The Crown has a duty to assist the sentencing court by ensuring an adequate presentation of facts and fair testing of the defendant's case, including making clear whether it accepts or disputes a causal link between mental illness and offending. However, where the Crown's position is ambiguous rather than clearly concessive, the sentencing judge is not required to give advance notice of an adverse finding on the mitigating effect of mental illness. Defence counsel bears the primary responsibility for adducing comprehensive psychiatric evidence to establish the link between mental illness and offending, particularly where reports were prepared for a different purpose (mental impairment defence). Where a prisoner is represented by counsel, a sentencing judge is not ordinarily required to consider effects of psychiatric disability other than those expressly relied upon by counsel.
The full text is available to signed-in members, including the 21 later cases that cite this judgment.
5 of the 21 citing cases carry a classified treatment. How each court treated it is available to signed-in members.