AUTHENTICITY AND ADMISSIBILITY OF SOCIAL MEDIA WEBSITE PRINTOUTS

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Par WENDY ANGUS-ANDERSON

Tiré de : http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1282&context=dltr

Rappel des principes quant aux fouilles sans mandat

R. v. Schmidt, 2010 ABQB 349 (CanLII)

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[60]           Warrantless searches are presumed to be unreasonable: Hunter v. Southam Inc., 1984 CanLII 33 (SCC), [1984] 2 S.C.R. 145. The party seeking to justify a warrantless search is required to rebut this presumption: R. v. Mann, 2004 SCC 52 (CanLII), [2004] 3 S.C.R. 59. There are exceptions with respect to the unreasonableness of warrantless searches. A warrantless search will overcome Charter challenges if authorized by law, and both the law and the manner in which the search is conducted are reasonable. The CDSA contains provisions authorizing a warrantless entry into a dwelling:

Le plain view

R. v. Jones, 2011 ONCA 632 (CanLII)

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[56] The "plain view" doctrine operates when a police or peace officer is in the process of executing a warrant or an otherwise lawfully authorized search with respect to one crime and evidence of another crime falls into plain view. Resort to this common law power is subject to the following restraints, however:
(i) The officer must be lawfully in the place where the search is being conducted ("lawfully positioned", in the language of the authorities); [page258] (ii) the nature of the evidence must be immediately apparent as constituting a criminal offence; (iii) the evidence must have been discovered inadvertently; (iv) the plain view doctrine confers a seizure power not a search power; it is limited to those items that are visible and does not permit an exploratory search to find other evidence of other crimes. See, generally, R. v. Spindloe, 2001 SKCA 58 (CanLII), [2001] S.J. No. 266, 154 C.C.C. (3d) 8 (C.A.), at pp. 29-37 C.C.C.; R. v. F. (L.), 2002 CanLII 45004 (ON CA), [2002] O.J. No. 2604, 166 C.C.C. (3d) 97 (C.A.), at paras. 28-34; Law, supra, at para. 27, and the authorities cited therein.

La grande variété et le nombre important de facteurs pouvant être pris en considération pour évaluer les attentes raisonnables en matière de respect de la vie privée se regroupent en quatre grandes catégories

R. c. Spencer, [2014] 2 RCS 212, 2014 CSC 43 (CanLII)

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[18]                          La grande variété et le nombre important de facteurs pouvant être pris en considération pour évaluer les attentes raisonnables en matière de respect de la vie privée peuvent être regroupés, par souci de commodité, en quatre grandes catégories : (1) l’objet de la fouille ou de la perquisition contestée; (2) le droit du demandeur à l’égard de l’objet; (3) l’attente subjective du demandeur en matière de respect de sa vie privée relativement à l’objet; et (4) la question de savoir si cette attente subjective en matière de respect de la vie privée était objectivement raisonnable, eu égard à l’ensemble des circonstances : Tessling, par. 32; R. c. Patrick, 2009 CSC 17 (CanLII), [2009] 1 R.C.S. 579, par. 27; R. c. Cole, 2012 CSC 53 (CanLII), [2012] 3 R.C.S. 34, par. 40. Il ne s’agit toutefois pas d’un examen purement factuel. L’attente raisonnable en matière de vie privée est de nature normative et non simplement descriptive : Tessling, par. 42. Ainsi, même si l’analyse du droit au respect de la vie privée tient compte du contexte factuel, elle « abonde [inévitablement] en jugements de valeur énoncés du point de vue indépendant de la personne raisonnable et bien informée, qui se soucie des conséquences à long terme des actions gouvernementales sur la protection du droit au respect de la vie privée privée » : Patrick, par. 14; voir aussi R. c. Gomboc, 2010 CSC 55 (CanLII),[2010] 3 R.C.S. 211, par. 34, et Ward, par. 81-85.

