Case information

Criminal law — Charge to jury — Defences — Self defence — Applicant convicted of aggravated assault and possession of weapon for dangerous purpose — Whether a jury must be unanimous that at least one and the same of the elements of self defence is not made out, or whether it is enough that, while not unanimous about any of the three elements of self defence, an aggregate of twelve jurors are satisfied that Crown has negated one of the three elements — When a defence is properly advanced at trial, whether the elements of that defence are analogous to the elements of an offence in the sense that they fall within the ambit of matters subject to the doctrines of proof beyond reasonable doubt and juror unanimity — Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. C 46, s. 34

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Mr. Randhawa admitted to stabbing a number of people during a bar brawl, but claimed he had acted in self defence. At his jury trial, the key issue was whether the Crown had disproved beyond a reasonable doubt all three elements of the defence of self defence. In his instructions to the jurors, the trial judge indicated that “[i]t does not matter” if they did “not all agree” on which element of the defence of self defence had been disproved. Mr. Randhawa was convicted of five counts of aggravated assault and one count of possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose.

On appeal, Mr. Randhawa argued that the trial judge erred in his jury instructions, and that he ought to have indicated that jury unanimity was required with respect to which one of the three elements of the defence of self defence had been disproved, in order to sustain a conviction. Otherwise, the possibility existed that the jurors could have rejected the defence of self defence even though they were not unanimous about the third element — i.e., whether Mr. Randhawa’s conduct was “reasonable”. The Court of Appeal unanimously dismissed Mr. Randhawa’s appeal.