Saskatchewan’s highest court has rejected the appeal of a man seeking to overturn his murder conviction.
Taylor Wolff was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 10 years after being found guilty in August 2018 of second-degree murder in the death of James Carlson.
Carlson disappeared in May 2008 from his Watrous, Sask., home. His body has never been found, but his car was found on a rural property near Rosthern two years later.
Wolff appealed the conviction, saying the trial judge made a number of significant errors.
In a decision released on Wednesday, the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal.
The court found the trial judge did not err in determining two witnesses were credible and that their evidence was reliable, one of the grounds of Wolff’s appeal.
“Although credibility and reliability are distinct concepts, they do not exist in independent silos and need not be specifically referred to by name in a trial judge’s reasons in order to withstand appellate review,” the court wrote in its decision.
“The important thing is that a trial judge considers both aspects when assessing a witness’s evidence and making factual findings, and that the reasons for judgment demonstrate that both aspects were considered.”
Wolff also argued the trial judge made errors in his assessment of the circumstantial evidence.
In dismissing this argument, the Appeal Court said there was no error in the approach the judge took when assessing the evidence.
“He considered other possible explanations, such as the theory that Mr. Carlson was not actually shot in his residence, and the theory that if Mr. Carlson actually died from a gunshot, somebody else was responsible,” the court said.
“In reaching the conclusions that he did, the trial judge clearly rejected those theories.”
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