Voir dire to determine admissibility of in-dock identification. Defence sought a ruling excluding dock ID evidence, given various frailties.
Held: Some dock ID evidence inadmissible.
Dock identification evidence is presumptively admissible, even though it is frail and often given negligible weight. Concerns about the reliability of dock identification generally go to weight, rather than exclusion. However, in some situations “the inherent frailty of in-dock identification is exacerbated to the point that the admission of the evidence, as stated by Rosenberg JA ‘would only serve to confuse the jury’: Holmes, [2002] OJ No 4178 (CA); Tebo, [2003] OJ No 1853 (CA). In this case, ID evidence of two eyewitnesses was admissible. However, dock ID from a third witness was “clearly affected by the trial process” and seeing the accused in the prisoner’s box; for that witness, the prejudicial effect exceeded the probative value and dock ID was inadmissible.
B. Beresh – Defence Counsel