Supreme Court rules on tainted evidence

This analysis is pretty well dead on:


Supreme Court rules on tainted evidence

In a quartet of cases it decides that evidence obtained by police in violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms can be used to convict an accused, unless the violation is blatant

Kirk Makin Toronto — Globe and Mail Update

The Supreme Court delivered a mixed victory today in a landmark tussle pitting advocates for criminal rights against those who favour a law-and-order agenda.

It ruled in a quartet of cases that evidence obtained by police in violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms can be used to convict the accused, unless the violation is blatant. The Court voted to permit the use of tainted evidence in most of the test cases, which ran the gamut from possession of a loaded gun, to cocaine trafficking, possession of stolen property, and impaired driving.

While the upshot of the rulings was not as devastating toward the rights of the accused as defence counsel had feared, they will almost certainly lead to a reduction in the number of cases where important evidence is tossed out because of police misconduct. ...

In the gun case, the majority laid down a particularly nuanced set of rules governing the admission of tainted evidence. It said evidence against the accused, Donnohue Grant, could be used at his trial because the young man should have realized that police had moved from casual questioning into an actual investigation when they stopped him on a Toronto street.

"The more severe or deliberate the state conduct that led to the Charter violation, the greater the need for the courts to dissociate themselves from that conduct, by excluding evidence linked to that conduct, in order to preserve public confidence in and ensure state adherence to the rule of law," the Court said.

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