SUPREME
COURT OF CANADA
Citation: R. v. Woods, [2005] 2 S.C.R.
205, 2005 SCC 42
|
Date: 20050629
Docket: 30395
|
Between:
Her Majesty The
Queen
Appellant
v.
John Charles Woods
Respondent
Coram:
McLachlin C.J. and Bastarache, Binnie, Deschamps, Fish, Abella and Charron JJ.
Reasons for
Judgment:
(paras. 1 to 49)
|
Fish J. (McLachlin C.J. and
Bastarache, Binnie, Deschamps, Abella and Charron JJ. concurring)
|
______________________________
R. v.
Woods, [2005] 2 S.C.R. 205, 2005 SCC 42
Her Majesty
The Queen Appellant
v.
John
Charles Woods Respondent
Indexed
as: R. v. Woods
Neutral
citation: 2005 SCC 42.
File
No.: 30395.
2005: May 11;
2005: June 29.
Present: McLachlin C.J.
and Bastarache, Binnie, Deschamps, Fish, Abella and Charron JJ.
on appeal from
the court of appeal for manitoba
Criminal law — Failure to provide breath sample — Accused refusing
to provide breath sample following demand by police at roadside — Accused
subsequently providing sample at police station following second demand made
more than an hour after his arrest — Whether sample obtained forthwith in
response to valid demand — Meaning of word “forthwith” in s. 254(2) of
Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. C‑46 .
Police officers stopped a vehicle driven by the accused. They detected
a strong odour of alcohol and made an approved screening device (“ASD”) demand
for a breath sample. The accused refused, and was arrested under
s. 254(5) of the Criminal Code . At the station, approximately an
hour after his arrest and after speaking with counsel by phone, the accused
intimated that he wished to furnish a breath sample. After seven unsuccessful
attempts, a police officer told the accused that if he did not provide a proper
sample on his next attempt, he would be charged with failure to provide a
sample. The accused then provided a proper sample, and he was ultimately
charged with, and was convicted at trial for, having operated a motor vehicle
with a blood-alcohol ratio exceeding the legal limit. The summary conviction
appeal court set aside the conviction and substituted an acquittal. The Court
of Appeal affirmed the acquittal, having found that the ASD breath samples
obtained by the police were not admissible at trial to prove they had
reasonable and probable grounds for a breathalyser demand under s. 254(3)
of the Criminal Code .
Held: The appeal should be dismissed.
An ASD breath sample is legally obtained where it is either provided
forthwith, pursuant to a lawful demand under s. 254(2) , or provided
voluntarily. While the word “forthwith”, in the context of s. 254(2) of
the Code, may in unusual circumstances be given a more flexible
interpretation than its ordinary meaning strictly suggests, the “forthwith”
requirement connotes a prompt demand by the peace officer and an immediate
response by the person to whom that demand is addressed. Therefore, drivers
to whom ASD demands are made under s. 254(2) must comply immediately — and
not later, at a time of their choosing. Here, the second demand for a breath
sample made at the police station does not fall within s. 254(2) , as it
fails the “immediacy” criterion implicit in that provision. To accept as compliance
“forthwith” the furnishing of a breath sample more than an hour after being
arrested for having failed to comply is a semantic stretch beyond the literal
bounds and constitutional limits of s. 254(2) . The Crown conceded that
the ASD sample in issue here was not obtained voluntarily. [9] [43‑46]
Prosecutorial discretion exists not to lay a charge for failure to
comply with an ASD breath sample demand where an initial refusal is later
followed by compliance. Neither this prosecutorial discretion nor the right of
any person, detained or not, to volunteer self‑incriminating evidence
warrants extension of a statutory scheme beyond the constitutional boundaries
within which it was meant to operate. [26-28]
Cases Cited
Referred to: Dedman v. The Queen,
[1985] 2 S.C.R. 2; R. v. Thomsen, [1988] 1 S.C.R. 640; R. v. Grant,
[1991] 2 S.C.R. 139; R. v. Bernshaw, [1995] 1 S.C.R. 254; R. v. Cote
(1992), 70 C.C.C. (3d) 280.
