R V Williams Case Study

R. v. Williams [1998] 1 SCR1. 1128

The Supreme Court of Canada. Judgement by McLachlin J. Also present: Lamer C.J. and L’Heureux Dubé, Gonthier, Cory, Iacobucci, Major, Bastarache and Binnie JJ.

Victor Daniel Williams, an Aboriginal man, came before the Court charged with the robbery of a pizza parlour in Victoria, British Columbia. Williams plead not guilty, claiming that someone else had committed said robbery. When preparing for his trial, Williams asked that the defense be allowed to question potential jurors on racial bias against aboriginals, and use challenge for cause if a bias was found, which the judge allowed. The Crown eventually applied for a mistrial, which they received. The judge from the second trial, Esson C.J., did not

He agreed with Williams: a general racial bias could impact the judgement of a jury and prospective jurors needed to be questioned on their potential bias against aboriginals. McLachlin gave seven reasons for his decision in the case. The first is that it is incorrect to assume that jurors would be able to push aside their racial biases in order to be impartial while judging a case. Racial prejudice runs much deeper than that, and would not be able to be pushed aside according to McLachlin. The second reason is that he did not agree that only proving a general bias against the native population was not enough. The previous two courts had held that a specific bias that pertains to the case at hand had to be proved in order for challenge for cause to be used. He discussed that any sort of racial prejudice could lead to a juror having a hard time believing the accused. McLachlin’s third reason for disagreeing with the previous decisions is that the judge and the Crown were not looking at the two stages of challenge for cause separately, instead skipping straight to the second stage. They were demanding that evidence be brought forward to prove that a racial bias would definitely impact impartiality, when they should have been looking at if it might impact impartiality. Fourth, McLachlin stated that