Simon's Legal Resources

Evidence - 'Profile Reasoning'

. R. v. Dent

In R. v. Dent (Ont CA, 2023) the Court of Appeal considered the issue of 'profile reasoning' in this criminal appeal:

[70] To be sure, it is unfortunate that the trial judge spoke of the “profile” of the perpetrator and of the suspects. This term conjures up the investigative practice of “criminal profiling” which, although not formally and universally defined, involves “an analysis of a crime scene and other details about a crime, in conjunction with the analyst’s understanding of cases of a similar nature for the purpose of inferring the motivation for the offence and producing a description of the type of person likely to be responsible for its commission”: R. v. Ranger (2003), 2003 CanLII 32900 (ON CA), 67 O.R. (3d) 1 (C.A.), at paras. 68-70. Criminal profiling in the Ranger sense often engages an examination of the psychological fit between the perpetrator and potential suspects. It is of dubious admissibility in a criminal trial, and even if admissible, it would be the stuff of expert evidence: R. v. Klymchuk (2005), 2005 CanLII 44167 (ON CA), 203 C.C.C. (3d) 341 (Ont. C.A.), at para. 36, leave to appeal refused, [2012] S.C.C.A. No. 34381.