Kanester (1966), 1966 CanLII 544 (BC CA), 48 C.R. 352, [1966] B.C.J. No. 77 (C.A.).  Where a statement includes reference to an irrelevant fact or facts, if the facts may be separated from the rest of the statement without affecting its tenure, the irrelevant parts should be excluded:  R. v. Beatty, 1944 CanLII 22 (SCC), [1944] S.C.R. 73.

[13]        I have reviewed a host of cases to assist with the task of determining whether any, all or some portions of the statements should be excluded from the jury.  In considering the general principles to be followed, I have found a very helpful canvassing of the law by Justice Moreau in R. v. White, 2006 ABQB 788 (CanLII) at paras. 4-11:

[4]               Evidence may be excluded if its admission would result in unfairness or the prejudicial effect of its admission outweighs its probative value: R. v. Buhay, [2003] 1 S.C .R. 631, per Arbour J., speaking for the Court, at para. 40:

 

... even in the absence of a Charter breach, judges have a discretion at common law to exclude evidence obtained in circumstances such that it would result in unfairness if the evidence was admitted at trial, or if the prejudicial effect of admitting the evidence outweighs its probative value (See, in the context of confessions: R. v. Rothman, [1981] 1 S.C.R. 410, at p. 696 per Lamer J., as he then was; R. v. Oickle, 2000 SCC 38 (CanLII), [2000] 2 S.C.R. 3, at para. 69, per Iacobucci J....

 

[5]               In balancing probative value against prejudicial effect, consideration may be given to whether the prejudicial effect of the evidence would be out of proportion to its true evidential value.  Maclean J.A.’s dissenting reasons in R. v. Kanester, 1966 CanLII 544 (BC CA), [1966] 4 C.C.C. 231 (B.C.C.A.), adopted by the Supreme Court of Canada (1966 CanLII 529 (SCC), [1967] 1 C.C.C. 97), referred, at para. 91, to the comments of Lord du Parcq in Noor Mohammed v. Rex, 1949 CanLII 437 (UK JCPC), [1949] A.C. 182, at 192:

 

It is right to add, however, that in all such cases the judge ought to consider whether evidence which it is proposed to adduce is sufficiently substantial, having regard to the purpose to which it is professedly directed, to make it desirable in the interest of justice that it should be admitted.  If, so far as that purpose is concerned, it can in the circumstances of the case have only trifling weight, the judge will be right to exclude it.  To say this is not to confuse weight with admissibility. The distinction is plain, but cases must occur in which it would be unjust to admit evidence of a character gravely prejudicial to the accused even though there may be some tenuous ground for holding it technically admissible. The decision must then be left to the discretion and the sense of fairness of the judge.

 

[6]               In R. v. Beatty, 1944 CanLII 22 (SCC), [1944] S.C.R. 73, Duff C.J.C. clarified his reasoning in Rex v. Thiffault, 1933 CanLII 52 (SCC), [1933] S.C. R. 509 as to the restrictions on the use of a prior admission by an accused that contains inadmissible evidence (at para. 9):

 

We also considered that a document professing to embody the effect of admissions obtained in the way the admissions were obtained in that case, and containing inter alia a record of an admission of a fact that would be inadmissible as evidence against the accused and was calculated to prejudice him, ought not to be admitted as evidence against him.

 

[7]               In Thiffault, the portion of the police interview of the accused relating to his earlier arrest for another criminal offence was determined (at para.12) not to be admissible, not only on the ground that it was wholly irrelevant, but also on the basis of the unfair prejudice to the accused.

 

[8]               Duff C.J.C., in Beatty, pointed out (at para. 10) that if the statement of the irrelevant fact can be separated from the rest of the document without in any way affecting the tenor of that which remains, then the trial judge in most cases would probably be able to excise the objectionable portion while permitting the unobjectionable part of the document to go before the jury. The trial judge’s duty in that regard was described by Maclean J.A. in Kanester, at para. 48:

 

A very heavy duty lies upon a trial judge who admits a statement of this nature, where editing is of paramount importance, in order that evidence which may be irrelevant or unnecessarily prejudicial to the accused may be carved out from the original statement and yet insure that the remaining portions will retain their proper meaning in relation to the whole in the sense that when taken out of context the admissibility portions are relevant and do not lose their meaning and yet are freed from unnecessary prejudice that is out of balance with the purpose to be served by admitting the edited statement.