Statutes and Regulations Cited
Canadian Charter of
Rights and Freedoms, ss. 1 , 8 , 9 , 10 .
Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-46,
ss. 253 (b), 254(2) , (3) , (5) .
Authors Cited
Canadian Oxford Dictionary, 2nd ed. Edited
by Katherine Barber. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2004, “forthwith”.
APPEAL from a judgment of the Manitoba Court of Appeal (Philp, Twaddle
and Freedman JJ.A.) (2004), 184 Man. R. (2d) 138, 185 C.C.C. (3d) 70, 318
W.A.C. 138, 7 M.V.R. (5th) 10, 118 C.R.R. (2d) 338, [2004] M.J. No. 145 (QL),
2004 MBCA 46, affirming a decision of Nurgitz J., dismissing the Crown’s appeal
from a judgment of Everett Prov. Ct. J. Appeal dismissed.
Ami Kotler, for the appellant.
Joe Aiello, for the respondent.
The judgment of the Court was delivered by
Fish J. —
I
1
The appellant has attempted on this appeal, valiantly but I believe in
vain, to overcome the factual, semantic and constitutional barriers to its
proposed interpretation of the phrase “to provide forthwith” in s.
254(2) of the Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-46 . In my view, the
appeal fails for that reason and I propose to explain briefly, from the outset,
why this is necessarily so.
2
The respondent was convicted at trial for having driven his car with
more alcohol in his blood than the law permits.
3
It is undisputed that his conviction was based on a breathalyzer result
that depended for its admissibility on whether the respondent had earlier
provided a breath sample “forthwith” in response to an approved screening
device (“ASD”) demand under s. 254(2) of the Criminal Code . The
Manitoba Court of Appeal held that he had not. I agree. Like the Court of
Appeal, I reject the Crown’s submission that a breath sample has been provided
“forthwith” when it is furnished by a motorist at the police station more than
an hour after the motorist has been arrested for refusing to comply with the
demand. That is what happened here.
4
Moreover, I do not share the Crown’s concern regarding the impact of
this case on the discretion of prosecutors not to proceed with refusal charges
made “unnecessary” by a driver’s subsequent change of heart. Nothing in the
decision of the Court of Appeal warrants that concern.
5
I turn now to a more detailed overview of the issues on the appeal and
my reasons for concluding that the appeal should be dismissed.
II
6
Parliament has created, in s. 254 of the Criminal Code , a
two-step detection and enforcement procedure to curb impaired driving. The
first step, set out in s. 254(2) , provides for screening tests at or near
the roadside immediately after the interception of a motor vehicle. The second
step, set out in s. 254(3) , provides for a breathalyzer test, which is normally
performed at a police station.
7
The respondent was convicted at trial for having operated a motor
vehicle with a blood-alcohol ratio exceeding the legal limit of .08, contrary
to s. 253 (b) of the Criminal Code . His conviction rests entirely
on the result of a breathalyzer test. That evidence was obtained pursuant to a
breathalyzer demand under s. 254(3) of the Code. Its admissibility
depends on whether the police had reasonable and probable grounds to make the
breathalyzer demand. And it is common ground that the only evidence of
reasonable and probable grounds for the breathalyzer demand was the ASD result
pursuant to which that demand was made.
8
Accordingly, the only issue in the case is whether the ASD breath
sample was legally obtained. If it was, the breathalyzer evidence was properly
admitted and the respondent’s conviction was sound. If not, the conviction
cannot stand.
9
There are two ways in which an ASD breath sample can be legally
obtained. The first is pursuant to a valid demand under s. 254(2) of the Criminal
Code . The second is voluntarily. At the hearing of the appeal, Crown
counsel conceded that the ASD sample in issue here was not obtained voluntarily
within the meaning of Dedman v. The Queen, [1985] 2 S.C.R. 2. Its
admissibility to prove the requisite grounds for a breathalyzer demand
therefore depends on whether it was obtained pursuant to a lawful demand under
s. 254(2) of the Code.
