Police Practices Case in Canada

According to James W. Williams (2000), in recent years, the Canadian criminal justice system has been plagued with a number of high profile wrongful convictions. Particular attention has been directed towards the police and their ability to meet their responsibility to investigate crime effectively while protecting the interests, the rights, and freedoms of the accused. As Williams (2000, p. 209) has stated, ôone notable aspect of police operations that has come under increasing scrutiny in this regard is the police interrogation, a practice which is both upheld by police officers as a crucial means of gathering information and disposing of cases, and denounced by civil rights advocated as a serious threat to the standards of fairness and due process.ö

A case that speaks directly to this issue is of R. v N. [2001] O.J. No. 3854. The purpose of this report is to explore this case in the context of its relationship to current police practices such as interviewing/interrogating and investigation. It will be argued that the overzealous use of interrogation on the part of the police in Canada must be eliminated in order to ensure that the rights of arrestees are fully protected and that police do not abuse their powers.

R. v N. has been described by Justice Horkins (2001) on behalf of the Ontario Court of Justice as an otherwise unremarkable drinking and driving case which raised th

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Charter.Pain (2002, p. 2) noted further that in White, the Court made the following key points that were late applied to R. V. N: .A declarant under section 61 of the Motor Vehicle Act will be protected by use immunity under s. 7 of the Charter only to the extent that the relevant statements may properly be considered compelled.. The test for compulsion under section 61 of the Motor Vehicle Act is whether, at the time that the accident was reported by the driver, the driver gave the report on the basis of an honest and reasonably held belief that he or she was required to report the accident to the person to whom the report was given.. Provided that the police have offered no indication to the driver that the statutory requirements for the reporting of an accident have been satisfied, it will likely be reasonable for a driver to assume that he or she continues to be subject to a statutory duty to speak to police. Thus, as Pain (2002) has noted, many individuals, when questioned by police officers, automatically assume that they are compelled by the law to answer any and all questions that are put to them. Many individuals have an honest and reasonable belief that they are required to respond to questions posed by po
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Approximate Word count = 2891
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page)

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