Case information

Criminal law — Evidence — Admissibility — Trial — Voir dire — What parameters should be placed on the admission of evidence from blended voir dires into judge alone trials?

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The applicant was stopped by police and arrested on drug trafficking charges. In the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta, the applicant was convicted of four counts of possessing a controlled substance for the purpose of trafficking, one count of unlawfully possessing a controlled substance, and one count of possessing proceeds of crime exceeding $5,000. The applicant appealed his convictions, arguing the trial judge improperly admitted and relied on police surveillance and opinion evidence adduced during a blended voir dire. The Alberta Court of Appeal unanimously dismissed the appeal. A majority court found that the trial judge erred in admitting and relying upon the police opinion evidence, but applied the curative proviso in s. 686(1)(b)(iii) of the Criminal Code as the evidence was so overwhelming that, notwithstanding the error was not minor, conviction was inevitable. Slatter J.A. would have dismissed the appeal because there was no reviewable error, finding no need to resort to the curative proviso.