10
The relevant text of s. 254(2) reads:
(2) Where a peace officer reasonably suspects that
a person who is operating . . . or who has the care or control of a motor
vehicle . . . has alcohol in the person’s body, the peace officer may, by
demand made to that person, require the person to provide forthwith such
a sample of breath as in the opinion of the peace officer is necessary to
enable a proper analysis of the breath to be made by means of an approved
screening device . . . .
11
As we shall presently see, the police made two ASD demands, one
at the roadside and the other at the police station — more than an hour after
the respondent had been arrested for failing to comply with the demand made at
roadside. Plainly, this second demand, made at the station, was not a lawful
demand under s. 254(2) of the Code.
12
What we are left with, then, is the respondent’s refusal to
provide a breath sample forthwith pursuant to the only lawful demand made upon
him pursuant to s. 254(2) . That is the factual obstacle to the Crown’s appeal.
13
We are left as well with the ASD breath sample provided by the
respondent at the police station, approximately 1 hour and 20 minutes after his
arrest for refusing to provide a sample at roadside. “Forthwith” means
“immediately” or “without delay”: Canadian Oxford Dictionary (2nd ed.
2004), at p. 585. Without doing violence to the meaning of the word,
“forthwith” cannot be stretched to bring within s. 254(2) of the Criminal
Code the long-delayed “compliance” that occurred in this case. This
semantic obstacle to the Crown’s position, like the factual one, is in my view
insurmountable.
14
The constitutional obstacle is no easier for the Crown to overcome.
Section 254(2) depends for its constitutional validity on its implicit and
explicit requirements of immediacy. This immediacy requirement is implicit as
regards the police demand for a breath sample, and explicit as to the mandatory
response: the driver must provide a breath sample “forthwith”.
15
Section 254(2) authorizes roadside testing for alcohol consumption, under
pain of criminal prosecution, in violation of ss. 8 , 9 and 10 of the Canadian
Charter of Rights and Freedoms . But for its requirement of immediacy, s.
254(2) would not pass constitutional muster. That requirement cannot be
expanded to cover the nature and extent of the delay that occurred here.
III
16
The essential facts, as set out in the appellant’s factum, may be
summarized as follows.
17
Two police officers stopped the respondent at the wheel of his car, in
suburban Winnipeg, at approximately 10:30 p.m. on March 12, 1999. The officers
detected a “strong” odour of alcohol in the respondent’s car — there were no
passengers — and they made an ASD demand for a breath sample, pursuant to
s. 254(2) of the Criminal Code .
18
The respondent refused to comply with the demand. He was thereupon
arrested, pursuant to s. 254(5) of the Code, for having failed to
comply.
19
The respondent was then given his rights and he indicated that he wished
to consult counsel. The police had no cellular phone. They informed the
respondent that he would be taken to the police station and could call a lawyer
from there. A tow truck was called to remove the respondent’s car for reasons
of safety and he was then taken to the police station, arriving there
approximately an hour after his arrest.
20
At the station, after speaking with counsel by phone, the respondent
“intimated”, according to one of the officers, that he now wished to furnish a
breath sample and he was provided with an opportunity — in fact, with seven
opportunities — to do so. On each of those occasions, according to Crown
counsel, the respondent “did not blow hard enough or long enough to enable a
proper sample to be taken”:
[The police] observed that the Respondent was either providing improper
samples or placing his tongue over the end of the mouthpiece to prevent any air
entering the ASD. They were at most a foot away from his face and observed his
actions in this regard. After each invalid sample, he was informed of the
proper way to provide a sample.
Eventually, after a seventh invalid sample, police
told the Respondent that if he did not provide a proper sample on his next
attempt, he would be charged with refusing to provide a sample. The Respondent
immediately provided a valid sample, which was a Fail.
21
On the strength of that result, the respondent was required to provide a
breathalyzer sample. Based on the breathalyzer reading, the respondent was
ultimately charged under s. 253 (b) of the Criminal Code , and
convicted at trial, for having operated a motor vehicle with a blood-alcohol
ratio exceeding the legal limit of 80 mg of alcohol in 100 ml of blood.
