Digest: R v Peequaquat, 2018 SKPC 16

• Date: March 29, 2018

Reported as: 2018 SKPC 16

Docket Number: PC17108 , 90022987

Court: Provincial Court

Date: 2018-03-29

Judges:

• Rybchuk

Subjects:

• Criminal Law � Motor Vehicle Offences � Impaired Driving � Driving/Care or Control with Excessive Alcohol
• Constitutional Law � Charter of Rights, Section 8

Digest: The accused was charged with having care or control of a motor vehicle while impaired and while his blood level exceeded .08. A voir dire was held because the accused alleged that his s. 8 Charter rights had been violated and he sought exclusion of the evidence of impairment under s. 24(2) of the Charter. A police officer had been dispatched to a report of a possible impaired driver in a specific location. The officer was unable to find the vehicle, but because she had been given the licence plate number, she obtained the residential address for the registered owner. The officer then drove to the residence and, not seeing the vehicle in the front of the house, she drove down the back alley where she located it inside the backyard, near the house. She could not see anyone in the vehicle and it was not running. When another officer arrived, they entered through the back entrance of the property onto the driveway. As they approached the vehicle they could see two people in the front seat. The accused was seen taking a sip of beer. The officer asked him to get out of the vehicle and detained him for an impaired investigation. He was searched, handcuffed and arrested.
HELD: The Charter application was granted. The court found that the accused�s s. 8 Charter rights had been breached and after performing a Grant analysis, all of the evidence flowing from the search was excluded under s. 24(2). The accused was found to have had a subjective expectation of privacy because the vehicle was on his property and the officers were not invited to enter onto it. His subjective expectation of privacy was objectively reasonable because although vehicles and those parked on driveways do not carry as high an expectation of privacy as a home, the accused was in his vehicle parked on his property. Access to that part of the property was a restricted back entrance with the vehicle located near to his dwelling and was not in full street view. The officers had not approached the front entrance of the house and did not knock on any door or have any intention of doing so. Their purpose was not to communicate with persons at the property but to secure evidence against the accused, thereby exceeding the authority of the implied licence to knock. They were therefore trespassing and conducting a search...