Demystifying Proof Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

Welcome back to our YouTube channel.  I want to talk to you about a fundamentally important principle of Canadian criminal law. And that is the concept of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Now, what does it mean? Well, first of all, this is probably the second most fundamental principle of importance in Canadian criminal law. The first one being presumption of innocence. You should watch that video by the way, they’re very closely connected and they’re very, very similar. I’ll call it 1 and 1(a) day. So what does it mean? I’ll give you some examples. And there’s a case called Liftjus from the Supreme Court of Canada, which explains pretty well, but I can give you some examples and talk a little bit about it. So first of all, let’s pretend it’s not a criminal case, but it’s a civil lawsuit in Canada. Well in a civil lawsuit, the burden is on the plaintiff to prove to a balance of probability. In other words, more likely than not, the defendant caused an injury for example, or is liable for this lawsuit. So the scales of justice are like this and a civil suit.  Well, the plaintiff just has to tip it a little bit down. Oh, better than 50%. More likely than not. That isn’t even close to the criminal burden. In a criminal case, the Crown Attorney has to tip the scales all the way down beyond a reasonable doubt. Now that’s a very heavy and powerful burden. Now, it’s not to a mathematical certainty or a moral absolute certainty that would be you know, crazy to have proof for that. But I can tell you this, the case law says this, proof beyond a reasonable doubt is far closer to mathematical certainty. In other words, all the way down to the bottom than it is to probability, far closer. You know, it’s approaching, it gets there. Now, we’re not talking about just mere speculative, I mean, you know, you’re sitting there conjuring up some reasonable doubts that don’t exist. You know, it’s real, reasonable doubts, there’s no question about that. And this is a very powerful thing. I mean, we talked in Canada about the importance, presumption of innocence and, you know, you never want to convict an innocent person. You know, better to have 1000 guilty people go free, than convict one innocent person, and this is why we have these principles here. We don’t live in Russia, where they have show trials or we’re, you know, communist country, we have these fundamental principles, and it’s so important. So, you know, jurors, it’s such a powerful thing to tell the jury, you know, we can tell the jury about reasonable doubt and that they, if there’s any lingering reasonable doubt they have to acquit and this is why we can win so many criminal trials. And you know, oh, people don’t like that a lot of people will comment, oh, this is crazy. We’re letting go guilty people go free. Well, the thing is, we’re not convicting innocent people. That’s the key. That is the absolute key. And that’s the importance of these two fundamental principles, presumption of innocence, and the burden on the crown to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt, pushing those skills almost all the way down far closer to moral or absolute or mathematical certainty, than that, that lawsuit here in the middle. Okay, well, there you have it. A little primer on proof beyond reasonable doubt. Thank you for watching our video. We are absolutely committed to bringing you the best possible criminal and DUI educational videos. If you found this video helpful, please like it and subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you’ve been charged with a criminal offense and Ontario and require our services, please click on the link in the description below.