Supreme Court of Canada
Heppner v. The Queen, [1978] 2 S.C.R. 702
Date: 1978-05-02
Brian Wayne Heppner Appellant;
and
Her Majesty The Queen Respondent.
1978: May 2.
Present: Laskin C.J. and Martland, Ritchie, Spence, Pigeon, Dickson, Beetz, Estey and Pratte JJ.
ON APPEAL FROM THE COURT OF APPEAL FOR BRITISH COLUMBIA
Criminal law—Charge of murder—Alleged drunkenness of accused—Culpability—Adequacy of instruction to jury—No reversible error.
Appeal—Criminal appeal as of right—Requirement that formal judgment of Court of Appeal specify ground or grounds in law upon which dissent based—Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1970, c. C-34, ss. 606, 618(1)(a).
APPEAL from a judgment of the Court of Appeal for British Columbia[1], dismissing the appellant’s appeal from his conviction for murder punishable by life imprisonment. Appeal dismissed.
B.A. Crane, Q.C., for the appellant.
W.H. Deverell, for the respondent.
The judgment of the Court was delivered orally by
THE CHIEF JUSTICE—We do not need to hear you, Mr. Deverell. We are all of the opinion that on the facts of this case, the single issue being the effect of the alleged drunkenness of the accused on his culpability of murder, the trial judge did not commit any reversible error in the way in which he dealt with the law, especially when regard is had to his concluding summation to the jury, or in the way in which he dealt with the evidence as it related to the limited position of the defence. The appeal therefore fails and must be dismissed.
Before parting with this case, we wish to emphasize that a criminal appeal which is brought here as of right, under s. 618(1)(a) of the Criminal Code, by reason of a dissent on questions of law in the Court below, should be perfected in compliance with s. 606 of the Criminal Code which
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requires that the formal judgment must specify the ground or grounds in law upon which the dissent is based. That was not done in this case, and this Court has had occasion to complain of similar failures in other cases, in some of which it was unclear from the dissenting reasons whether the dissent turned on a question of law.
Judgment accordingly.
Solicitor for the appellant: A. McEachern, Vancouver.
Solicitor for the respondent: W.H. Deverell, Vancouver.