R. v. Howard

Since a guilty plea does not amount in law to an admission of the facts read in at such a plea, there were no facts concerning the footprints at the scene of the crime being Trudel's for the Crown to put to the defence footprint expert.

Even if Trudel's position at his guilty plea constitutes an admission of the fact that the footprints at the scene of the crime were his, such an admission is inadmissible in evidence. Only Trudel could give the necessary first hand evidence that he made the footprints in issue, and he was not called by the Crown.

In any event, the fact of Trudel's admission is irrelevant to the opinion of an expert, as the proper parameters for the basis of such opinions are governed by the prevailing professional standards of the particular expertise.

In the alternative, if the admission is relevant, it is inadmissible. The real object of the proposed line of questioning was not to assess the reliability of the expert opinion, but rather to establish the truth of the matters put to the expert. Since the predominant effect of the proposed questions would be to introduce inadmissible hearsay which could be potentially misused by a jury, the questions should be disallowed. Further, the prejudicial effect of the evidence so introduced would far outweigh its probative value because the Crown could not prove the guilty plea from whence it came.

A limiting instruction would be insufficient in this case as the jury would be incapable of accepting the evidence as applicable solely to the basis for the expert's opinion and not applicable to its own truth.