 

[9]               In R. v. Dubois (1986), 1986 CanLII 4683 (ON CA), 27 C.C.C. (3d) 325 (Ont.C.A.), Morden J.A. noted at para. 56 that portions of the wiretap evidence in that case, although substantially irrelevant, were part of a context for understanding the evidence that did relate to the charge before the court.  A new trial was ordered, however, the trial judge having failed to weigh the probative value of the challenged evidence against its prejudicial effect, having admitted clearly irrelevant or only tenuously relevant evidence, and having failed to adequately instruct the jury on the use they could make of the evidence.

 

[10]            Ferguson J. referred in R. v. Jacobsen 2004 CarswellOnt 6675, (Ont. S.Ct.) at para. 4 to a useful summary of principles applied to the editing of statements in R. v. Grewall, 2000 BCSC 820 (CanLII), [2000] B.C.J. No. 2383 (B.C.S.C.) at para. 36:

(a)  Editing of a statement may at times be necessary because of the inclusion of irrelevant or unnecessarily prejudicial evidence but such editing must not affect the tenor of a relevant statement.

 

(b)  Edited statements must be free from unnecessary prejudice, but the remaining portions must retain their proper meaning.

 

(c)  The jury should have as much as possible of a statement said to constitute an admission in order to place it into context for the purpose of determining its truth.

 

(d)  Even though substantively irrelevant, contextual evidentiary relevance may allow admission.

 

(e)  The extent of the admissibility of that contextual evidence and probative value must still, however, be weighed and balanced against its prejudicial effect.

 

[11]            A further consideration in the editing process is whether a limiting instruction will be effective to address any prejudicial effect of admitting the evidence: Jacobsen, at para. 7.

[14]        I will apply these general principles to the statements under consideration in this case.

La décision d'ajourner le procès pour attendre un arrêt de la Cour suprême ne constitue pas un événement exceptionnel distinct, car les tribunaux doivent appliquer le droit tel qu'il existe au moment du procès, et retarder un procès pour attendre une décision d'une juridiction supérieure n'est pas raisonnable, sauf dans des circonstances exceptionnelles

R. v. Toole, 2026 ONCA 99

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[57]      As I will explain, the decision to vacate the June trial dates to await the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in J.J. does not constitute a discrete exceptional event. It follows that the ensuing delay ought not to be deducted from the total delay.

[58]      The Crown has not discharged its burden of showing that the adjournment delay was reasonably unforeseen or reasonably unavoidable. As I will explain, it was not reasonable to halt the case’s progress until the Supreme Court released its judgment in a different matter. To avoid similar delays in the future, I will set out what is in my view the proper approach when considering whether to adjourn a trial to wait for appellate guidance.

[59]      The Supreme Court of Canada has repeatedly instructed all actors in the justice system to be proactive in avoiding unnecessary delays: R. v. Cody, 2017 SCC 31, [2017] 1 S.C.R. 659, at para. 36; Jordan, at para. 137; and R. v. Thanabalasingham, 2020 SCC 18, [2020] 2 S.C.R. 413, at para. 9.

[60]      Courts are to apply the law as it stands without regard to uncertain future changes. Delaying trials any time there is an appeal pending in a higher court involving a relevant legal issue would risk bringing the judicial system to a halt. Waiting for the final resolution of such issues is simply not a reasonable way to achieve timely and effective justice. The harm of delay is certain, but the benefit of delay is rarely more than speculative.

