Case information

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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 – Charge to jury – Evidence – Post-offence conduct – Whether, where evidence of post-offence conduct forms part of the Crown’s case, the jury must be instructed that they should only draw a “consciousness of guilt” inference based on all of the evidence, and after all of the evidence has been considered – Whether the omission of such an instruction raises a risk that the jury would impermissibly jump directly to the issue of guilt as a precondition to deciding the use they would make of the post-offence conduct evidence, thereby amounting to reversible error and requiring a new trial.

The applicant, Jeffrey Tuck, was convicted after trial by jury of second-degree murder in a stabbing death at a nightclub. He claimed in his defence that the victim was the aggressor, and that he had taken the victim’s knife from him and stabbed him in self-defence.

On appeal, Mr. Tuck argued that the trial judge erred in the course of the trial in revisiting a ruling that excluded prejudicial portions of his statements to the police, and in her instructions with respect to post-offence conduct and the exculpatory portions of his out-of-court statements. The Court of Appeal unanimously dismissed his appeal.