Trial courts take direction from previous appellate level decisions. However, as can be seen below, trial courts have generated the most police powers out of all three levels we categorized in this section. Trial court judges are essential to the fact finding process within the criminal justice system. Once the facts have been agreed upon in a trial, they are accepted by appellate courts if there is an appeal by the losing side at the trial level. This suggests that trial courts have an impact on appellate level decisions and the facts and arguments heard at the trial level are often relied upon during the appeal process.
Trial courts take direction from previous appellate level decisions. However, as can be seen below, trial courts have generated the most police powers out of all three levels we categorized in this section. Trial court judges are essential to the fact finding process within the criminal justice system. Once the facts have been agreed upon in a trial, they are accepted by appellate courts if there is an appeal by the losing side at the trial level. This suggests that trial courts have an impact on appellate level decisions and the facts and arguments heard at the trial level are often relied upon during the appeal process.
Common Law Police Powers Deployed from 2020-2021:
Common Law Police Powers Deployed from 2020-2021:
In the past 35 years, the Supreme Court of Canada has generated several key police powers that have changed the criminal law landscape. Alongside warrantless roadside detentions (R v Dedman), the Supreme Court has provided police with the ability to detain individuals during a police investigation and search incident to the investigatory detention for police safety (R v Mann). The Supreme Court has also provided police with the power to use sniffer-dogs without a warrant (R v Kang-Brown, R v AM), and warrantless cell phone searches incident to arrest (R v Fearon).
Common Law Police Powers Generated from 2000-2009:
In the 2000s, courts generated 30 new police powers which has remained the highest total amount generated in any decade since the ruling in Dedman v The Queen.
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Courts provided police with the power to detain individuals with a roadblock due to an emergency (R v Clayton, 2007 SCC 32), deny individuals access to their vehicle during an investigation (R v Edwards, 2004 ABPC 14) and strip search a suspect incident to arrest (R v Golden, 2001 SCC 83).
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The Supreme Court of Canada had the opportunity to rule on police powers cases 5 times in the 2000s, opting to greatly affect Charter jurisprudence around section 8 (search and seizure) and section 9 (arbitrary detentions).
The Supreme Court built on earlier case law such as R v Simpson (1993) to determine that police could detain an individual if they have reasonable grounds to detain within the "totality of the circumstances" (R v Mann, 2004 SCC 52, at paragraph 34).
The Court also justified the use of sniffer-dogs at bus depots (R v Kang-Brown, 2008 SCC 18) and schools (R v AM, 2008 SCC 19), which impacted future cases dealing with Charter protected right to privacy by lowering the objective threshold necessary to justify state interference with property rights.
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Hover over the boxes below to reveal the cases that generated police powers in each year.
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