To What Extent does a Judge Need to Expound upon Witness Credibility in a Judge-Alone Trial?

A trial judge’s reasons cannot be read or analyzed as if they were an instruction to a jury.

R. v. Morrissey (1995), 1995 CanLII 3498 (ON CA),

An appellate court tasked with determining whether a trial judge gave sufficient reasons must follow a functional approach.

 R. v. Sheppard, 2002 SCC 26 (CanLII), [2002] 1 S.C.R. 869, at para. 55. 

An appeal based on insufficient reasons “will only be allowed where the trial judge’s reasons are so deficient that they foreclose meaningful appellate review”.

R. v. Dinardo, 2008 SCC 24 (CanLII),  [2008] 1 S.C.R. 788, at para. 25.

The sufficiency of the reasons should be considered in light of the deference afforded to trial judges on credibility findings.  Rarely will the deficiencies in the trial judge’s credibility analysis, as expressed in the reasons for judgment, merit intervention on appeal.  Nevertheless, a failure to sufficiently articulate how credibility concerns were resolved may constitute reversible error.

See R. v. Braich, [2002] 1 S.C.R. 903, 2002 SCC 27 (CanLII), at para. 23. 

The accused is entitled to know “why the trial judge is left with no reasonable doubt”.

R. v. Gagnon, [2006] 1 S.C.R. 621, 2006 SCC 17 (CanLII), at para. 26

A trial judge’s failure to explain why he rejected an accused’s plausible denial of the charges does not mean the reasons are deficient as long as the reasons generally demonstrate that, where the complainant’s evidence and the accused’s evidence conflicted, the trial judge accepted the complainant’s evidence. No further explanation for rejecting the accused’s evidence is required as the convictions themselves raise a reasonable inference that the accused’s denial failed to raise a reasonable doubt.

R. v. Vuradin, [2013] 2 SCR 639, 2013 SCC 38 (CanLII), at para. 13 summarizing R. v. R.E.M., 2008 SCC 51 (CanLII), [2008] 3 S.C.R. 3, at para. 7.

[Note, however, that in R.E.M., the trial court gave reasons why it accepted the evidence of the complainant: namely, the complainant was truthful, credible, and her evidence was not seriously challenged].

The core question in determining whether the trial judge’s reasons are sufficient is the following: Do the reasons, read in context, show why the judge decided as he did on the counts relating to the complainant?

R. v. Vurdin, at para. 15.

A trial judge is not required to recite the rule set out in W. (D.), provided the reasons demonstrated he/she had seized the substance of the critical issue of a reasonable doubt in the context of a credibility assessment.

See R. v. Dinardo.

In R. v. Yeung, 2017 ONCA 190, the trial court’s acceptance of a Crown witness’s evidence (which was corroborated by various circumstantial evidence) necessarily compelled the rejection of the accused’s evidence. The trial court was therefore not required in its reasons to go through the formalities of expounding the application W.(D.) rule.

As the Court noted, “It is not necessary to recite the R. v. W.(D.) [1991] 1 SCR 742 mantra in every case.”

R. v. Yeung, at para. 7.