What Must Prosecutor Prove When Charged With a Crime In BC?

The main aim of the court system is to find out if a person charged is in fact guilty of the charge. The person charged does not have to prove a thing. The Prosecutor has to prove the person charged is guilty. Until the person charged has been proved guilty that person is innocent. And on top of that the prosecutor has to prove that a person charged is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

A trial of a charge is an inquiry into what happened. That inquiry is mostly persons telling the court what they saw and heard at the event and whom they saw and heard it from. These persons are called witnesses. There can also be photographs, maps, drawings and other documents. These are also marked and explained by witnesses, often experts. Such photographs, maps, drawings and other documents can be helpful to explain the surroundings of the event and they are often helpful to explain why what the witness says is likely true or not true.

The person who is charged is provided an opportunity to test what every witness says. To test what the witness says is a special job. It takes thought, experience and logic to test the evidence from each witness. This is not a job for amateurs. And it usually takes a skilled lawyer to test that evidence. For example the photographs may show that the witness could not have heard what he said he heard because he was in a place where it could not be heard. It is one thing to discover such an impossibility but it is another to show it to the court. That takes expertise.

Often it is just as important to leave out evidence as it is to test it. To learn what must be left out from a charge and the events, the charge and the events have to be looked at carefully and an expert has to think about what it may mean to put some evidence in and to leave some out. It may be that evidence should be kept out but then there has to be found a way to keep it out. Expertise and experience can help make the right decisions here. There is also an idea that not all evidence should be used against a person charged. That is because some evidence was gotten in a tainted manner and it is unfair to use that.

The people of Canada think that not all evidence that has been collected should be used to prove charges. Some evidence has been collected in a poor manner. That happens often when the police ignore or break the rights of every Canadian to be treated with respect; even though they are a suspect in a crime. The rights of every Canadian to be treated with respect are set out in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The idea of the Charter is that it sets out the rules of respect for every person. If those rules of respect are broken the evidence collected by breaking the rules of respect is tainted and the court may not listen to it.