Case information

None.

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 - Second degree murder - Intoxication - Charge to the jury - Whether the trial judge failed to adequately instruct the jury on the issue of the effect of intoxication on the Appellant’s ability to foresee the consequences of his actions, and therefore on the specific intent required for a murder conviction - Whether the trial judge failed to adequately instruct the jury as to the requirement for proof beyond a reasonable doubt in that he failed to expressly link this requirement to the issue of credibility, and, in particular had failed to charge the jury in terms of R. v. W. (D.), in light of the fact that the Appellant had testified.

On the evening of April 23, 2004, Wayne Daley and his partner Teanda Manchur went out partying. They had drinks at a friend’s house and then they went bowling with their friends. The couple and most of the others then went to a local bar, drank until it closed and finally returned to the couple’s home around 4 a.m. After more drinking and socializing in the couple’s garage, Mr. Daley and a friend rode off on motorcycles in search of another party. Mr. Daley returned around five in the morning. The house was locked and neighbours heard him cursing and trying to get into the house and his vehicles which were parked around the house. The next morning Ms. Manchur was found by her sister-in-law lying in a pool of blood in the kitchen and dining area of the house, dead from a stab wound and naked from the waist down. Mr. Daley was found drunk in a bedroom. He was charged with first degree murder.

Mr. Daley was convicted by a jury of the second degree murder of Teanda Manchur. On appeal, the majority of the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal. Smith J.A., dissenting, would have allowed the appeal, set aside the jury’s verdict and ordered a new trial on the basis that the trial judge failed to instruct adequately the jury on the issue of the effect of intoxication on the accused’s ability to foresee the consequences of his actions, and therefore on the specific intent required for a murder conviction and that it was incumbent on the trial judge to instruct the jury that the rule of reasonable doubt applied to the issue of credibility.