R. v. Graveline, 2006 SCC 16, [2006] 1 SCR 609

                                                 SUPREME COURT OF CANADA

Between:

Rita Graveline

Appellant

and

Her Majesty The Queen

Respondent

Official English Translation: Reasons of LeBel J.

Coram: McLachlin C.J. and Bastarache, Binnie, LeBel, Fish, Abella and Charron JJ.

______________________________

R. v. Graveline, [2006] 1 S.C.R. 609, 2006 SCC 16

Rita Graveline                                                                                                  Appellant

v.

Her Majesty The Queen                                                                               Respondent

Indexed as:  R. v. Graveline

Neutral citation:  2006 SCC 16.

File No.:  31020.

2006:  March 14; 2006:  April 27.

Present:  McLachlin C.J. and Bastarache, Binnie, LeBel, Fish, Abella and Charron JJ.

on appeal from the court of appeal for quebec

Criminal law — Appeals — Appeal by Crown against verdict of acquittal — Whether Crown met its burden for having jury verdict set aside and new trial ordered — Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. C‑46, s. 676(1) (a).

The accused was charged with the second‑degree murder of her husband.  The only defence advanced by the accused throughout the trial was non‑mental disorder automatism.  In his charge, the trial judge nonetheless opened, as well, for the jury’s consideration, the possibility of an acquittal on the basis that the accused had shot her husband in self‑defence.  The accused was acquitted.  On an appeal by the Crown under s. 676(1) (a) of the Criminal Code , the Court of Appeal, in a majority judgment, set aside the acquittal and ordered a new trial.

Held (LeBel J. dissenting):  The appeal should be allowed and the verdict of acquittal restored.

Per McLachlin C.J. and Bastarache, Binnie, Fish, Abella and Charron JJ.:  An appeal by the Crown under s. 676(1)(a) of the Code cannot succeed on an abstract or purely hypothetical possibility that the accused would have been convicted but for the error of law.  It is the duty of the Crown, in order to obtain a new trial, to satisfy the appellate court that the trial judge’s error might reasonably be thought, in the concrete reality of the case at hand, to have had a material bearing on the acquittal.  The Crown is not required to persuade the court that the verdict would necessarily have been different.  Here, it is conceded by the Crown that the defence of non‑mental disorder automatism was properly put to the jury, and it is conceded by the defence that the evidentiary foundation for the additional defence opened by the trial judge was weak.  There is no suggestion, however, that the errors imputed to the trial judge had any bearing, direct or indirect, on the legality of an acquittal based on the defence of non‑mental disorder automatism.  Rather, the Crown contends that the jury might have acquitted the accused on the ground of self‑defence.  While this alone does not, as a matter of principle, bar a Crown appeal under s. 676(1) (a), a review of the record indicates that the Crown has failed to discharge its “very heavy” burden for having the jury verdict set aside.  In effect, what the Crown seeks is a finding that the jury acquitted on what the Crown characterizes as an unreasonable basis rather than on the reasonable basis that it recognizes to exist. [9] [14] [17-19]

Per LeBel J. (dissenting):  Although an appellate court is necessarily unaware of the basis on which a jury acquitted an accused, it must try to make a reasonable assessment of the impact of the errors on which the prosecution bases its appeal.  In the case at bar, the Crown had sufficient grounds to contest the verdict and seek a new trial.  The trial was seriously tainted because of the way the defences of the accused were presented and because of errors made in the instructions given regarding self‑defence.  The Court of Appeal therefore did not overstep its powers by concluding that it had to intervene because of the apprehended impact of the errors on the assessment of evidence that was common to both defences and on the resulting verdict.  The Crown has discharged its burden, pursuant to the case law, for having an acquittal by a jury set aside. [21-22] [27] [30]

Cases Cited

By Fish J.

Referred to:  R. v. Evans, [1993] 2 S.C.R. 629; Cullen v. The King, [1949] S.C.R. 658; R. v. Morin, [1988] 2 S.C.R. 345; R. v. Sutton, [2000] 2 S.C.R. 595, 2000 SCC 50.

