What is the burden on a trial judge to be fully aware of the thousands of cases that may apply to admissibility issues?

British Columbia, Canada


The following excerpt is from R. v. Little, 2002 BCSC 1569 (CanLII):

Under our system, appellate court rulings place the burden on the trial judge to be fully aware of the thousands of cases that may apply to admissibility issues and be able to instantly recall and apply them correctly. In Bragg v. Metropolitan St. Ry. 192 Mo. 331, 91 S.W. 527, 530-531 (1905) Lamm J., an appellate court judge, had this to say about the impossibility of such a proposition: How could the court tell, though he (the trial judge) possessed the astounding wisdom of King Solomon himself, the mere view of which inter alia, took him from the Queen of Sheba all her spirit ... what precise objection the learned counsel had in mind? It has hitherto been allowed to a judge – a puisne judge – to have been so successful in "Mastering the lawless science of our law. That codeless myriad of precedent. That wilderness of single instances," – that he has the whole body of law at his finger’s ends, so to speak, for instantaneous and automatic application, ex mero motu, without having his attention directed by counsel to some specific legal principle or some specific fact controlled by such principle. Only appellate courts, it is modestly believed, are so endowed, and even this has been the subject of sharp discussion and possible doubt, and peradventure, should be stated cautiously and taken cum grano saltis.

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