SOCIAL MEDIA EVIDENTIARY ISSUES

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Tiré de :
Texas Association of Counties 2013 FALL JUDICIAL EDUCATION SESSION November 20-22, 2013 Galveston, TX
Texte de : EMILY MISKEL
http://www.neaifi.org/_media/file/SOCIAL-MEDIA-EVIDENTIARY-ISSUES.pdf

Procédure d'admissibilité d'une photographie

R. v. Andalib-Goortani, 2014 ONSC 4690 (CanLII),

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(c)               Authentication

[28]           The leading Canadian case on authenticating images is R. v. Creemer and Cormier, [1968] 1 C.C.C. 14 (N.S.S.C. App. Div.). McKinnon J.A. noted the following requirements for authentication at p. 22:

All the cases dealing with the admissibility of photographs go to show that such admissibility depends upon (1) their accuracy in truly representing the facts; (2) their fairness and absence of any intention to mislead; and (3) their verification on oath by a person capable of doing so.

This formulation has been widely accepted in many subsequent decisions and by numerous commentators: see, for example, R. v. Maloney (No. 2) (1976),29 C.C.C. (2d) 431 (Ont. Co. Ct.), R. v. Penney, supra, R. v. Schaffner (1988), 44 C.C.C. (3d) 507 (N.S.C.A.), at pp. 509-511, R. v. J.S.C., 2013 ABCA 157 (CanLII), [2013] A.J. No. 455 (C.A.), R. v. Adams (2011), 2011 NSCA 54 (CanLII), 274 C.C.C. (3d) 502 (N.S.C.A.), Sydney N. Lederman, Alan W. Bryant and Michelle K. Fuerst, The Law of Evidence in Canada, 4^th edition (Toronto: LexisNexis, 2014), at pp. 44-45 and pp. 1294-1296, David Watt, Watt’s Manual of Criminal Evidence, 2013 (Toronto: Thomson Reuters, 2014), at p. 88 and David Paciocco, The Law of Evidence, 6^th ed. (Toronto: Irwin Law, 2011), at p. 462.

L'admissibilité d'un élément de preuve ne s'apprécie pas selon le fardeau de preuve "hors de tout doute raisonnable"

R. v. Murphy, 2011 NSCA 54 (CanLII)

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[41]         The trial judge’s treatment of the standard of proof for admissibility essentially required the photographs to be proven as if they were an essential element of the offence.  In R. v. Jeffrey, [1993] A.J. 639 (Q.L.), the Alberta Court of Appeal held:

18     The appellant argues that the Crown must prove irreconcilable separation beyond a reasonable doubt. Because s. 7 of the Charterguarantees every accused a trial according to the principles of fundamental justice, no lesser standard of proof can obtain.

19     A very basic principle of fundamental justice is that the standard of proof in a criminal proceeding is proof beyond a reasonable doubt. However, proof beyond a reasonable doubt is only applicable to the elements of the offence and the ultimate issue. It is not applicable to each and every piece of evidence R. v. Morin (1988) 1988 CanLII 8 (SCC), 44 C.C.C. (3d) 193 (S.C.C.). If each and every piece of evidence does not have to answer to the criminal burden of proof, it is illogical to assert that the admissibility of such evidence must be proven by that standard.

20     One instance in which admissibility does require proof of an issue beyond a reasonable doubt said by the appellant to support his position is the threshold test of the voluntary nature of a confession: Park v. The Queen (1981) 1981 CanLII 56 (SCC), 59 C.C.C. (2d) 385 (S.C.C.) R. v. Pickett (1975), 28 C.C.C. (2d) 297 (Ont. C.A.). However, a confession is substantively different from other kinds of evidence, since it goes directly to the ultimate issue of guilt or innocence, and, historically, by its very nature is suspect because of the form in which it comes to the court.

[42]         The trial judge was in error in treating the photographs as if they were an element of the offence.  To borrow from the words of the court in R. v. Jeffrey, supra, it is illogical to assert that the admissibility of such evidence would have to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. 

[43]         Indeed, this error is also acknowledged by the respondent, however, again, the respondent submits that even though the trial judge was in error, there was some merit to the trial judge having excluded the evidence and argues:

The court’s findings reveal that even if the cd had been admitted into evidence the weight attached to it would have been diminished.