R. v. Bardales, 1996 CanLII 213 (SCC), [1996] 2 SCR 461

minicounsel

Roger Alfredo Bardales Appellant

Her Majesty The Queen Respondent

Indexed as: R. v. Bardales

File No.: 25001.

1996: June 21.

Present: Sopinka, Gonthier, Cory, McLachlin and Major JJ.

on appeal from the court of appeal for british columbia

Criminal law ‑‑ Trial ‑‑ Charge to jury ‑‑ Identification ‑‑ Trial judge properly charging jury with respect to special need for caution in considering identification evidence.

APPEAL from a judgment of the British Columbia Court of Appeal (1995), 1995 CanLII 2518 (BC CA), 101 C.C.C. (3d) 289, 65 B.C.A.C. 241, 106 W.A.C. 241, dismissing the accused’s appeal from his convictions for attempted murder and for threatening. Appeal dismissed.

Peter J. Wilson, for the appellant.

Gregory J. Fitch, for the respondent.

The judgment of the Court was delivered orally by

Judgment

1Sopinka J. ‑‑ This is an appeal as of right. The trial judge properly charged the jury with respect to the special need for caution in considering identification evidence. In dealing with the circumstances surrounding the identification, the trial judge referred to recognition as a factor. In view of the express caution with respect to acceptance of identification evidence generally, failure to specifically repeat the warning with respect to recognition did not constitute an error in this case. With respect to the specific weaknesses in the evidence relied on by the appellant we are of the view that the charge was adequate. In our view, in all the circumstances, the jury was sufficiently alerted to these weaknesses.