By LeBel J. (dissenting)

R. v. Livermore, [1995] 4 S.C.R. 123; White v. The King, [1947] S.C.R. 268; Vézeau v. The Queen, [1977] 2 S.C.R. 277; R. v. Morin, [1988] 2 S.C.R. 345.

Statutes and Regulations Cited

Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. C‑46, ss. 34(2) , 676(1) (a).

APPEAL from a judgment of the Quebec Court of Appeal (Baudouin, Rousseau‑Houle and Nuss JJ.A.), [2005] R.J.Q. 1662, 200 C.C.C. (3d) 247, [2005] Q.J. No. 7186 (QL), 2005 QCCA 574, setting aside a verdict of acquittal and ordering a new trial.  Appeal allowed, LeBel J. dissenting.

Isabelle Doray, for the appellant.

Denis Pilon and Martin Côté, for the respondent.

The judgment of McLachlin C.J. and Bastarache, Binnie, Fish, Abella and Charron JJ. was delivered by

1                                   Fish J. — The appellant was charged with second-degree murder for having caused the death of her husband on August 10, 1999.  She was acquitted by a jury of that charge (and of the included offence of manslaughter).  On an appeal by the Crown against that verdict, the Court of Appeal for Quebec, in a majority judgment, set aside the appellant’s acquittal by the jury and ordered a new trial ([2005] R.J.Q. 1662, 2005 QCCA 574).  This is an appeal as of right based on the dissent of Rousseau-Houle J.A. in the Court of Appeal.

2                                The appellant’s defence at trial was that she had acted in a state of non-mental disorder automatism.  In this regard, two expert witnesses were called by the defence and one expert was called in reply by the Crown.  All three experts agreed that the appellant had no memory of the shooting.  The defence experts concluded that she had acted in a state of automatism brought on shortly before the shooting by her traumatic relationship with her husband and the surrounding circumstances.  The Crown’s expert was of a different view.  He agreed that the appellant_s amnesia was genuine but, in his opinion, it followed rather than preceded the shooting.

3                                At the very outset of the trial, before any evidence had been called, defence counsel told the jury that he would be leading evidence to establish that the appellant had been the victim of terrible abuse, mental and physical, for some 30 years.  That assertion is amply supported by the evidence and is not in dispute.  Defence counsel stated as well that, as a result of this abuse, the appellant suffered at the time of the shooting from “battered wife syndrome”.  And it is not in dispute that she did.

4                                The trial judge promptly made it clear to counsel and to the jury that “battered wife syndrome_ was not in itself a defence to a criminal charge in Canada.  In this context, he asked whether defence counsel intended to argue that the appellant had acted in self-defence.  Defence counsel responded affirmatively.

5                                   Notwithstanding this initial response by defence counsel, it is common ground that the only defence advanced by the accused throughout the trial was non-mental disorder automatism.  Indeed, we are advised by counsel for both sides that self-defence was not at all in issue in their closing addresses to the jury.

6                                   Bearing in mind the record at trial, Crown counsel quite properly conceded in the Court of Appeal that the defence had met the evidentiary burden with respect to non-mental disorder automatism and that there existed the required evidentiary foundation for the judge to put this defence to the jury.  That concession was reiterated in this Court, where there is no longer any live issue as to the trial judge’s instructions regarding the sole defence advanced by the appellant at trial — non-mental disorder automatism.

7                                   That, however, does not end the matter.  Notwithstanding the Crown’s objection at what appears to have been a conference in chambers, the trial judge, on his own initiative, opened for the jury’s consideration the possibility of an acquittal on the basis that the appellant had shot her husband in self-defence.  On the appeal in this Court, appellant’s counsel (who did not appear at trial) concedes that the evidence of self-defence was weak and was not at all relied upon by the appellant at trial.  Understandably, however, it is the appellant’s submission that there was a sufficient evidentiary basis for the trial judge to open self-defence for the jury’s consideration.

