Rosellen Sullivan

The appellant was charged with child luring after sending sexually explicit online communications to an undercover police officer posing as a 14-year-old girl.

The police used screen capture software to record the communications without prior judicial authorization.

The Supreme Court unanimously dismissed the appeal, though for different reasons: the majority (Brown J., Abella and Gascon JJ. concurring) held that the appellant had no objectively reasonable expectation of privacy because he communicated with someone he believed to be a child who was a stranger; Karakatsanis J. (Wagner C.J. concurring) held there was no search or seizure because the police simply received messages directed to them; Moldaver J. concurred in the result; and Martin J. dissented in part, finding a s. 8 breach but agreeing that exclusion of the evidence under s. 24(2) was not warranted.

The accused was involved in a fatal motor vehicle collision while driving a rental car.

Police seized the vehicle and conducted a warrantless search, locating drug paraphernalia in a knapsack and downloading the vehicle's Crash Data Recovery (CDR) data.

Police subsequently obtained a search warrant for the accused's blood and medical records.

The accused brought a motion to quash the warrant and exclude evidence under s. 8 of the Charter.

The Superior Court of Justice held that while the Information to Obtain (ITO) contained misleading information regarding the knapsack search, the warrant could still have issued on the remaining evidence.

The court further held that the accused had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the CDR data of the rental vehicle.

However, the court found that the warrantless search of the accused's knapsack for the vehicle's keys violated his s. 8 Charter rights.

Arguments regarding the exclusion of evidence under s. 24(2) were deferred.

In a criminal appeal from acquittals on assault and sexual assault charges, the Court addressed trial errors involving prior sexual activity cross-examination and exclusion of rebuttal evidence on alleged recent fabrication.

The intermediate appellate court was divided on remedy despite finding error.

The Court allowed the appeal and adopted the dissenting remedial approach from below.

The acquittals were set aside and a new trial was ordered on all counts.