Source: https://robichaudlaw.ca/right-to-silence-oickle-mccrimmon-sinclair/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 13:00:25+00:00

Document:
A lawyer's arrest call guide to the right to silence.
Your phone rings and your client is arrested. Now what?
A lawyer’s guide to the arrest call.
Every lawyer knows of the right to silence.
In nearly all circumstances, we know enough to advise clients not to make any statements to police upon arrest or detention. However, is this enough? Is a quick caution about having rights and choices enough to impress upon a client the importance of the right?
In minor affairs, it may not matter much. With a simple theft or drug possession charge, the police may have little motivation to approach the accused with sophisticated interrogative techniques. However, in instances of homicide, sexual assault, domestic violence, robberies, and other serious criminal matters, your clients must be adequately equipped to maintain their right to silence should they choose to exercise it.
This article and checklist below attempts to provide the framework for Canadian lawyers to ensure a client who calls under arrest fully appreciates the law and consequences providing a statement to police.
The Supreme Court of Canada's one chance approach.
Regrettably, Canadian Courts have moved strongly towards a rule of statement admission with fewer and fewer exceptions and lower scrutinization of what it means for a statement to be “voluntary”.
Assessments of voluntariness are made by judges saavy of the law, in a comfortable setting, and with considerable breaks. Comparatively, statements can go for hours on end without break, food, adequate washroom breaks, immense pressure, police fabrication of evidence, and techniques designed specifically to break one’s will.
Yet, short of demonstrating physical violence, significant promises or threats, a lack of an operating mind through severe intoxication or mental impairment, there are few avenues to have a statement excluded under the present legal regime of voluntariness.
To make matters worse, the Supreme Court of Canada held in a trilogy of cases that once a person has spoken to a lawyer, they are not entitled to have the benefit of further legal advice during an interview unless there is a significant change in jeopardy or an objective basis to believe that he detainee did not comprehend the initial advice – in short, the right to counsel is essentially reduced to a “one call” rule. This is also contained in a context where the expression of the right to silence does not include the police to necessarily respect it, even after several hours of repeated insistence by the accused to exercise that right.
The use of sophisticated police techniques vs. the accused's right to silence.
In a perfect world, police would simply accept an expression of a right to silence. In a less perfect world, people would hold true to their desire to remain silent. However, neither in practice happen with frequency. The discord arises out of an investigatory context where confessions made to police under highly sophisticated interrogative techniques, relentless pressure, and all towards a goal of obtaining admission of guilt.
Although the police may believe that the truth is ultimate goal of such interrogations, the techniques used towards that end are not premised on truth finding: the premise starts with an assumed knowledge of the truth, vis a vis, the confidence of the accused’s guilt. The goal is that an admission of guilt; not a determination of truth for the latter is already presumed.
Indeed, one of the specific tactics employed discussed below, is refusing the interviewee to even articulate a denial of responsibility, let alone accept it.
Interviews are implemented in an environment that includes: sleep deprivation, hunger, psychological discomfort, relentless questioning, repetition, resolute insistence on the accused’s guilt, an accused’s limited understanding of the law, and physical discomfort. As a matter of law, individual factors of low intelligence, susceptibility to suggestion, or minor mental impairments, to name a few, have little impact on the ultimate voluntariness of the statement.
The consequences of providing a statement to police.
It cannot be emphasized enough how important it is for your clients’ to ensure that they either receive the proper legal advice, or are passed on to an experienced criminal specialist who can do so.
According to the Innocence Project, about 25% of DNA exoneration cases, innocent accused individuals who wrongfully and falsely made incriminating statements, delivered outright confessions or plead guilty to an offence(s) they did not commit.
Regardless of the over or underestimation of this statistic, there is no doubt people rightfully, and wrongfully confess to crimes that they did not commit. Accordingly, it is of utmost importance that lawyers protect their clients’ from providing prejudicial information.
