On June 20, 2016, the Supreme Court of the United States released its split 5-3 ruling in Utah v Strieff, 579 US _ (2016) holding that evidence seized during an unlawful police stop is admissible at trial when an outstanding and unrelated arrest warrant is found after the stop. Here's ...
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The defendant in a trial at common law has the right to make an unsworn statement from the dock before Crown counsel and defence counsel address the jury or "sum up" in a trial before a judge alone; and, before sentence is passed. A statement from the dock at either ...
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On April 12, 2013, Philippe McGuffie was convicted of possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking in a case reported as R v McGuffie, 2013 ONSC 2097. Although the police arbitrarily detained McGuffie, breached his right to counsel and violated his right to be secure against unreasonable search and ...
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Many junior criminal lawyers in Alberta think that a stay of proceedings is a normal way for a Crown Attorney to terminate a prosecution before verdict at trial. But it hasn't always been this way. I was a young lawyer the day I received the first stay of proceedings for a ...
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I don't discuss law enforcement as a stand alone topic on this blog. But police conduct will come into play in search and seizure law. And that is what happened the day Alexander Harflett was travelling on Highway 401 in Ontario when he was stopped by Constable Robert Sinclair. Here's ...
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I have written before on this blog about the Supreme Court of Canada's split 4-3 ruling in R v Fearon, [2014] 3 SCR 621 where Justice Thomas Cromwell for the majority reached the startling conclusion that a police fishing expedition of a cell phone incidental to a lawful arrest complies ...
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On May 25, 2013, Krista Danielle Sargent was caught trying to bring four grams of marihuana, four Tylenol 4s and three Tylenol 3s into the Edmonton Maximum Penitentiary located north of Edmonton, Alberta. On September 11, 2015, she pleaded guilty to two counts of possession of a controlled substance for ...
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A miscarriage of justice is the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit and is synonymous with wrongful conviction. Wrongful convictions come from almost every jurisdiction in Canada. Donald Marshall in Nova Scotia, Rejean Hinse in Quebec, Steven Truscott and Guy Paul Morin in ...
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I have been following the developments about the use of cell site simulators by law enforcement agencies in the United States over the past year. This invasive cell phone tracking technology, often called StingRay, lurks in the shadows in Canada where the RCMP and the Vancouver Police Department have refused ...
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It has been a spectacular month since my last post about the court battle between Apple and the FBI - a fight in which one of the world's most respected technology companies squared off against one of the most powerful agencies of the United States government. The case erupted over ...
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