Statements must be read in context

Friday's decision in R. v. G.L., 2009 ONCA 501 makes clear the seemingly obvious point that statements by an accused must be considered in their entirety. The Court writes:

[25]          She [the trial judge] rejected the appellant's explanations, as it was open to her to do.  However, it was not open to her to adopt the suspicious, but inconclusive, remarks by the appellant at one point in the interview as a wholesale inculpatory admission to acts of sexual assault, without assessing the statement as a whole and without at least considering and reconciling the balance of the appellant's statements throughout the interview – some of which, at least, were strikingly exculpatory in nature: R. v. Mallory (2007), 217 C.C.C. (3d) 266 (Ont. C.A.).  Respectfully, it is my view that the trial judge failed to assess the statement as a whole.
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[29]          A trial judge is entitled, indeed required, to make findings respecting statements made by an accused and their meaning.  But she must do so in context and on the basis of the statement read as a whole.  Here, the trial judge focussed almost entirely on the utterances of the appellant that were capable of an inculpatory interpretation and failed to consider or to reconcile the various utterances that were at worst equivocal and – in the one instance, at least – markedly exculpatory in nature.  In Mallory, this Court recently referred to the "entire statement" principle in the following terms, at paras. 203 and 208:

In our view, the trial judge erred in approaching the utterances as a series of separate statements rather than as one statement.  It is well accepted that if the Crown tenders the statement of an accused, it cannot pick and choose those parts of the statement that it would like the jury to hear; it must take "the good with the bad", and both the "good" and the "bad" are admitted for their truth, for and against the accused.  Moreover, a party wishing to adduce a statement must put in as much of the statement as is necessary to permit a fair understanding of the individual utterances.

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The meaning of an exculpatory utterance proximate to an inculpatory utterance is for the jury to determine in the context of the "whole statement".  Giving the jury an isolated utterance taken out of context deprives the jury of the opportunity to decide the true meaning of the whole statement.

[30]          The same type of error can occur in a judge alone trial.  There is no obligation on a trial judge to mention every syllable of evidence given at a criminal trial in his or her reasons for judgment.  However, where the reasons of the trial judge disclose a lack of appreciation of relevant evidence, such as an important portion of an accused person's statement to police, or a disregard of such evidence, a reviewing court will intervene and will conduct a limited reweighing of the evidence in order to ensure that an unreasonable verdict is not sustained: R. v. Biniaris, [2000] 1 S.C.R. 381, at paras. 19-25 and 37. 
James Morton
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