22
The respondent’s conviction at trial was set aside by the summary
conviction appeal court and an acquittal was substituted. The Manitoba Court
of Appeal dismissed an appeal by the Crown against that decision and the Crown
further appeals to this Court.
IV
23
I turn now to the judgment of the Manitoba Court of Appeal ((2004), 184
Man. R. (2d) 138, 2004 MBCA 46).
24
Speaking for a unanimous Court, Philp J.A. reviewed the relevant case
law and concluded that the ASD breath sample given by the respondent was not
obtained in response to a valid demand under s. 254(2) , nor provided
voluntarily. Philp J.A. explained:
. . . the accused’s “agreement” (that is the finding the trial judge
made) to provide a breath sample for an ASD test at the Public Safety Building,
when he was under arrest and no longer had care or control of his vehicle, was
not in response to the demand that had been made at the roadside over an hour
earlier. That earlier demand was exhausted when the accused had refused to
comply and was placed under arrest for so doing. The ASD sample was not
provided “forthwith” even under the broadest interpretation of the word. The
fact that the accused’s refusal was the reason why the sample had not been
provided earlier does not bring the test within the ambit of the section.
I am further of the view that the demand for an ASD
sample that Cst. Billedeau made at the Public Safety Building fell outside the
ambit of s. 254(2) , both temporally and spatially, and was not authorized by
it. . . . [paras. 23-24]
25
Philp J.A. later added:
. . . there was no statutory authority for the demand for an ASD sample
that Cst. Billedeau made at the Public Safety Building. The accused had no
obligation to comply with that demand and would not have committed an offence
if he had refused to do so. The clear inference to be drawn from the seven
unsuccessful attempts the accused made is that he was not a willing and
consenting participant. A proper sample was obtained only after the accused
was told that if he did not provide a proper sample on the next attempt, he
would be charged with refusing to provide a sample.
In my view, the actions of the police officers,
without consent or statutory authority, resulted in the accused’s
self-incrimination. The manner in which they conducted themselves throughout
in their interaction with the accused was unremarkable. But, at the same time,
courts have recognized “the authoritative and coercive character of police
requests” and “the intimidating nature of police action and uncertainty as to
the extent of police powers.” In my view, the unauthorized demand for an ASD
sample that was made in this case at the Public Safety Building, coupled with
the threat of possible criminal liability for failure to comply with that
demand, amounted to effective compulsion or coercion. The results of the ASD
test provided the police officers with the reasonable and probable grounds
needed to make the breathalyzer demand. The principle against
self-incrimination was engaged (not to protect against unreliable evidence, but
to protect against abuse of state power) and the admission into evidence of the
results of the breathalyzer samples resulted in an unfair trial. The accused
was denied fundamental justice. [paras. 30-31]
V
26
The Crown urges us to be mindful of the need for prosecutorial
discretion in the circumstances of this case. The police, it is argued, should
not be required to lay a charge for failure to comply with an ASD breath sample
demand where the driver, after an initial refusal, has later complied. And
that would be the unfortunate consequence, according to the Crown, if we were
to dismiss its appeal. In the words of Crown counsel: “If the Court of
Appeal’s decision is upheld then police, at least in Manitoba, will have no
discretion in this regard.”
27
In my view, as mentioned earlier, the Crown’s concern is groundless.
Nothing in the reasons of the Manitoba Court of Appeal stands for the
proposition that an ASD result — or a breathalyzer result — based on a breath
sample provided voluntarily by an accused after an initial refusal is
inadmissible at that person’s trial. Nor did the Manitoba Court of Appeal
decide that the Crown lacks discretion in determining what, if any, offences
should be charged where an initial refusal is later followed by compliance, or
by the taking of a breath sample that has been voluntarily — or freely and
willingly — furnished.
28
But neither prosecutorial discretion nor the right of any person,
detained or not, to volunteer self-incriminating evidence warrants extension of
a statutory scheme beyond the constitutional boundaries within which it was
meant to operate: see, for example, R. v. Thomsen, [1988] 1 S.C.R. 640;
R. v. Grant, [1991] 3 S.C.R. 139, at p. 150; R. v. Bernshaw,
[1995] 1 S.C.R. 254, at paras. 72-75.
