Mistake of Fact
The trial judge found that the appellant was not guilty of rape as defined in (then) s.143(a). Following the decision in R v. Pappajohn 2 S.C.R. 120 a mistake of fact defense would be allowed for rape when there was an honest belief in that fact, regardless of the reasonableness of that belief. In this case, even though the trial judge did not believe that the appellants belief in consent was even remotely reasonable, she did find that it was honest: "As I said, no rational person could have been under any honest mistake of fact. However, people have an uncanny ability to blind themselves to much that they do not want to see, and to believe in the existence of facts as they would wish them to be."
Read more about this topic: R. V. Sansregret
Famous quotes containing the words mistake of, mistake and/or fact:
“Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Again we mistook a little rocky islet seen through the “drisk,” with some taller bare trunks or stumps on it, for the steamer with its smoke-pipes, but as it had not changed its position after half an hour, we were undeceived. So much do the works of man resemble the works of nature. A moose might mistake a steamer for a floating isle, and not be scared till he heard its puffing or its whistle.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A fact is a proposition of which the verification by an appeal to the primary sources of our knowledge or to experience is direct and simple. A theory, on the other hand, if true, has all the characteristics of a fact except that its verification is possible only by indirect, remote, and difficult means.”
—Chauncey Wright (1830–1875)