8                                   On its appeal to the Court of Appeal, the Crown invoked two main grounds: first, that there was no evidentiary basis at all for the jury, properly instructed and acting reasonably, to acquit the appellant on the ground that she had acted in self-defence; second, that the trial judge had in any event misdirected the jury with respect to that defence.

9                                   This is an unusual and difficult case in several respects.  The first relates to the respective concessions of counsel.  On the one hand, it is conceded by the Crown that the only defence advanced by the appellant at trial was properly put to the jury by the trial judge.  On the other hand, it is conceded by the appellant that the evidentiary foundation for the additional defence opened by the trial judge was indeed weak.

10                               In this light, the decision of defence counsel not to plead self-defence appears to us not only appropriate, but also strategically sound: first, because there is an inherent risk that advancing a weak defence will detract from a strong defence amply supported by the evidence; second, because the particular defences in issue here — automatism and self-defence — are, as the Crown suggested on the hearing of this appeal, incompatible in theory, though perhaps not always in practice.  That is because self-defence implies deliberate conduct that is at odds with the fundamental premise of automatism, a state of dissociative, involuntary conduct.

11                               The second aspect of this matter which makes it unusual is closely related to the first.  Mindful of his duty to put before the jury any defence upon which the jury might reasonably find in favor of the accused, the trial judge felt bound to open even a weak defence that was conceptually incompatible with the position taken by defence counsel. In the result, putting self-defence to the jury for the benefit of the accused might well, instead, have  impacted adversely on the manifestly stronger defence of automatism upon which the accused had chosen to rely.

12                               The appeal is unusual in a third and critical regard.

13                               In many jurisdictions, as Cory J. observed in R. v. Evans, [1993] 2 S.C.R. 629, at p. 645, the state has no right of appeal against the acquittal of an accused at trial.  That is not so in Canada.  Section 676(1) (a) of the Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-46 , provides that the Attorney General may appeal to the Court of Appeal _against a judgment or verdict of acquittal ... on any ground of appeal that involves a question of law alone_.

14                               It has been long established, however, that an appeal by the Attorney General cannot succeed on an abstract or purely hypothetical possibility that the accused would have been convicted but for the error of law.  Something more must be shown.  It is the duty of the Crown in order to obtain a new trial to satisfy the appellate court that the error (or errors) of the trial judge might reasonably be thought, in the concrete reality of the case at hand, to have had a material bearing on the acquittal.  The Attorney General is not required, however, to persuade us that the verdict would necessarily have been different.

15                               This burden on the Crown, unchanged for more than half a century (see  Cullen v. The King, [1949] S.C.R. 658), was explained this way by Sopinka J., for the majority, in R. v. Morin, [1988] 2 S.C.R. 345:

I am prepared to accept that the onus is a heavy one and that the Crown must satisfy the court with a reasonable degree of certainty. An accused who has been acquitted once should not be sent back to be tried again unless it appears that the error at the first trial was such that there is a reasonable degree of certainty that the outcome may well have been affected by it. Any more stringent test would require an appellate court to predict with certainty what happened in the jury room. That it cannot do. [p. 374]

16                               Speaking more recently for a unanimous court in R. v. Sutton, [2000] 2 S.C.R. 595, 2000 SCC 50, the Chief Justice stated:

The parties agree that acquittals are not lightly overturned.  The test as set out in Vézeau v. The Queen, [1977] 2 S.C.R. 277, requires the Crown to satisfy the court that the verdict would not necessarily have been the same had the errors not occurred.  In R. v. Morin, [1988] 2 S.C.R. 345, this Court emphasized that _the onus is a heavy one and that the Crown must satisfy the court with a reasonable degree of certainty_ (p. 374). [para. 2]

17                               Generally, the errors alleged by the Crown in appealing against an acquittal go to the defence or defences upon which the accused relied at trial. For that reason, the impact of the errors on the verdict, if error is shown, will not be a mere matter of speculation.  Hence, the third unusual feature of this case: as mentioned earlier, there is no suggestion here that the errors imputed to the trial judge had any bearing, direct or indirect, on the legality of an acquittal based on the defence advanced by the accused — non-mental disorder automatism.