29
The “forthwith” requirement of s. 254(2) of the Criminal Code is
inextricably linked to its constitutional integrity. It addresses the issues
of unreasonable search and seizure, arbitrary detention and the infringement of
the right to counsel, notwithstanding ss. 8 , 9 and 10 of the Charter .
In interpreting the “forthwith” requirement, this Court must bear in mind not
only Parliament’s choice of language, but also Parliament’s intention to strike
a balance in the Code between the public interest in eradicating driver
impairment and the need to safeguard individual Charter rights.
30
As earlier explained, Parliament enacted a two-step legislative scheme
in s. 254(2) and (3) of the Criminal Code to combat the menace of
impaired driving. At the first stage, s. 254(2) authorizes peace officers, on
reasonable suspicion of alcohol consumption, to require drivers to provide
breath samples for testing on an ASD. These screening tests, at or near the
roadside, determine whether more conclusive testing is warranted. They
necessarily interfere with rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Charter ,
but only in a manner that is reasonably necessary to protect the public’s
interest in keeping impaired drivers off the road.
31
At that second stage of the statutory scheme, where the Charter
requirements must be respected and enforced, s. 254(3) allows peace officers
who have the requisite reasonable and probable grounds to demand breath samples
for a more conclusive breathalyzer analysis. Breathalyzers determine precisely
the alcohol concentration in a person’s blood and thus permit peace officers to
ascertain whether the alcohol level of the detained driver exceeds the limit
prescribed by law.
32
Thomsen was one of the early cases that dealt with constitutional
concerns regarding roadside detention of motorists. The Court held that the
absence of an opportunity to retain counsel violated s. 10 (b) of the
Charter , but was justified under s. 1 of the Charter as a reasonable
limit prescribed by law. The “forthwith” requirement of s. 254(2) is in a
sense a corollary of the fact that there is no opportunity for contact with
counsel prior to compliance with the ASD demand.
33
In Grant, the officer who had stopped the accused did not have a
screening device in his car. He therefore asked another officer to deliver one
to him. The device did not arrive until 30 minutes later. During that time,
the accused remained in the police car. Speaking for the Court, Lamer C.J.
stated:
The context of s. 238(2) [now, with changes immaterial here, s.
254(2) ] indicates no basis for departing from the ordinary, dictionary meaning
of the word “forthwith” which suggests that the breath sample is to be provided
immediately. Without delving into an analysis of the exact number of
minutes which may pass before the demand for a breath sample falls outside of
the term “forthwith”, I would simply observe that where, as here, the demand is
made by a police officer who is without an A.L.E.R.T. unit and the unit does
not, in fact, arrive for a half hour, the provisions of s. 238(2) will not be
satisfied. [Emphasis added; p. 150.]
34
In R. v. Cote (1992), 70 C.C.C. (3d) 280 (Ont. C.A.), the police
officer likewise had no screening device in his car. He drove the accused to a
police station nine minutes away and was not ready until five minutes later to
take a breath sample. The accused refused to comply with the officer’s demand
and was charged pursuant to s. 238(5) (now s. 254(5) ) of the Criminal Code .
The Ontario Court of Appeal set aside his conviction and entered an acquittal
instead.
35
Speaking for a unanimous court, Arbour J.A. (as she then was) cited the
passage I have reproduced from Grant, and explained:
If the accused must be taken to a detachment, where
contact with counsel could more easily be accommodated than at the side of the
road, a large component of the rationale in Thomsen disappears. In
other words, if the police officer is not in a position to require that a
breath sample be provided by the accused before any realistic opportunity to
consult counsel, then the officer’s demand is not a demand made under s. 238(2).
The issue is thus not strictly one of computing the number of minutes that fall
within or without the scope of the word “forthwith”. Here, the officer was
ready to collect the breath sample in less than half the time it took in Grant.
