Does an appellate court have to substitute a different view of evidence from the trial judge?

British Columbia, Canada


The following excerpt is from R. v. Bou-Saleh, 2014 BCSC 1099 (CanLII):

Unless the trial judge has misinterpreted evidence or overlooked relevant evidence, an appellate court must defer to the trial judge’s treatment of the evidence: R v. Gagnon, [2006] 1 S.C.R. 621, 2006 SCC 17 at paras. 10-11. An appellate court is not to substitute its different view of the evidence absent a palpable and overriding error by the trial judge.

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