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By LegalMatters Staff • Two important principles are at the root of our country’s judicial system. The first is that the burden of proof in any criminal trial is entirely on the Crown, meaning that the accused does not have to prove they are innocent.
The second is that the Crown attorney has to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to win a conviction.
A recent judgment by the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) reminded lower courts not to lose sight of those principles.
The case involved an Albertan man who was accused of breaking and entering to steal a firearm and two counts of robbery. The only evidence police had was a cigarette butt found in a vehicle stolen after a home invasion. The discarded cigarette had DNA that led to that man’s arrest.
The trial judge believed that was enough evidence for a conviction and the Alberta Court of Appeal agreed. But the SCC set aside the conviction, noting that “no trier of fact, acting judicially, could reasonably be satisfied that the accused’s guilt was the only reasonable conclusion available.”
Calgary defence lawyer Vincent Semenuck says it was a sound decision.
“As our nation’s highest court stated, ‘reasonable doubt is not an imaginary or frivolous doubt, nor is it based upon sympathy or prejudice. A reasonable doubt is a doubt based on reason and common sense which must logically be derived from the evidence or absence of evidence,’” he says.
“DNA on a cigarette butt does not meet that standard,” he adds.