18                               The Crown argues, rather, that the jury might instead have acquitted the appellant on the ground of self-defence.  The error alleged in this regard relates, as we have seen, to an alternative defence put to the jury by the trial judge on his own motion. As a matter of principle, this alone does not bar a Crown appeal. On the Crown’s view of the present matter, however, there is no reasonable basis in the evidence for that defence.  In effect, we are thus urged by the Crown to find that the jury acquitted on what the Crown characterizes as an unreasonable basis rather than on the reasonable basis that is recognized by the Crown to exist.

19                               After a careful review of the record and consideration of counsels’ full and able submissions, we have concluded that the Crown has failed to discharge its “very heavy” burden in this regard.

20                               The appeal is therefore allowed and the verdict of the jury is restored.

English version of the reasons delivered by

21                               LeBel J. (dissenting) — I have read the reasons of my colleague Fish J.  With respect, I disagree with his analysis and the conclusion he proposes.  In my opinion, the Quebec Court of Appeal adopted the appropriate solution in this difficult and distressing case by setting aside the appellant’s acquittal and ordering a new trial ([2005] R.J.Q. 1662, 2005 QCCA 574).  Despite the problems this solution causes for the parties and witnesses, and notwithstanding the deference that appellate courts must show in reviewing acquittals, there are cases in which appellate courts must intervene.  This is one such case.

22                               The trial now being considered by this Court was, as a whole, seriously tainted because of the way the defences were presented and because of errors made in the instructions given regarding one of them, namely self‑defence.  In the circumstances, the Crown had sufficient grounds to contest the verdict and seek a new trial.  As the Court of Appeal concluded, the Crown has discharged its burden, pursuant to this Court’s case law, for having an acquittal by a jury set aside.

23                               In the case at bar, two different, incompatible defences were put to the jury:  automatism, and self‑defence under s. 34(2)  of the Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. C‑46 .  The first was raised by the lawyer who was representing the respondent at the time of the trial and the second by the judge on his own initiative.

24                               To associate fundamentally inconsistent defences like automatism and self‑defence with each other entails serious risks for the proper conduct of the trial, the assessment of the facts and the determination of the parties’ legal situation by the jury.  These problems remain even if circumstances arise in which facts that are part of a single body of evidence can be used alternately to support either of these two defences and in which caution and a concern for justice would require that the judge leave it to the jury to assess them.  Nor do I underestimate the difficulties the judge faces as a result of the conflict between the rules that govern a trial conducted by the parties in an adversarial system and the principles developed by the courts that require the judge to submit to the jury all defences to which the evidence lends an “air of reality”.  These constraints increase the risk of error, and the consequences of the unfortunate materialization of that risk in the case at bar must now be assessed.

25                               In the instant case, counsel for the accused presented a defence of automatism, with all its strengths and weaknesses, to the court of assize.  At the beginning of the trial, counsel had indicated that he also intended to argue self‑defence, but he said no more about this.  The trial judge nevertheless put that defence to the jury on his own initiative.  He decided to do so even though, as Nuss J.A. found, the available evidence did not lend even an “air of reality” to some of the principal elements of that very particular defence.  Moreover, the judge undeniably misdirected the jurors regarding the defence.  All he did, in essence, was tell them that they had to acquit the accused if they believed her.  He said nothing about the subjective and objective aspects of the defence.  Self‑defence was thus submitted to the jurors, without the necessary factual basis and after inadequate instructions had been given, together with the defence of automatism.

26                               This Court, like the Quebec Court of Appeal, is necessarily unaware of the basis on which the jury acquitted the appellant.  While a judge sitting alone must give reasons to ensure that the bases of his or her decisions are transparent, the desire to protect jurors’ independence and freedom of decision requires that jury deliberations be secret and precludes juries from giving reasons for their verdicts.  In these circumstances, appellate courts are not permitted to probe into the hearts and minds of jurors, nor are they in a position to do so.  The verdict simply states a conclusion.  The jurors accepted one defence or the other.  Unless, on occasion, a question that happens to be put to the judge provides insight into a jury’s concerns or the direction it may be taking, appellate courts do not know which defence was accepted or what weight the jurors may have assigned to one defence rather than another.

