ALG's Samara Secter is quoted in the Lawyer's Daily in an article on Friday's Supreme Court of Canada decision in R. v. Lafrance, 2022 SCC 32. The case addresses how courts should apply the right to silence in situations when the parties disagree over when police initially detained a suspect. The Court applied the framework from its 2019 decision in Le (where Samara represented the Appellant) for determining when a person is detained and must be informed of his or her right to silence and right to contact a lawyer. Justice Brown, writing for the majority of the Court, found that the police breached Lafrance's rights and excluded his statement confessing to a homicide from his future retrial.
As Samara noted in the Lawyer's Daily, the Court's decision is "a progressive step in the law and a victory for civil liberties” and a “significant” decision in the jurisprudence on section 10(b) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Samara notes that "Justice Brown takes a purposive approach to the important Charter right to counsel [...] It is a confirmation that the Charter right exists to even the playing field between the detainee and the state."
Samara and Frank Addario represented the intervener the Canadian Civil Liberties Association in the appeal at the Supreme Court of Canada. To learn more about the case or to read the parties' written submissions, please visit the Supreme Court of Canada website.