Facing criminal charges can be stressful. The decision to plead guilty or take your case to trial often comes down to technical issues, such as what evidence is admissible in court and what evidence will be persuasive to a judge or jury. Many people wonder if their criminal record will be admissible in court, and if so, whether it will have an impact on the proceedings.
Under s. 12(1) of the Canada Criminal Evidence Act, any witness may be questioned on whether they have been convicted of prior offences. The evidence may go to credibility but not bad character or propensity to commit crimes. This means that the prosecution cannot introduce prior convictions for the purpose of proving you are more likely to have committed the offence with which you are now charged.
Canadian law generally limits the admissibility of evidence of a person’s prior disreputable conduct that is unrelated to the events before the court. This is known as the rule against bad character evidence. The most significant exception to the rule against bad character evidence is similar fact evidence. This rule allows the prosecution to introduce evidence of prior bad acts committed by the defendant where it is similar enough to the acts being tried and has probative value that outweighs its prejudicial effect. Generally, evidence of this sort will not be admissible where it is tendered merely to show that the defendant has a general propensity to commit the offence in question.
Two important limitations have been placed on the use of an accused’s prior convictions. The first limitation is that the cross-examination of an accused on their criminal record is confined to convictions alone. The second limitation is that they may only be cross-examined on three narrowly circumscribed areas: (1) the offence convicted of; (2) the date and place of the conviction; and (3) the punishment imposed in the wake of the conviction.
But these limitations are not always sufficient to protect against the prejudice that can arise from the trier of fact learning of the accused’s offending past. Accordingly, an accused who wishes to testify will often seek to have their entire criminal record, or at least some convictions, excluded from the Crown’s arsenal for cross-examination. This is where the “Corbett application” comes in. A Corbett application is brought at the end of the Crown’s case and ruled upon before the accused is asked to say whether they will be calling a defence.
If you are facing criminal charges, the experienced criminal defence team at Kitchen Simeson Belliveau will guide you through the process with the goal of achieving your desired results.