Link to the original Supreme Court decision (January 25, 2008).
Case summary: A teenager was alleged to have inappropriately touched a young girl he had been babysitting. At trial, the judge considered the alleged victim's evidence and ruled that it was credible, before hearing the accused babysitter's testimony. She then ruled that the accused's testimony did not create the necessary reasonable doubt as to his guilt, rejected his evidence partly because "he was able to provide a surprising amount of detail for incidents in which, according to him, nothing happened," and found him guilty on two of the three charges of sexual assault. The case was appealed on the grounds that by ruling on the accuser's evidence first (which is not standard procedure), the trial judge had shifted the burden of proof to the accused, violating the innocent-until-proven-guilty principle; even though the trial judge did state in her ruling that the finding the girl was credible did not change the prosecution's burden of proof. The majority of the appeals court rejected that argument, but one dissenting judge accepted it, saying that the burden of proof had been shifted "at least subtly."
Opinions:
(Abella, Bastarache, Charron, and Rothstein): The trial judge's deviations from the usual procedure were not serious enough to ruin the trial. The fact that she correctly articulated the presumption of innocence principle in her decision further supports the view that she used it correctly. However, the appeal should be allowed and a new trial ordered anyway, because the trial judge erred in judging the accused's evidence, especially in relation to the too-much-detail issue. Majority decision.
(Fish, Binnie, and Deschamps): The trial judge did err in judging the accused's evidence as having too much detail to be true, but the procedural errors were serious enough to support the appeal also. That the trial judge said innocent until proven guilty does not mean she really followed that principle. Judging the complainant's evidence credible amounted to finding the accused guilty, and doing that before even hearing the accused's evidence is not allowed.
Comments
Younours from 62.192.18.134 at Sun, 31 Aug 2008 21:07:57 +0000:
There's a paedophilia trial in France that went disastrously, l'affaire Outreau ( http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affaire_d%27Outreau and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outreau_trial ).
Paedophilia is quite the sensitive issue. Here, everyone — judge, media, politicians, experts — got it wrong the first time.
Presumption of innocence was not respected due to too much pressure and only soft evidence to go by (testimonies of victims, psychiatric experts).
There are not many common points in the judicial procedure, Common Law countries have trial by jury, Civil Law countries do not, also France has an inquisitional system.
There is a lot of pressure on these trials, and it is very important no one in a position of authority gives a premature opinion. So I go with the dissenting opinion that stresses the importance of keeping the burden of proof on the accuser.
Younours from 62.192.18.134 at Sun, 31 Aug 2008 21:09:01 +0000:
There's a paedophilia trial in France that went disastrously, l'affaire Outreau ( http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affaire_d%27Outreau and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outreau_trial ).
Paedophilia is quite the sensitive issue. Here, everyone — judge, media, politicians, experts — got it wrong the first time.
Presumption of innocence was not respected due to too much pressure and only soft evidence to go by (testimonies of victims, psychiatric experts).
There are not many common points in the judicial procedure, Common Law countries have trial by jury, Civil Law countries do not, also France has an inquisitional system. The responsibility to decide is on the jury in one case, on a judge who also directs the investigation in the other case.
There is a lot of pressure on these trials, and it is very important no one in a position of authority gives a premature opinion. Which is why I go with the dissenting opinion, stressing the importance of keeping the burden of proof on the accuser.
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Matt from 216.75.190.36 at Thu, 31 Jul 2008 23:08:37 +0000:
Note that the accused gets a new trial either way. Based on what's apparent in the final decision - bearing in mind I didn't see all the evidence - I'm inclined to support the minority. Hearing both sides before making the decision is important, and I agree that deciding "the girl's evidence is credible" amounts to making the final decision in this case, and it shouldn't have happened until after hearing both sides.
This "your memory is too good" business is actually a *really* bad thing, but all the Justices seem to agree with me on that point so there's no need to belabour it.