Even truths and half truths can ultimately be twisted in ways at trial to undermine credibility and effect convictions. Clients must understand that it is silence, and only silence, that will assist them in nearly all instances of a criminal investigation. They cannot be expected to know this as a matter of common sense. For that matter, few lawyers truly appreciate how damaging a statement can be (even a truthful one) until they are forced to deal with it at trial.
So why all the controversy? Why don’t police just say “ok” when people ask for their rights to be respected. In short, the Supreme Court of Canada says they don’t have to. Combine that with the evidentiary rewards of obtaining any sort of statement, and you have a context where obtaining statements is a highly worthwhile exercise for police in serious investigation.
A lawyers’ checklist to advice on the right to silence.
The purpose of this article is not to directly critique the impact of these decisions on accuseds under interrogation, or the significant concerns about false confessions and wrongful convictions under the new regime. The purpose is instead to provide a practical checklist or guideline for defence lawyers to provide complete legal advice on the right to silence in this new lopsided landscape.
Needless to say, this checklist is set out to address a general caution on the right to silence, and the police methods used to potentially circumvent an insistence in that right. The right to silence or refusal of cooperation may not be the best advice in all scenarios and the advice of the individual lawyer and application of their specific knowledge is essential for that.
It's more important than ever for defence counsel in Canada to provide their clients' with complete, and accurate advice when under arrest.
“…[T]he police are now given three trump cards. The first is Oickle itself, which sets a substantial hurdle to making inadmissible a confession on the basis of involuntariness. The second is R. v. Singh, 2007 SCC 48 (CanLII),  3 S.C.R. 405, which allows the police to prolong the endurance contest despite repeated assertions of the right to silence by the detainee and the frequently expressed desire to return to his cell. And now we have the present appeal which denies the detainee even a “second” consultation with counsel regardless of the length of the interrogation, unless there is a significant change of circumstances, which in the majority view does not include the unfolding information disclosed by the police to the detainee in the course of the investigation, however critical such information might be to the correctness of the legal advice initially provided, or to the need for further advice.
In the present jurisprudential regime where an accused can not advise counsel of developments during the interview, have counsel present, or even end interviews after endless interrogation and the insistence to the right to silence, it is essential that counsel advise clients properly of the worst case scenario, and the sophisticated methods open to police.
COUNSEL: (in a sleepy voice) Hello?
Gone are the days where there was a remedy for feeble police attempts to speak to counsel of choice, even if it is late at night, on the weekend, or during a time where counsel is unavailable. As soon as the accused expresses a tepid waiver of that right to counsel of choice, there may be little argument against a s.10(b) violation – even in instances were the accused reasserts the preferred counsel when the interrogation has commenced. In R. v. McCrimmon the police failed to reach the particular lawyer he requested, Mr. McCrimmon was asked if he wanted to speak to duty counsel to which he replied “Well, yes, definitely, but I prefer Mr. Cheevers.”.
He spoke to duty counsel for about five minutes.
 […] Where the detainee opts to exercise the right to counsel by speaking with a specific lawyer, s. 10(b) entitles him or her to a reasonable opportunity to contact chosen counsel. If the chosen lawyer is not immediately available, the detainee has the right to refuse to contact another counsel and wait a reasonable amount of time for counsel of choice to become available. Provided the detainee exercises reasonable diligence in the exercise of these rights, the police have a duty to hold off questioning or otherwise attempting to elicit evidence from the detainee until he or she has had the opportunity to consult with counsel of choice. If the chosen lawyer cannot be available within a reasonable period of time, the detainee is expected to exercise his or her right to counsel by calling another lawyer, or the police duty to hold off will be suspended: R. v. Ross,  1 S.C.R. 3; R. v. Black,  2 S.C.R. 138.
Due to Mr. McCrimmon’s acquiesce towards using duty counsel, notwithstanding his preference of his own counsel and his insistence of speaking to that counsel once the interview developed, the Court held that a 5-minute duty counsel was sufficient.
