Jury instructions

R. v. Carty, 2010 ONCA 671 deals with instructions to a jury.  Broadly speaking a judge is not obliged to repeat all the evidence to the jury however, especially where an accused is self represented, the Court must ensure that the key parts of a defence case are clear for the jury.  The Court holds:

 

 

(2)              Did the trial judge err in law in his charge to the jury by failing to put the position of the defence and the evidence supporting that position?

 

[17]          Many cases, both in the Supreme Court of Canada and provincial appellate courts, have discussed the trial judge’s duty in charging a jury in a criminal case.  A number of the important cases are reviewed in the majority reasons of Bastarache J. and the dissenting reasons of Fish J. in R. v. Daley, [2007] 3 S.C.R. 523.

 

[18]          The overriding principle is fairness.  To ensure that the accused has a fair trial, two things that a trial judge must ordinarily do, but that this trial judge did not do, are tell the jury the position of the defence and the key evidence supporting that position.  Without these instructions a jury might not appreciate the significance of the evidence from the defence’s perspective:  see Daley at para. 19; Pappajohn v. The Queen, [1980] 2 S.C.R. 120 at p. 126.

 

[19]          The failure of a trial judge to so charge the jury does not always amount to a reversible error.  An appellate court may still be satisfied, after considering the charge as a whole and in the light of the closing arguments and positions of counsel, that the trial judge’s instructions were adequate; or that the Crown’s case was so overwhelming that the trial judge’s failure to instruct the jury on the defence’s position and the evidence supporting it did not result in a miscarriage of justice.

 

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