Last Friday the Supreme Court of Canada released judgments in a pair of cases involving the use of drug sniffing dogs by police: R. v. Kang-Brown, 2008 SCC 18 and R. v. A.M., 2008 SCC 19. These decisions received considerable media attention, mostly for what they had to say about the constitutionality of police employing [...]

In R. v. A.M., 2008 SCC 19, released on Friday, the Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the Crown’s appeal, holding that the sniffer-dog search at issue violated section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and that the evidence gathered during the search should be excluded under s. 24(2) of the Charter. This [...]

Within a week’s time, the SCC is scheduled to hear a case of considerable importance to the future interpretation of section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In its consideration of what precisely constitutes a ‘search’ under the Charter, R. v. A.M. will offer a needed clarification of the SCC’s previous and [...]