[61]      This is not to say that, in fixing trial dates, the parties and the court would not take into account the potential impact of a pending decision on the conduct of the trial. Nor, once a trial date is set, could a judge never reasonably determine that awaiting guidance from a higher court justifies an adjournment. Adjournment decisions are discretionary and enable the trial judge to manage cases fairly and effectively: R. v. Ke, 2021 ONCA 179, at para. 57; R. v. Hazout (2005), 2005 CanLII 30050 (ON CA), 199 C.C.C. (3d) 474 (Ont. C.A.), at para. 31, leave to appeal refused, [2005] S.C.C.A. No. 412, and [2005] S.C.C.A. No. 501. Appellate courts thus owe deference to the case management choices made by trial judges: Jordan, at para. 139.

[62]      I would think, however, that decisions to delay a case’s progress while awaiting the outcome of an appeal would be the exception. Each situation must be resolved on its particular facts, weighing factors such as the anticipated delay, the position taken by the parties, the significance of the issue to be resolved and the potential impact on the trial and the accused should the adjournment request not be granted. A judge considering whether a delay or adjournment is appropriate and warranted will also weigh the risk that the appellate court’s ruling will result in a miscarriage of justice, impairment to trial fairness or need for a retrial should the trial proceed as scheduled.

[63]      A judge may, for example, consider it appropriate to grant an adjournment where a pending appellate decision is reasonably believed to be imminent, will likely impact whether a jury is properly constituted and all parties agree that a short delay is warranted. In such a case, the prospect of having to redo a trial depending on the outcome of the pending appeal will weigh heavily in the balance. Similar concerns may arise where the constitutionality of the very offence the accused is charged with is pending in the higher court.

[64]      The present case, however, did not display any such extraordinary features and there was no consensus among the parties that an adjournment was warranted. At the time of the adjournment decision, the respondent’s constitutional challenge had been ruled on in at least nine different cases throughout the province. The court did so in those cases without waiting for definitive guidance from the Supreme Court of Canada. Indeed, if the trial proceeded based on a ruling contrary to the Supreme Court’s later decision in J.J., it is far from certain that it would require a retrial.[3]

[65]      I am not persuaded that the lengthy adjournment which occurred in this case would have been appropriate even if the defence had offered to waive delay pending the appellate decision. Defence waiver would be only one factor for the judge to take into account. It would not and should not, standing alone, constitute a proper basis to adjourn a trial: Cody, at para. 37. While defence delay resulting from a waiver does not count towards the ceiling, timely trials engage interests beyond the accused’s s. 11(b) rights. All delay, deductible or not, still affects the courts, victims of crime and public confidence in the justice system: Jordan, at paras. 22-27. Had the expectation been that the Supreme Court’s decision in J.J. was imminent, a short adjournment with the parties’ agreement may have been reasonable. What occurred in this case, an adjournment of 5 months and 15 days decided almost one month before the trial was scheduled to start, is in my view unjustified. In fact, as it turns out, delaying the start of the trial by just one month, to July 13, 2022, would have been sufficient as the decision in J.J. was issued on June 30, 2022.

[66]      To be clear, my conclusion that the adjournment delay to await guidance from the Supreme Court regarding the respondent’s constitutional challenge was not attributable to a discrete exceptional event does not solely depend on the reasonableness of the adjournment decision. Even in those rare cases where a decision to await guidance from a higher court is reasonably taken, I would not view the delay as falling within the discrete events category of exceptional circumstances. What the Supreme Court understood “events” to be is apparent from the examples given in Jordan, at paras. 72-73: illness, family emergencies, extradition, trial complications. In other words, events in the ordinary sense.

[67]      By contrast, a constitutional question raised by a party is not an “event”. It is a legal issue to be addressed in the course of a trial process. Defence applications, such as the Charter challenge brought by the respondent, are procedural steps which the Supreme Court of Canada accounted for when setting the presumptive ceilings: Jordan at para. 65; see also R. v. Mengistu, 2024 ONCA 575, at paras. 28-29. Responding to the issues raised in such applications is part of the trial process.

