OHTA.ca

I am preparing for trail and hoping that someone can point me to a case where an officers notes were disqualified from use to refresh their memory or on appeal the notes should have been disallowed and the testimony stricken. Any help would be appreciated. No luck so far on CanLII. Thanks.

You're probably not having any luck finding a case because that doesn't usually happen. I've never seen an officer refused to be allowed to refer to his notes. If you have issues with the notes you can certainly ask him questions about them during cross examination and you can make submissions to the justice of the peace at the end of your case about what weight they should be given.

Thank you Simon.

on several occassions, I have only remembered the date and told the court my evidence is based solely on my notes, my only independant recollection was I worked on that date, my notes reflect that, and make notes shortly thereafter the incident. Never been an issue in court.

Can't think of any significant cases where notes are disqualified. Periodically, a paralegal, traffic lawyer or someone who's been doing their homework stands up and asks an officer "do you have an independent recollection?" and the officer says "no." Then the defendant/representative asks for the notes to be excluded. With very few exceptions, though, the officer answers "yes" and that tactic is out the window.

The only other time I could see the notes being excluded is if there's obviously something wrong with them... for example, the officer's notes have been obviously edited. "Observed white (scratched out) gray (scratched out) Toyota Corolla (scratched out) Honda Civic in L1 above speed limit, LT1 marksman reading 105 (scratched out) 150 km/h @ 228 metres, stopped vehicle without sight lost (added in above the line with an arrow) identified driver..."

But that's not too likely either...