27                               However, notwithstanding the traditional respect for acquittals in the Canadian criminal justice system, the Criminal Code , by the clearly expressed intention of Parliament, gives the Crown limited rights of appeal.  Thus, rights of appeal do exist and acquittals are not necessarily sacrosanct.  An appellate court must therefore try to make a reasonable assessment of the impact of the errors on which the prosecution bases its appeal.

28                               To that end, the courts have made an effort to define the scope and limits of an appellate court’s powers of intervention.  While not intending to sterilize this form of appeal, they have nonetheless imposed what is generally characterized as a heavy burden on the prosecution.  In a very good summary of the approach taken in this Court’s decisions on this subject, McLachlin J. (as she then was) described that burden as follows:

It remains to consider whether a new trial should be ordered notwithstanding the acquittal at trial.  The test for setting aside an acquittal and directing a new trial was set out by Sopinka J. in R. v. Morin, [1988] 2 S.C.R. 345, at p. 374:

An accused who has been acquitted once should not be sent back to be tried again unless it appears that the error at the first trial was such that there is a reasonable degree of certainty that the outcome may well have been affected by it.

In this case, we have no way of knowing whether the jury acquitted because it had a reasonable doubt about whether Valerie consented, or whether it acquitted on the basis of a defence which should not have been left with it.  The cumulative effect of the numerous errors in this case is such that the Morin test is made out.  Absent the significant errors at trial, a reasonable jury properly charged may well have reached a different verdict.  I would allow the appeal, set aside the acquittal and direct a new trial.

(R. v. Livermore, [1995] 4 S.C.R. 123, at paras. 23‑24)

29                               In this kind of analysis, absent actual knowledge of what transpired during the jury’s deliberations, any conclusion will for the most part be speculative or hypothetical.  What must be done is to weigh the seriousness of the errors and make a careful judgment as to their effect on the jury’s deliberations in order to determine whether it is possible that the verdict would not have been the same.  It cannot be proved that it would necessarily have been different, nor is that the onus that is imposed on the Crown by a consistent line of cases (see White v. The King, [1947] S.C.R. 268; Vézeau v. The Queen, [1977] 2 S.C.R. 277; R. v. Morin, [1988] 2 S.C.R. 345; Livermore).

30                               In the case at bar, the two defences were connected and associated with the same facts, and the judge, who is master of the law in relation to the jury, put them both to the jury after an erroneous charge and without a sufficient factual basis for one of them.  I do not believe that an appellate court would then have overstepped its powers or erred in its application of the decisions of this Court by concluding that it had to intervene because of the apprehended impact of that error on the assessment of evidence that was common to both defences and on the resulting verdict.

31                               Short of eliminating the Crown’s right of appeal in cases of this nature, there are functions that appellate courts cannot abdicate despite the problems resulting from the manner in which juries make decisions.  It must also be recognized that the appeal function is an important component of a legal system whose purpose is to ensure that the rules of criminal procedure and evidence are properly applied.  The accused has a right to a fair trial in accordance with the substantive and procedural rules of criminal law and the principles of the Constitution.  The Crown, which represents the state and the public interest in the proper administration of the criminal law, has the same right.  It is that right that is protected by the existence of an appeal function, which must be performed with care, but firmly, when the need arises.  That was the case here, and that was the duty performed by the Court of Appeal when it rendered the judgment a quo.  I would therefore have dismissed the appeal.

Appeal allowed, LeBel J. dissenting.

Solicitors for the appellant:  Soulière Lapointe Doray Michaud Lamoureux, Montréal.

Solicitor for the respondent:  Deputy Attorney General of Quebec, Gatineau, Quebec.