Background
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police Drug Squad in Vancouver had Ruby Collins under surveillance as part of an investigation into a "heroin problem". One of the officers approached her in a local pub, told her that he was a police officer, and then grabbed her by the throat and in the process dragged her down to the floor in what is known as a "throat hold" used to prevent suspects from swallowing drug filled balloons. The officer then told her to let go of a heroin filled balloon she had in her hand, and she did so. The officer then arrested Collins for drug possession.
At the voir dire, Crown counsel sought to justify the search under what was then section 10 of the Narcotics Control Act (NCA). The search power in s. 10 required the officer to "reasonably believe" there is an illegal narcotic in a place. In order to establish the officer's reasonable belief, Crown counsel asked the officer when he began to suspect that Ruby Collins was in possession of heroin. The officer began to respond: "We were advised..." but defence counsel objected with an interruption, arguing that whatever the officer had been told by a third party was hearsay. (In fact, as Lamer J. notes, the fact was not hearsay and the trial judge should have been overruled.) In this way, the grounds for the officer's belief that Ruby Collins possessed heroin was never established at trial, and the trial judge concluded that, since the requirements of s. 10 were not met, the search was illegal.
Reasons of the court
The majority judgment was given by Lamer J.
Section 8
Lamer began by examining if the search violated Collins rights under section 8 that protects individuals against unreasonable search and seizure. A search can only be reasonable, Lamer held, if it met three requirements:
- the search must be authorized by law;
- the law itself must be reasonable;
- the manner in which the search is carried out must be reasonable.
In this way, the Supreme Court disagreed with some lower courts, and some American jurisprudence, in holding that an illegal search was automatically unreasonable.
Lamer J. concluded that, since the Crown had not established that the search had met the requirements of section 10 of the Narcotics Control Act, it was not authorized by law. Therefore, it failed the first prong of the three-part test and was an unreasonable search under s. 8 of the Charter.
Section 24(2)
Once a violation was found, the case turned on the meaning of section 24(2) which said that once a violation of an individual's charter rights have been found, the evidence obtained through the violation must be excluded if its inclusion would bring the administration of justice into disrepute.
Lamer examined the meaning of "disrepute". He rejected the previous use of the term established in Rothman v. The Queen [1981] 1 S.C.R. 640 which suggested evidence should be excluded on grounds that it would "shock" the community. Instead, he stated, the standard should be lower. He does not give a clear definition of "disrepute" but instead gives a set of three weighted factors to determine if there has been disrepute. The factors consist of:
- factors affecting the fairness of the trial,
- factors relevant to the seriousness of the violation; and
- factors relevant to the effect of excluding the evidence.
The method of analyzing the first set of factors was presented in R. v. Stillman which produced the "Stillman test". This analysis includes looking at the nature of the evidence and whether there would have been any alternative means of obtaining the evidence.
The second point of analysis examines whether admission of the evidence would implicitly condone the illegal practices of the police. The courts focus on the manner in which the evidence was obtained. This includes factors such as whether it was done in good faith. Namely, was it inadvertent, merely technical, or whether it was deliberate or wilful. As well, the courts can consider whether there was any exigent circumstances, urgency, or necessity in the act.
The third set of factors look at the effect of the exclusion on the repute of the administration of justice. The effect of the admission must be weighed against its exclusion. The courts compare the seriousness of the breach and the fairness of the trial against the importance of the evidence in the Crown's case and the overall.
- The question under s. 24(2) is whether the system's repute will be better served by the admission or the exclusion of the evidence, and it is thus necessary to consider any disrepute that may result from the exclusion of the evidence. In my view, the administration of justice would be brought into disrepute by the exclusion of evidence essential to substantiate the charge, and thus the acquittal of the accused, because of a trivial breach of the Charter.
In the United States, the exclusionary rule is a legal rule, based on constitutional law, that prevents evidence collected or analyzed in violation of the defendant's constitutional rights from being used in a court of law. This may be considered an example of a prophylactic rule formulated by the judiciary in order to protect a constitutional right. The exclusionary rule may also, in some circumstances at least, be considered to follow directly from the constitutional language, such as the Fifth Amendment's command that no person "shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself" and that no person "shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law."
Section 24 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms provides for remedies available to those whose Charter rights are shown to be violated. Some scholars have argued that it was actually section 24 that ensured that the Charter would not have the primary flaw of the 1960 Canadian Bill of Rights. Canadian judges would be reassured that that they could indeed strike down statutes on the basis that they contradicted a bill of rights.
R v Feeney, [1997] 2 S.C.R. 13 is a leading decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on the right, under section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms against unreasonable search and seizure. The Court held that the police are not permitted to enter into someone's house without a search warrant.
R v Stillman [1997] 1 SCR 607, 1997 SCC 32 was a leading decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on section 24(2) of the Constitution of Canada which allowed for the exclusion of evidence that is obtained in a manner that infringes the Charter. The two-step Stillman test was developed for determining whether the admission of evidence that was obtained through a breach of a Charter right would affect the fairness of the trial. The issue of trial fairness comes into play when applying the first step of the Collins test to exclude evidence under section 24(2).
