Criminal conviction appeal arising from a taxi robbery prosecution in which the police obtained an inculpatory statement by threatening to "trash" the accused's mother's home during execution of a search warrant.
The court held that police conduct rendering a statement involuntary at common law infringes s. 7 of the Charter, and that the resulting oral statement and diagram were conscriptive evidence that had to be excluded under s. 24(2).
The court exercised its discretion to allow the accused to advance the Charter argument for the first time on appeal because voluntariness had been fully litigated at trial and the record was complete.
The court further held that the St. Lawrence rule must be modified to recognize a discretion to exclude involuntary confessions despite confirmation by real evidence, with admission justified only in highly exceptional circumstances.
Without the confession, the remaining evidence could not support conviction, so the convictions were quashed and acquittals entered.
