The appellant, Akshay Prasad, sought to reopen his appeal from conviction for cocaine trafficking, based on fresh expert evidence concerning the unreliability of digitally enhanced audio recordings and transcripts due to "priming" and listener bias.
The Court of Appeal for Ontario dismissed the motion, finding the proposed expert evidence inadmissible at trial as it was not necessary and usurped the trier of fact's role.
The court also found the evidence not cogent and that due diligence was not met for its admission as fresh evidence on appeal, concluding there was no clear and compelling case of a miscarriage of justice to warrant reopening the appeal.
