Police blamed as conviction quashed
TORONTO • A man convicted of drug-related offences has been acquitted on appeal because police officers delayed his access to a lawyer.
In its ruling, the Ontario Court of Appeal said police made their first attempt to reach Daniel Noel’s lawyer only three hours after his arrest.
“The police appear to have had a somewhat cavalier attitude about a fundamental, important and long-settled charter right to consult counsel without delay,” the panel said in its decision. “It is troubling that the police in this case could not provide any reasonable explanation for the delay, nor could they even say whether Mr. Noel did, in fact, speak to counsel.”
Court documents show police forced their entry into Noel’s home near Oshawa, Ont., on a night in December 2015 and held him at gunpoint in his bedroom. They arrested him after finding thousands of dollars in cash and a small amount of cocaine.
Officers did not immediately inform Noel of his right to counsel, and took no immediate steps to help him contact his lawyer even after he asked.
Superior Court Justice Jocelyn Speyer found police did breach his rights, but that the breach wasn’t serious. Speyer allowed the seized material to be entered as evidence and convicted him in February of 2018.
The higher court, however, said the trial judge was wrong in her evaluation of the impact of the breach of his right to counsel. As a result, the court ruled the drug evidence and a self-incriminating statement Noel made should have been excluded because of the violation.
“The impact of the breach was significant,” the panel wrote. “We conclude that it would damage the long-term interests of the administration of justice to admit the evidence and thus be seen to condone the carelessness and disorganization exhibited by the police.”