[68]      Adjourning a trial to await the guidance of a higher court is simply a way the court may respond to an application. It does not constitute a discrete exceptional event. The issues raised by the application will however be relevant in assessing a case’s complexity. In some cases, particularly complex issues will justify a net delay above the ceiling. That is because the case complexity category of exceptional circumstances involves, among other things, “novel or complicated legal issues”: Jordan, at para. 77. Therefore, the steps required to adjudicate a legitimate constitutional challenge brought by the defence are proper factors in assessing whether the case as a whole was “particularly complex”. This holds true whether the challenge is resolved by hearing and deciding the application or by an adjournment to await the higher court’s decision.

[69]      Finally, I agree with the respondent that this court’s decision in Corner is of little assistance to the Crown. In Corner, a third party obtained leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada from an interlocutory decision in that prosecution. This interlocutory appeal was a true discrete exceptional event. The pending Supreme Court decision unavoidably brought the proceedings to a halt because it was an appeal from a ruling in the case and would determine which evidence could be heard at trial. These were quite different circumstances than those in the present case. Here, the decision made was to wait for the Supreme Court’s decision in J.J., a totally different proceeding, in the expectation that it would obviate the need to rule on a constitutional issue raised in a defence application. As I have explained, such issues are not discrete events but rather factors to weigh in the assessment of case complexity.

[70]      In this appeal, the Crown did not take the position that the case’s complexity rebuts the presumption of unreasonable delay. The application judge, for her part, noted there was “no question that this was not a complex case.” I see no reason to doubt her assessment.

[71]       Before concluding, I would emphasize that it is not appropriate for the defence to delay applications as was done in the present case. I do not agree with the application judge’s statement that it was reasonable for the respondent to wait “as long as possible” before bringing his constitutional challenge. He had given no indication of his intention to challenge any legislative provisions and, as a result, the application was not accounted for in the pre-trial schedule. He served and filed the application close to 22 months after the information was laid, without providing the required 30-day notice. In the circumstances, this delay was not justified. Nevertheless, despite the short notice, the constitutional challenge could and should have been resolved without waiting for the Supreme Court of Canada to issue its ruling in J.J. This is what happened in other cases being prosecuted across the country and is what ought to have been done here.

Le droit applicable à la preuve de mauvais caractère de la victime administré par l'accusé

R. c. Boudreau-Chartrand, 2023 QCCS 3926

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[31]               En principe, un accusé ne peut chercher à démontrer le « mauvais caractère » de la victime puisque cette preuve n’est généralement pas pertinente quant à la question de savoir s’il a commis ou non l’infraction qui lui est reprochée[7].

[32]               Cependant, une preuve de mauvais caractère de la victime peut devenir pertinente. Par exemple, elle peut répondre à la preuve narrative de la poursuite qui cherche, par exemple, à établir un climat conjugal détérioré pour offrir un contexte au crime, sans que cela ne soit pas un blanc-seing à l’accusé pour démontrer sa bonne réputation[8].

[33]               Comme le souligne le juge Hill de la Cour supérieure de justice de l’Ontario dans R. v. Golov, « [t]he rule of inadmissibility is not […] “unyielding where the evidence of disposition of the victim relates to a material issue” in the case and is not excluded in the balancing of legal relevance considerations »[9]. Tel que le note le juge Martin, pour la Cour d’appel de l’Ontario, dans l’arrêt Scopelliti,

[…] the disposition of a person to do a certain act is relevant to indicate the probability of his having done or not having done the act. The law prohibits the prosecution from introducing evidence for the purpose of showing that the accused is a person who by reason of his criminal character (disposition) is likely to have committed the crime charged, on policy grounds, not because of relevance. There is, however, no rule of policy which excludes evidence of the disposition of a third person for violence where that disposition has probative value on some issue before the jury […].[10]

[Italiques dans l’original; le Tribunal souligne.]

