CHAPTER 10
CONFESSIONS AND SELF-INCRIMINATION
I. Confessions and Admissions of the Accused:Overview ................
II. Conceptual Background: The Principle Against Self-Incrimination .......
III. The Common Law Confessions Rule ................................
A. Overview.....................................................
B. Scope of Application ...........................................
1. Who Is a Person in Authority? ................................
2. Persons in Authority: Examples ...............................
3. Persons Not in Authority: Examples ...........................
C. Voluntariness .................................................
1. Threats and Inducements....................................
(A) Overview...............................................
(B) The Nature of Police Interrogation ........................
(C) What Counts as a Prohibited Threat or Promise? ............
2. Oppressive Circumstances ...................................
3. Operating Mind ............................................
4. Other Police Trickery........................................
D. The Role of the Police Caution ..................................
E. Derived Confessions ...........................................
F. Corroborated Confessions......................................
G. “Mr Big” Confessions...........................................
1. Overview ..................................................
2. Admissibility ...............................................
(A) Scope of Application ....................................
(B) The Admissibility Determination...........................
(C) Abuse of Process........................................
3. Jury Instructions on “Mr Big” Confessions......................
H. Residual Discretion to Exclude ..................................
I. Jury Instructions Where a Confession Is Admitted..................
J. Procedure and Proof...........................................
1. Waiver of the Voir Dire ......................................
2. Mechanics of Proving Voluntariness...........................
3. Combined or Blended Voir Dires..............................
4. Editing Confessions .........................................
417
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I. CONFESSIONS AND ADMISSIONS OF THE
ACCUSED:OVERVIEW
In one sense, an accused is like any other par ty to a court proceeding, civil or cr im-
inal: their out-of-court utterances are admissible at the ins tance of the opposing
party. Whether viewed as an exception to the hear say rule or a stand-alone basis for
admission,1 out-of-court statements of a party are routin ely received into evidence
without any special inquir y into admission. The fact that they are against interest (which
can be presumed if the opposi ng party wants to tender the m) is seen as an adequate
proxy for reliability. This gener ally holds true in criminal trials w here an accused’s out-
of-court statements to civilian witnesses a re concerned.
1 Rv Evans, [1993] 3 SCR 653 at 664, S opinka J.
5. Recording Police Interviews..................................
6. Admissibility of Expert Evidence on False Confessions ...........
7. Appellate Review of Admissibility .............................
IV. The Section Right to Pre-Trial Silence ..............................
A. Overview.....................................................
B. Scope and Limits of the Right ...................................
1. The “Agency” Requirement...................................
2. The “Elicitation” Requirement ................................
C. Continued Questioning in the Face of an AssertedRighttoSilence...
D. Other Applications of the Right..................................
V. Prior Testimony and the Privilege AgainstSelf-Incrimination ............
VI. Residual Protections Against Self-Incrimination Under Section ........
A. Overview.....................................................
B. Derivative Use Immunity........................................
C. Protection Against Incriminating Use of Statutorily
Compelled Statements .........................................
VII. Youth Statements.................................................
A. Youth Criminal Justice Act, Section : An Overview ..............
B. Person in Authority ............................................
C. Upon Arrest or Detention, or Where Reasonable Grounds Exist to
BelievetheYoung Person Committed an Offence..................
D. What Information Should the Police Convey to a Young Person
onArrestorDetention? ........................................
E. Voluntariness .................................................
F. Requirements of Section () .................................
1. Information ................................................
2. Implementation ............................................
G. Waiver .......................................................
418 MODERN CRIMINAL EVIDENCE
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Where the state becomes involved in the creation of such evid ence, however, the
picture changes dramatically. The p rospect of state coercion in the production of
self-incriminating evidence brings about the ne ed for safeguards to protect the truth-
seeking function of the tria l and the individual rights of the accused. Accordingly, where
state power is engaged, out-of-court statements by the a ccused are accorded special
treatment in Canadian law under a num ber of partially overlappin g rules derived from
both the common law and the Charter.
The common law confessions rule provid es that no statement of the accused to a
person in authority is a dmissible at the instance of the Crown unless the Crown proves
on a voir dire, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the stateme nt was voluntary. Although it
historically focused on whether th e accused confessed in response to threats or prom-
ises, the confessions rule is today focused m ore broadly with the subject’s right “ to
make a meaningful choice whether to spea k to state authorities.”2
Charter protections like the s 7 right to silence and the s1 3 right against subse-
quent use of incriminating testimony provi de additional potential routes to exclusion.
In this context, however, the burden of proof is on the accused to demon strate both an
infringement and an entitleme nt to a remedy. While these are primari ly rules of consti-
tutional law and criminal procedure, r ather than evidence, they interact with the law of
evidence in both theory an d practice.
II. CONCEPTUAL BACKGROUND: THE PRINCIPLE AGAINST
SELF-INCRIMINATION
The common law of evidence and the Ch arter each give rise to a number of doctrin es
that qualify the ability of th e Crown to rely on the accused’s out-of-court statements as
proof of guilt. While each of these has a discrete origi n and rationale, the Supreme Court
has consistently affirmed that the y share a common substrate: the principle against self-
incrimination.3 Understan ding the scope and nature of this underly ing principle at the
outset should therefore assist in tr acing its various specific manifestations.
The principle against se lf-incrimination is a “genera l organizing principle of the crim-
inal law.” As succinctly formulated by Lamer CJ:
Any state action that coerce s an individual to furnish evid ence against him- or herself in a p ro-
ceeding in which the ind ividual and the state are adver saries violates the princip le against self-
incrimination. Coe rcion, it should be noted, means the de nial of free and informed consent.4
Most obviously and directly, Charter s11(c) entrenches th e ancient common law rule
that an accused cannot be compelled as a w itness at their own trial. The org anizing
principle against self-incrimination al so helps inform the content of specific Char ter
rights, like the s10(b) right to couns el and the s13 rig ht against subsequent use of
compelled incriminatory testimony, and also provides residual protection as a principle
of fundamental justice unde r s7. Its purpose is (at least) two-fold: to mitigate the risk of
unreliable confessions and to prevent abuse s of power by the state.5
2 Rv Singh, 2007 SCC 48, [2007] 3 SCR 405 at pa ra 35.
3 Singh, ibid at para 21, Charron J.
4 Rv Jones, [1994] 2 SCR 229 at 249, Lamer CJ.
5 Rv White, [1999] 2 SCR 417, Iacobucci J; ibid at 250-51, Lame r CJ.
Chapter 10 Confessions and Self-Incrimination 419
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