OTTAWA, Ont. – The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) has upheld a Saskatchewan man’s aggravated assault conviction in a violent home invasion.
On Dec. 23, Canada's highest court dismissed Jacob Charles Badger’s appeal for a new trial. In November 2019, a Saskatchewan trial judge found Badger, then 26, guilty of aggravated assault and sentenced him to five years in prison.
Badger appealed the verdict with the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal arguing that the trial judge erred in law in his assessment of the identification evidence.
He lost his appeal in Saskatchewan's highest court in September 2021. A majority of the Court of Appeal dismissed his application saying the trial judge didn’t ignore the inherent or situation-specific frailties of the identification evidence. The evidence was spontaneous utterances made by Badger's victim, Jody Lee Ray, during a 911 call and while he was being put into an ambulance after he was shot.
Ray testified that he didn’t know who shot him and said he was too drunk to remember so the Crown admitted Ray’s two statements into evidence as res gestae, on the basis of the spontaneous utterance exception to the hearsay rule.
The trial judge found Ray guilty on two elements of evidence. Badger had a unique opportunity to have shot Ray, and the two “spontaneous utterances” Ray made after he was shot.
During a 911 call, Ray said he was shot by “F—g Jake from State Farm,” which was Badger’s street name. When Emergency Medical Services personnel were putting Ray into the ambulance, he looked directly at Badger, who was standing outside of the residence near the ambulance where he was just arrested by police, and said, “That’s the f—r who shot me.” Another police officer heard Ray say “That’s the guy who shot me.” Both officers testified that Ray was looking directly at Badger when he said those words.
Badger testified in his own defence and denied he was part of a group who shot Ray.
The trial judge, however, found that Ray was a “reluctant witness who did not want to implicate the accused, Jacob Badger.”
During the trial the court heard that Badger was at Ray’s house at 1936 Winnipeg Street in Regina in the early morning hours on April 10, 2018, and got high using morphine. He left Ray’s home between 3:10 a.m. and 3:15 a.m.
Then, about 10 to 15 minutes later, two masked men with a double-barrelled shotgun pointed it at Ray after he opened the door for a woman who knocked on his door. Ray struggled with one man holding the shotgun when it went off, injuring Ray on his right hand, legs and chest.
