Authored and annotated by a renowned criminal law authority, Watt's Manual of Criminal Evidence 2020 is the single most reliable resource you can turn to for the answers to evidentiary questions. Designed like an annotated statute, all the statutory rules of evidence are addressed, followed by case law annotations for the Canada Evidence Act and also for selected evidentiary sections of the Criminal Code, Youth Criminal Justice Act, and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

New in this edition

Supreme Court of Canada Cases

• R. v. Barton, 2019 SCC — The defence of honest but mistaken belief in communicated consent requires that the accused honestly believed that the complainant had affirmatively communicated agreement to engage in the activity in question, effectively saying yes through words or actions
• R. v. Calnen, 2019 SCC — As a general rule, the absence of supporting physical evidence does not make an inference from evidence of after the fact conduct speculative
• R. v. J.M., 2019 SCC — Failure to attend a trial is not presumptively after the fact conduct rather, its admissibility must be determined on a case-by-case basis
• R. v. Le, 2019 SCC — Although the implied license doctrine allows the police to proceed from the street to the door of a house to facilitate convenient communication with an occupant, it does not permit entry into the backyard of the occupant's home
• R. v. R.V., 2019 SCC — § 669.2 of the Criminal Code does not displace the general rule that a trial judge has the discretion to reconsider rulings made earlier in the proceedings if there were a material change in circumstances this discretion to reconsider applies to rulings made under § 276
• R. v. Goldfinch 2019 SCC 38, 2019 CSC 38 — This case provides guidance on the admissibility of evidence under § 276 of Code. In this case, the evidence that the accused sought to admit under § 276(1) was barred because it served no purpose other than to support inference that because complainant had consented in past, she was more likely to have consented on the night in question. Although accused successfully demonstrated that evidence was of specific instances of sexual activity, he failed to establish that evidence was relevant to issue at trial

Court of Appeal Cases

• Artin c. R., 2019 QCCA — Especially in the absence of evidence concerning why a witness was not called, the possibility of drawing an adverse inference from such failure must be limited to exceptional circumstances
• R. v. Ball, 2019 BCCA — The trial judge must instruct the jury not to use evidence adduced of the accused’s bad character to find the accused to be the type of person having the propensity to commit the offence, unless such evidence were central and inextricably linked to the motive or mechanism of the offence
• R v. Chafe, 2019 ONCA — Recognition evidence, which is subject to the same frailties and risks as other forms of identification evidence, requires the same level of assessment from the trier of fact
• R. v. Nurse, 2019 ONCA — Evidence of non-verbal conduct intended or inferred to be an assertion is subject to the application of the hearsay rule
• R. v. Okemow, 2019 MBCA — Whereas an adverse witness is a witness who is opposed in interest or position to the party calling that witness, a hostile witness is one who demonstrates an antagonistic attitude or hostile mind towards the party calling him or her