Ask to speak to your client in private.
COUNSEL: Do you have privacy? Can the police hear what you are saying? Is there anyone else in the room? Etc.
Fortunately, the right to speak to counsel in private still remains uncontroversial. For obvious reasons, this right needs to be effected and ensured.
COUNSEL: Name of accused? Police Division? Name of person on phone & officer in charge? When, where, how, why he was arrested? Has he already spoken to counsel? Has he already made a statement? (In the case of non-s.469 offences) Is there an intention to release him from the station? Any co-accused? Any mental health of medical issues? Complete list of charges he is presently facing? Etc.
Depending on the facts, there may be an argument later that the information provided by police was deficient and thus undermined your ability to provide effective advice. Note taking is essential for this. Our practice within our firm is to contemporaneously write out an email and send it to yourself. This way it is time stamped with all the relevant information provided.
You may also wish to send a fax to the detachment restating the information that was provided to you by the officer and to notify you if there is anything further. There may be some wiggle room from the recent 10(b) trilogy that if the counsel was not properly advised of the jeopardy the accused was facing, the rights to counsel are fatally undermined.
Advise the client of the present charges and the need to ask to speak to you again if that changes from what is presently known or what you have advised upon.
COUNSEL: I have spoken to the police and you are presently facing the charge of manslaughter. The police have also advised me that depending on the results of the autopsy, the charge may be elevated to second-degree murder. They are alleging that you were involved in an assault with several others that contributed to or was the cause of the death of Mr. XYZ. You may also face ancillary charges out of this but presently you are facing only the charge of manslaughter. If you are advised of any other charges other than what I have advised you, please state to the officer that your lawyer was not aware of these (new) charges and you wish to speak to him/her again.
Failure to provide counsel a complete list of charges is a significant impairment on the ability to meaningfully advise the client, whether the additional charge is relatively minor or increases the penal consequences.
Advise the adult client that he does not have the right to have a lawyer present during an interview. If a youth, advise them of the relevant sections in the YCJA that permit the presence of counsel.
COUNSEL (TO ADULT): The law does not permit me to be present at the interview unless the police consent to such a procedure. You can ask them if you can have me present, but if they say no, that ends the discussion.
Simply put, there is no right for an accused to have a lawyer present unless the police consent to such a set up.
COUNSEL (TO YOUTH): You have a right to have either me or your parent present during the interview of police. If not already present, you can request for their attendance at any point and insist on their attendance. Statements are only permitted when you explicitly waive that right to their presence – I strongly urge you not to waive that right.
With youth, the situation is entirely different. Unless a youth accused is advised of and expressly waives the right to have a lawyer, parent, or guardian present (as defined by the YCJA), the statement is statutorily inadmissible. From a practical point of view, attending the police station to assist a youth client is certainly not desirable – particularly late at night when there is no clear agreement on retainer. However, for all the reasons implicit in this article, that decision should be made with careful consideration.
Explain that the accused will likely not speak to you again until the investigation is over.
R. v. McCrimmon and Sinclair both make it clear that a request to consult counsel, without more, is not sufficient to re?trigger the s. 10(b) right. What is required is a change in circumstances that suggests that the choice faced by the detainee has been significantly altered, requiring further advice on the new situation, in order to fulfill the purpose of s. 10(b). Those changed circumstances may result from: new procedures involving the detainee; a change in the jeopardy facing the detainee; or reason to believe that the detainee may not have understood the initial advice of the right to counsel.
If the police allow the accused to speak to a lawyer again, make sure he exercises that right.
Since the law does not require police to reemploy any right to counsel unless the change of jeopardy of the accused has changed, if the police are offering such a cal then it is likely the accused needs further legal advice as they are now in a worse predicament then before. It is essential the client is aware of this and calls back no matter what has happened up to this point. Ensure to return to Step 2 and obtain as much information as possible from police to ensure that all relevant details are provided so you can advise the client accordingly.
