“Mr. Big” Confessions, R v Hart, and a Proposal for a New Right of Appeal based upon Fundamental Post-conviction Changes to the Law

In a 2014 decision, R v Hart, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) held that confessions obtained from undercover “Mr. Big” sting operations would henceforth by presumptively inadmissible as evidence in criminal trials. The new exclusionary rule was motivated by concerns about wrongful convictions arising from this type of confession, which is often unreliable and highly prejudicial to the accused. The advent of this new rule, however, casts doubt upon the reliability of past criminal convictions based upon “Mr. Big” confession evidence. Presently, there are only very limited avenues for post-conviction review based on subsequent fundamental changes to the law. Accordingly, a new statutory right of appeal is proposed to allow for reopening past cases when merited by fundamental post-conviction changes to the law.LL.M