A. MacPherson

The accused, charged with first-degree murder of his son, brought an application to exclude a video found on his cell phone.

The police searched the phone incident to arrest without a warrant.

The court found the search violated section 8 of the Charter because there was no urgency to justify searching the phone before obtaining a warrant.

However, applying the Grant framework under section 24(2), the court admitted the evidence, finding the breach was minor, the privacy intrusion was minimal, and the video was highly reliable and crucial to the truth-seeking function of the trial.

The court also dismissed the argument that the video's prejudicial effect outweighed its probative value.

The accused, charged with first-degree murder in the death of her young son, brought an application to exclude statements she made to police.

She argued her arrest was premature, she was not brought before a justice within 24 hours, her right to counsel was violated, she was not properly advised of her jeopardy, and her statements were involuntary.

The court found a minor section 9 Charter breach for the delay in bringing her before a justice but granted no remedy.

The court dismissed the other Charter claims, finding the police had reasonable grounds for the initial arrest for failing to provide necessaries of life, and that the accused understood her right to counsel and her jeopardy at the time.

The October 13 statement was ruled voluntary and admissible, while an October 16 statement was excluded in oral reasons.

The accused, charged with the first-degree murder of his son, sought to exclude video-taped statements made to police on the basis that they were involuntary and obtained in violation of his Charter rights.

The accused argued that prior unrecorded interactions with police tainted the subsequent video-taped statements, and that police failed to properly advise him of his jeopardy for culpable homicide.

The court dismissed the application, finding no sufficient temporal or contextual connection between the unrecorded and recorded statements to taint the latter.

The court also held that the accused was not under genuine suspicion for murder at the time of the interviews, meaning the initial caution for failing to provide necessaries of life was adequate.

The statements were ruled voluntary and admissible for cross-examination.