Explain to the accused what might happen once you hang up the phone in a worst-case scenario, i.e. one implementing all police methods.
a. The importance of the right to silence.
COUNSEL (perhaps something like this) “As you have heard from television shows and even the police at this point, you have a right to silence. Anything you say to police may be used against you at any proceeding along the way to try and demonstrate that you are responsible for the crime. Generally speaking, the purpose of the police in obtaining a statement is only to obtain evidence that will assist them in their prosecution against you. You will not be able to explain your way out of this situation: you are already charged.
If there is a valid explanation for your innocence or minimized role, there is a time and place for that but at this early stage, it is extremely irresponsible and risky to offer any explanation. If you do make a statement, the prosecutor is permitted to use selective aspects of it that they may decide to use only the parts that you admit wrong doing, or in some way harms your case by undermining your credibility; however, as a general rule, you are not entitled to use any exculpatory statements in court as they are considered self-serving and therefore inadmissible.
You have a right to silence, you do not have a right to lie or mislead police in the execution of their duty.
Silence means just that: silence.
b. You have a right to silence, but the police do not need to respect that right as you might think.
It is necessary to impress upon the accused that a request, insistence, or painful repetition of the right to silence does not need require the police to hold off questioning. The best way to explain what the police are permitted to do, is look no further than the facts of R. v. Singh as an example.
COUNSEL: “Although you have a right to silence, the police are not in any way required to simply accept your insistence on this right. If you wish to exercise your right, you may have to tell them 5000 times, you may have to simply put your head down and go to sleep, you may have to endure repeated questioning for hours on end under very uncomfortable conditions. It short, your expressed right to silence means very little to police who wish to continue an investigation. I can assure you that no matter how uncomfortable the interrogation may be, the consequences of providing an inculpatory statement are much more severe.
If you feel that you are not feeling well, express that on the video. If you have medical conditions, express that. If you are hungry, express that. If you are intoxicated, express that. In short, express all your discomfort so that later on a judge can determine whether the statement you provided was not voluntary – judges cannot read a person’s mind, on video, that they are waiving their right to silence for reasons external to consent.
Explain that the police are not required in law to be truthful or genuine with the accused.
COUNSEL: You need to understand that the police are under lo legal obligation to be truthful with you. They are entitled to lie if those lies will assist them in obtaining relevant evidence. They may treat you like they are your buddy, that they want to help you, that they have obtained evidence (which does not exist) of a co-accused confession implicating you in the crime, DNA evidence putting you at the scene, the deceased told them before he died it was you, etc. etc. etc. There are very few rules, if any, the police are required to follow with respect to honesty if their goal is to obtain .
It’s amazing that so many people believe that the police must be honest or genuine with them in their dealings. Undercover police work fundamentally flawed if an individual only had to ask the agent “Are you a cop?” For good reason, police work uses lies, deceit, deception, and other tactics that have nothing to do with honesty – it may be honest police work, but the police need not be honest.
As the saying goes, “one needs to think like a thief to catch a thief” and as a society and as a matter of law, we have come to accept that as being acceptable police work. Therefore, it is critical that an inexperienced accused understand this from the outset as most of the methods employed to obtain confessions, use significant deceit in one manner or another. It may include evidentiary deceit, moral deceit, deceit of the court process, deceit of future police actions, etc. This is laid out in more detail below, but the accused must understand as a basic principle that the police are permitted to deceive and that confessions obtained on a premise of deception will likely be rewarded through admission, not sanctioned.
A lawyer could go on ad nausem about the various police methods used to obtain confessions. At a minimum, it is helpful to provide an overview of some of the most effective methodologies so that the accused at least can recognize the methods as the police are attempting to employ them.
Confront the accused with an overview of the allegations so he understands, generally what the police are alleging.