[34]               Le juge du procès a le pouvoir discrétionnaire de limiter ou d’exclure la preuve du caractère de la victime lorsque l’effet préjudiciable de cette preuve excède sa valeur probante :

The trial judge must weigh the evidence and balance a variety of factors in the particular circumstances of the case. The weighing process involves an exercise of judgment or discretion and is not an application of a bright line. The trial judge may limit or exclude proffered evidence of the deceased’s bad character if its potential prejudice outweighs its probative value.[11]

[références omises; le Tribunal souligne]

[35]        En effet, comme le souligne le juge Martin dans Scopelliti, « [s]ince evidence of prior acts of violence by the deceased is likely to arouse feelings of hostility against the deceased, there must inevitably be some element of discretion in the determination of whether the proffered evidence has sufficient probative value for the purpose for which it is tendered to justify its admission. Moreover, great care must be taken to ensure that such evidence, if admitted, is not misused »[12].

[36]        L’évaluation de la valeur probante de la preuve du caractère violent de la victime fait intervenir plusieurs facteurs :

51   The probative value of past aggressive propensity by a deceased must be assessed having regard to the nature of the past behaviour and the strength of its asserted linkage to the current transaction including consideration of temporal proximity: Scopelliti, at para. 48; R. v. Varga (2001), 2001 CanLII 8610 (ON CA), 159 C.C.C. (3d) 502 (Ont. C.A.), at para. 72 (leave to appeal refused [2002] S.C.C.A. No. 278 (S.C.C.)); R. v. Jackson, 2013 ONCA 632 (Ont. C.A.), at paras. 24, 38 (affd 2014 CSC 30 (CanLII), [2014] 1 S.C.R. 672 (S.C.C.)). To be logically probative, the disposition evidence relating to the deceased need not pass a significant probative value test: R. v. Yaeck (1991), 1991 CanLII 2732 (ON CA), 68 C.C.C. (3d) 545 (Ont. C.A.), at p. 563 (leave to appeal refused [1992] 1 S.C.R. xii (S.C.C.)); Hamilton, at para. 43; Varga, at paras. 71-74, 76.

52  Turning to the discretionary balancing to be undertaken by the court to determine whether the probative value in the case of disposition evidence relating to the deceased is substantially exceeded by potential prejudice, various factors have received judicial examination. Depending upon the nature of the disposition evidence, moral or reasoning prejudice may arise, in terms of the triers of fact unfairly stigmatizing the deceased as a bad person or engendering hostility toward the deceased or a feeling that he may have been undeserving of the protection of the law: Scopelliti, at para. 47; Varga, at para. 71; Watson, at para. 42. The courts also take into account whether there will, in any event, be evidence in the prosecution case of aggressive behaviour on the part of the deceased: Varga, at paras. 73-76; Hamilton, at para. 76; R. v. Mulligan (1997), 1997 CanLII 995 (ON CA), 115 C.C.C. (3d) 559 (Ont. C.A.), at para. 26; R. v. Williams, 2008 ONCA 413 (Ont. C.A.), at paras. 65-67, 71.

53   As observed in Grant, at para. 40:

. . . these significant prejudicial effects must nonetheless be evaluated in accordance with the fundamental principles governing criminal proceedings. In giving constitutional protection to the accused's rights to make full answer and defence and to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, we must accept a certain amount of complexity, length, and distraction from the Crown's case as a necessary concession to the actualization of those rights. (See, for example, [State v.] Scheidell, [227 Wis.2d 285 (1999)], at para. 65, per Abrahamson C.J., dissenting in the result.)[13]

[37]        Par ailleurs, comme le souligne les auteurs Vauclair et Desjardins dans leur Traité général de preuve et de procédures pénales :

Tabler sur la personnalité de la victime peut équivaloir à mettre sa bonne réputation en jeu et permet alors au ministère public de présenter à son tour une preuve de caractère ou de propension à l’égard de l’accusé pour éviter une distorsion des faits.[14]

[38]        Cependant, cela ne signifie pas non plus que toute révélation de traits de personnalité négatifs de la victime, sans mettre davantage en cause son caractère, ouvre ainsi la porte au poursuivant.[15]

[39]        Enfin, dans tous les cas, la preuve doit être pertinente et le Tribunal doit s’assurer qu’une telle preuve ne cause pas un préjudice à l’accusé[16] ou à la recherche de la vérité.[17]