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Criminal - Appeal - Inconsistent Verdict. R. v. Rouse
In R. v. Rouse (Ont CA, 2024) the Ontario Court of Appeal considered an issue of 'inconsistent verdict':[3] We do not accept the appellant’s submission that the verdicts are inconsistent. When assessing whether one verdict is inconsistent with another, our task is to consider whether the verdicts are irreconcilable, such that no reasonable trier of fact, properly instructed, could possibly have rendered them on the evidence. What at first blush may appear to be inconsistent verdicts can be reconciled on the basis that the offences themselves are “temporally distinct, or are qualitatively different, or dependent on the credibility of different complainants or witnesses”: R. v. Pittiman, 2006 SCC 9, [2006] 1 S.C.R. 381, at paras. 8-10; R. v. R.V., 2021 SCC 10, [2021] 1 S.C.R. 131, at paras. 29-30.
[4] Here, the evidence of the appellant’s knowledge of and control over the proceeds of crime was compelling. The $44,500 in cash seized by the police was located in a black duffel bag in the front passenger footwell of the vehicle that the appellant occupied; the appellant was observed by a police officer exiting the front passenger seat of that vehicle and repeatedly ringing the doorbell and knocking at the door of a residence where, it was agreed, he was unknown to the occupants; the trial judge found that there was no reasonable explanation for this conduct other than he was urgently trying to flee from police; and, when detained by the officer, $4,025 cash was found in the appellant’s pants pocket.
[5] With respect to the drug count, the evidence of the appellant’s knowledge and control was indisputably weaker. Unlike the cash, which was in plain view in the front passenger side footwell of the vehicle, the trial judge had no direct evidence about the location of the cocaine before the appellant’s co-accused retrieved it and threw it out the window. The only affirmative evidence on this point came from the co-accused, whose evidence was rejected by the trial judge. As such, and unlike with the cash, the appellant’s joint possession of the cocaine was not the only reasonable inference available on the evidence. The verdicts are not inconsistent.
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