If possible, befriend the accused so that the moral pressure used later on will be more effective. Continually reinforce that sincerity.
Provide an out: provide a moral understanding to the alleged actions, a minimized role in the action, or the moral benefits of coming clean (think of the deceaseds family) etc.
Once the accused takes the bait, i.e., the “out”, rehash the case and strengthen the evidence on this admission. Since the accused has now admitted their (diminished) responsibility, there is no obligation for the police to accept that and move back to the position of principal or establish a lack of moral.
Advise the client that police are allowed to make them feel very uncomfortable. They is no obligation for the police to make sure you are comfortable. Interrogations are generally very uncomfortable.
“The prop box” – the police will leave a box inside the room marked with the accused’s name on it with a number of items. The accused will be left alone. The accused, out of curiosity or whatever reason, will look inside the box. Interrogators will catch him in the act and ask why an innocent person would be so concerned with such items. That his actions make him look very guilty, etc.
“The stolen pen” – the accused will be steadfast in his or her right to silence and frustrating police efforts to obtain information. A police officer will confront the accused on some very minor wrong (eg. Where did my pen go – did you steal my pen?) to which the accused will reactively answer no. At that point the police will ask him why he would immediately deny he stole his pen, and yet remain silent when confronted on the serious crime he is charged with.
“Best thing vs. worst thing that ever happened” – The police will ask you what is the best thing that ever happened to you. If you answer, as it is rather non-contentious (my kids were born, my wedding day, etc.) and then asked “what is the worst thing that ever happened to you?” No matter what the response, the police will confront the accused by stating “I would have thought that the worst thing would have been wrongfully accused of a crime” and use the leverage obtained from there.
The jail house plant: if you are charged with a serious offence like murder, and you are placed in the cell with someone else before you get to the detention centre, chances are, they are an undercover police officer.
Express misunderstanding or inadequacy of legal advice to the present situation on the record/video.
Advise that you will probably not speak to them again until Court.
COUNSEL: “When I hang up this phone, you probably won’t speak to a lawyer again before the interrogation happens. You will be taken to a room, and the questioning will begin until the police decide to end it. Things are going to be very uncomfortable for you for the next 24 hours – appreciate and accept that. You must understand fully and completely by the end of this conversation. There is no refresher of your rights, or remedy for the police failing to allow you to call again to clarify your understanding at the end of this conversation.
COUNSEL: Do you have any questions?
Do you understand you will likely not speak to me again before the interview is over?
Do you understand your right to silence?
Do you understand the jeopardy of providing a statement, even if are claiming innocence?
Do you understand how difficult it may be to ultimately exercise that right if that is your choice?
Do you understand the police methods that they may employ to obtain a confession from you?
Do you understand that the police are not required to be honest or genuine with you?
Do you understand that they are permitted to create false evidence against you or lie that someone else has already told them you did it?
Do you understand that if you are not satisfied with my advice, or did not understand it, you should express that to the police?
Do you understand that police may not permit you to speak to me again until you are taken to Court?
Is there anything further you wish to discuss before we end our conversation?
Since counsel is now necessitated to approach the advice in a static environment of worst-case scenario as opposed to an evolving process that may or may not require further legal advice, initial advice on the telephone at the station may require an inordinate amount of time to be as thorough as presumably required.
Considerable up-front information is required from the officer (that they may or may not provide); otherwise, the one-time, one-size-fits-all advice is effectively meaningless.
An over-reliance on duty counsel with little meaningful effort to obtain counsel of choice (something that is becoming more and more common in 2016). Combine this with refusal of police to allow accused suspects to use modern methods of acquiring a lawyer (i.e., internet searches), and you have a de facto situation of requiring the accused to have the counsel of choice’s name/number memorized or duty counsel as the only alternative.
No matter how this unfolds, it is apparent for the time being that even through your clients may walk through the shadow of the valley of interrogation, there is no sanctuary from counsel once journey has commenced.

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