R v Buhay [2003] 1 S.C.R. 631, 2003 SCC 30 is a leading Supreme Court of Canada decision on the Charter rights protecting against unreasonable search and seizure and the criteria for the exclusion of evidence under section 24(2). The court held that for evidence to be excluded on the Collins test, the seriousness of the breach must be determined by looking at factors such as good faith and necessity. On the facts, marijuana found in a bus station locker was excluded from evidence because the police had insufficient reason to search it without a warrant.
Section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects against unreasonable search and seizure. This right provides those in Canada with their primary source of constitutionally enforced privacy rights against unreasonable intrusion from the state. Typically, this protects personal information that can be obtained through searching someone in pat-down, entering someone's property or surveillance.
Section 11 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is the section of the Canadian Constitution that protects a person's legal rights in criminal and penal matters. There are nine enumerated rights protected in section 11.
R v Manninen [1987] 1 S.C.R. 1233 is a leading Supreme Court of Canada decision on an accused Charter right to retain and instruct a lawyer as well as the right to silence.
The criminal law of Canada is under the exclusive legislative jurisdiction of the Parliament of Canada. The power to enact criminal law is derived from section 91(27) of the Constitution Act, 1867. Most criminal laws have been codified in the Criminal Code, as well as the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, Youth Criminal Justice Act and several other peripheral statutes.
R v Askov, [1990] 2 S.C.R. 1199, is a 1990 appeal heard before the Supreme Court of Canada which established the criteria and standards by which Canadian courts judge whether an accused's right to a speedy trial under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Section 11(b) "to be tried within a reasonable time" has been infringed.
R v Strachan, [1988] 2 S.C.R. 980 is a leading Supreme Court of Canada decision on the exclusion of evidence under section 24(2) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms subsequent to a violation of a Charter right. The Court held that there does not need to be a causal connection between the violation and the evidence, but rather there need only be a temporal link between the two.
R v Wong, [1990] 3 S.C.R. 36, is a leading decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on the evidence obtained by electronic video surveillance conducted without authorization. The Court held that individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy in a hotel room. This expectation does not depend on whether those persons were engaging in illegal activities. Therefore, individuals can expect that agents of the state will not engage in warrantless video surveillance. Electronic surveillance without authorization violates Section Eight of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. However, for this particular case, the Supreme Court held that the police acted in good faith and had reasonable and probable ground to believe criminal activities were committed. The surveillance without authorization was a result of misunderstanding. Hence, acceptance of the surveillance as evidences will not bring the administration of justice into disrepute under Section Twenty-four of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Illinois v. Caballes, 543 U.S. 405 (2005), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the Fourth Amendment is not violated when the use of a drug-sniffing dog during a routine traffic stop does not unreasonably prolong the length of the stop.
R v Belnavis, [1997] 3 S.C.R. 341, is a leading Supreme Court of Canada decision on the right against unreasonable search and seizure under section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Court held that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in the backseat of a car.
R v Grant, 2009 SCC 32 is a leading decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on section 9, section 10 and section 24(2) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms ("Charter"). The Court created a number of factors to consider when determining whether a person had been detained for the purpose of sections 9 and 10 of the Charter. The Court also created a new test for determining whether evidence obtained by a Charter breach should be excluded under section 24(2) of the Charter, replacing the Collins test.
R v Kang-Brown, [2008] 1 S.C.R. 456, 2008 SCC 18, is a constitutional decision by the Supreme Court of Canada on the limits of police powers for search and seizure. The Court found that police do not have the right to perform a sniffer-dog search of public spaces when such search is not specifically authorized by statute. In this case, a suspect's section 8 rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms ("Charter") were violated when a police officer stopped him at a bus station and sniffer-dog searched his bag finding drugs in his possession.
R v AM, [2008] 1 S.C.R. 569, 2008 SCC 19, is a constitutional decision by the Supreme Court of Canada on the limits of police powers for search and seizure. The Court found that police do not have the right to perform a sniffer-dog search of public spaces when such search is not specifically authorized by statute. In this case, a student's section 8 rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms ("Charter") were violated when a police officer sniffer-dog searched his unattended backpack in the gymnasium of his school finding drugs in his possession.
R v M (MR), [1998] 3 SCR 393 is a leading decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on search and seizure by teachers and principals in Canadian schools. In this case, a student's section 8 rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms ("Charter") were not violated by being searched by a school principal with a police constable present.
R v Spencer is a Canadian constitutional law decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, concerning search and seizure law under section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. At issue was whether the police could request subscriber information associated with an IP address from an Internet service provider, on a voluntary basis under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, and without prior judicial authorisation. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the request for internet subscriber information infringed the Charter's guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure.
R v Golden, 2001 SCC 83 is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on limitations to the power of police officers to perform strip searches. The Court held that the common law rule allowing peace officers to perform warrantless searches incident to arrest must be limited in relation to strip searches, citing their heightened intrusiveness and impact on the Charter protected privacy interests of the accused.
