R. v N. and Police Interrogation Practices 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 the issue of whether or not certain roadside statements made by the accused to the investigating officer were statutorily induced and therefore inadmissible against the accused. On March 5, 2000, at approximately 8:30 p.m., Toronto police officer P.C. Roach responded to a radio call to attend a property damage motor vehicle accident. Upon arriving at the scene, the officer observed that the traffic light standard had been knocked down and followed a trail of debris to a side street a few...