R. V. Collins - Background

Background

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police Drug Squad in Vancouver had Ruby Collins under surveillance as part of an investigation into a "heroin problem". One of the officers approached her in a local pub, told her that he was a police officer, and then grabbed her by the throat and in the process dragged her down to the floor in what is known as a "throat hold" used to prevent suspects from swallowing drug filled balloons. The officer then told her to let go of a heroin filled balloon she had in her hand, and she did so. The officer then arrested Collins for drug possession.

At the voir dire, Crown counsel sought to justify the search under what was then section 10 of the Narcotics Control Act (NCA). The search power in s. 10 required the officer to "reasonably believe" there is an illegal narcotic in a place. In order to establish the officer's reasonable belief, Crown counsel asked the officer when he began to suspect that Ruby Collins was in possession of heroin. The officer began to respond: "We were advised..." but defence counsel objected with an interruption, arguing that whatever the officer had been told by a third party was hearsay. (In fact, as Lamer J. notes, the fact was not hearsay and the trial judge should have been overruled.) In this way, the grounds for the officer's belief that Ruby Collins possessed heroin was never established at trial, and the trial judge concluded that, since the requirements of s. 10 were not met, the search was illegal.