However, in view of the circumstances, particularly the wait at the police
detachment, I conclude that the demand was not made within s. 238(2). As the
demand did not comply with s. 238(2), the appellant was not required to comply
with the demand and his refusal to do so did not constitute an offence.
[Emphasis added; p. 285.]
36
It is for these reasons that we are prohibited on constitutional grounds
from expanding the meaning of “forthwith” in s. 254(2) to cover the delays that
occurred in this case.
VI
37
The outcome of the appeal depends, I repeat, on the admissibility of the
respondent’s ASD result to prove that the police had reasonable and probable
grounds for making the breathalyzer demand that yielded the evidence upon which
the respondent was convicted at trial. And that depends, in turn, on whether
the ASD breath sample furnished by the respondent at the police station was
obtained forthwith in response to a valid demand under s. 254(2) of the Criminal
Code .
38
Here, as we have seen, the police made two separate ASD demands, one at
roadside and a second more than an hour later at the station. The respondent,
in my view, cannot be said to have provided an admissible breath sample in
response to either demand.
39
With respect to the first, this conclusion seems to me inevitable, as I
mentioned at the outset, for factual, semantic and constitutional reasons.
40
The plain fact of the matter is that the respondent did not furnish
the breath sample in response to the first demand. On the contrary, he
expressly declined to do so. And, on the Crown’s own view of the facts, he was
arrested for having failed to comply with that demand, an offence under s.
254(5) of the Criminal Code .
41
The police later decided not to prosecute the respondent for that
offence — but only after he had provided them with evidence to support a
breathalyzer charge which, incidentally, is subject to the same punishment.
42
I accept that this was a matter of prosecutorial discretion. But this
exercise of discretion did not — in fact or in law — transform the respondent’s
failure to comply immediately with a valid ASD demand, as required by s.
254(2) , into an option of indefinite duration to comply with that demand later
— in this case, more than an hour later.
43
It is true, as I mentioned earlier, that “forthwith”, in the context of
s. 254(2) of the Criminal Code , may in unusual circumstances be given a
more flexible interpretation than its ordinary meaning strictly suggests. For
example, a brief and unavoidable delay of 15 minutes can thus be justified when
this is in accordance with the exigencies of the use of the equipment: see Bernshaw.
44
The “forthwith” requirement in s. 254(2) appears to me, however, to
connote a prompt demand by the peace officer, and an immediate response by the
person to whom that demand is addressed. To accept as compliance “forthwith”
the furnishing of a breath sample more than an hour after being arrested for
having failed to comply is in my view a semantic stretch beyond literal
bounds and constitutional limits.
45
Finally, on this point, the Crown contends that the respondent’s breath
sample was obtained “forthwith” in the sense of “as soon as reasonably possible
in the circumstances”, since the respondent failed to comply sooner with the
officer’s roadside demand. Putting the submission this way is sufficient to
demonstrate its incongruity. Drivers upon whom ASD demands are made are bound
by s. 254(2) to comply immediately — and not later, at a time of their
choosing, when they have decided to stop refusing!
46
The second demand, made more than an hour after the respondent’s arrest
for having refused, can be disposed of shortly and simply as a basis for
admitting the respondent’s breath sample. It does not fall within s. 254(2)
for several reasons, but it is sufficient to say that it fails the “immediacy”
criterion implicit in that provision. In any event, we are urged by the Crown
to disregard this second demand and I see no reason to deal with it otherwise.
VII
47
It is common ground that the results of the ASD test and of the
subsequent breathalyzer test were inadmissible against the respondent if the
initial breath sample provided by him was neither voluntary nor obtained under
the statutory authority of s. 254(2) of the Criminal Code .
48
For the reasons given, I have concluded that the respondent’s ASD breath
sample was inadmissible on either basis and that the breathalyzer evidence upon
which he was convicted was therefore unlawfully obtained and inadmissible as well.
49
I would therefore dismiss the appeal.
Appeal dismissed.
Solicitor for the appellant: Manitoba Justice, Winnipeg.
Solicitors for the respondent: Phillips Aiello, Winnipeg.