Credibility and suffiiency of reasons

Today’s decision in R. v. Wadforth, 2009 ONCA 716 is a helpful review of sufficiency of reasons regarding credibility:

[66] Resolution of credibility controversies is the daily fare of trial judges. Assessment of credibility is a difficult and delicate subject, often defying precise and complete verbalization. At bottom, belief of one witness and disbelief of another, in general or on a specific issue, is an alloy of factors, not a purely intellectual exercise: M. (R.E.) at para. 49; R. v. Gagnon, [2006] 1 S.C.R. 621, at para. 20. The unique position of trial judges to see and hear witnesses, and the inestimable advantage they enjoy in the result in assessing witnesses’ credibility and the reliability of their evidence, cannot be squandered by unrealistic expectations of scientific precision in language used to describe the complex coalescence of impressions that effuse after watching and listening to witnesses and attempting to reconcile their renditions of critical events: Gagnon at para. 20.

[67] No uniform standard of detail exists by which we can determine the sufficiency of reasons that describe findings on credibility. The degree of detail required to explain these findings will vary with the evidentiary record and trial dynamics: M. (R.E.) at para. 51. Findings on credibility must be made with regard to the other evidence in the case, thus the need to make at least some reference to the contradictory evidence. In the end, the detail provided must demonstrate that the trial judge has seized the substance of the issue in the case tried. While no detailed account of all conflicting evidence is mandated, in a case where credibility is critical, the trial judge must direct his or her mind to the decisive question of whether the accused’s evidence, considered in the context of all the evidence adduced at trial, raises a reasonable doubt about the accused’s guilt: R. v. Dinardo, [2008] 1 S.C.R. 788, at paras. 23 and 30; M. (R.E.) at para. 50.

[68] Appellate review of reasons for sufficiency starts with deference to the trial judge’s findings of fact. Appellate intervention must be rooted in a functional failing in the trial judge’s reasons for decision. The reasons, read in the context of the evidentiary record and the live issues at trial, must fail to reveal an intelligible basis for the verdict, capable of permitting meaningful appellate review: Sheppard at para. 28; M. (R.E.) at para. 53.