CRIM 330 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Determinative, Willful Blindness, Voir Dire
Document Summary
Part ii: the gathering and admissibility of evidence. The law of criminal procedure is meaningless unless the crown can prove its case and to prove its case the crown requires evidence. Recall that our system is about a qualified search for truth a search for legal truth rather than simply a search for factual truth. An unfettered search for factual truth would mean accepting greater state powers and a corresponding diminishing of individual rights and freedoms. It is when the state has or may have gone too far in gathering evidence (thus violating rights and freedoms) that the question of admissibility of evidence arises . The treatment of evidence that is illegally obtained: context. The legal status of illegally obtained evidence in canada today didn"t arise without a context . Historically under the common law illegally obtained real evidence was admissible at trial: