Summary

Keywords

Criminal law.

Summary

Case summaries are prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch). Please note that summaries are not provided to the Judges of the Court. They are placed on the Court file and website for information purposes only.

Criminal law – Jury charge – Curative proviso – Vetrovec caution – Whether jury charge was confusing and misled the jury on critical issue of whether witness had a perceived self interest in implicating the applicant in the murder of the deceased – Need for a clear instruction on the issue of whether the Vetrovec witness had to have a perceived self interest as opposed to a self interest from an objective perspective – Application of s. 686(1)(b)(iii) of the Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1985, c 46.

A man was fatally shot from a car. The identity of the shooter was in issue at trial. Michael Sanche, a drug dealer with a criminal record and a drug user, was arrested. He gave a statement to the police identifying the applicant as the shooter, in exchange for release and having a murder charge against him dropped. At trial, he testified that the statement was true. The Crown’s case also included testimony from another unsavoury witness. The jury charge included a Vetrovec warning.