This blog post is an excerpt from Bench Press in the March/April 2012 issue of LawNow magazine. To view the magazine and subscribe please go to www.lawnow.org.
An Ontario man will get a “do-over” of his criminal trial after the trial judge made a small but crucial error of speech.
Madame Justice Faye McWatt of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice was instructing a jury about the importance of the presumption of innocence just before they left the courtroom to consider their verdict. She said “It is only defeated if, and when, the Crown counsel has satisfied you beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Guilty – I’m sorry, Mr. Wilson – is guilty of the crime charged.”
Mr. Wilson’s counsel was not amused when the jury found her client guilty. She filed an appeal, and noted “The trial judge erred in failing to order a mistrial or provide a curative instruction after mistakenly referring to the appellant as Mr. Guilty.”
The appeal will be held later this year.