What is the duty of an appellate court to reassess evidence at trial for the purpose of determining guilt or innocence?
Ontario, Canada
The following excerpt is from R. v. Cavalier Warehousing and Traffic Consultants Ltd., 1983 CanLII 3104 (ON CA):
While an appellate court has neither the duty nor the right to reassess evidence at trial for the purpose of determining guilt or innocence, it is well established that the court does have the duty to review the record in the court below to determine whether it properly directed itself to all of the evidence bearing on the relevant issues and to the relevant issues. Where the record, including the reasons for judgment, discloses, as is the case here, a lack of appreciation or disregard of relevant evidence, and a failure to deal with relevant issues, it falls upon the appellate court to intercede: Harper v. The Queen (1982), 1982 CanLII 11 (SCC), 65 C.C.C. (2d) 193 at p. 210, 133 D.L.R. (3d) 546 at p. 563, [1982] 1 S.C.R. 2 (S.C.C.); MacDonald v. The Queen (1976), 1976 CanLII 140 (SCC), 29 C.C.C. (2d) 257 at p. 263, 68 D.L.R. (3d) 649 at p. 655, [1977] 2 S.C.R. 665 (S.C.C.).
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