Welcome to Cases That Should Have Gone to the Supreme Court of Canada, But Didn’t! This week, lawyer Kyla Lee discusses hearsay and identification.
Acumen Law Corporation lawyer Kyla Lee gives her take on a made-in-Canada court case each week and discusses why these cases should have been heard by Canada’s highest court: the Supreme Court of Canada.
Bitupu Mufuta was charged with sexual assault. This was a historic sexual assault alleged to have been committed by him on a student that he was tutoring years and years before the matter came to court.
Ultimately at trial, the issue came down to one of identification. Identification was not able to be made in court but the Crown relied on the identification of Mr. Mufuta that was made outside of court as evidence to support that the person before the court was indeed the person who committed the sexual assault.
The question then became whether that out of court identification was admissible as identification proper or needed to be addressed on the basis of the hearsay evidence test.
The identification was admitted and Mr. Mufuta was convicted.
The Supreme Court of Canada missed the opportunity here to clarify how identity specifically relates to the hearsay rule in cases involving historic allegations of sexual assault perpetrated by strangers or by people who are partially known at that time.
Watch the video for more.
