Sister Sage's Musings

In a 5-4 decision, our Supreme Court has ruled to deny suspects the right of advice from a lawyer during police interrogations. Does this mean that authorities now have permission to browbeat and coerce confessions out of innocent citizens too emotionally exhausted from questioning and accusations to fight back?

Justice Ian Binnie wrote a dissent saying the court was going too far.

What now appears to be licenced, he said, is that a presumed innocent individual may be detained and isolated by the police for at least five or six hours without reasonable recourse to a lawyer, during which time the officers can brush aside assertions of the right to silence or demands to be returned to his or her cell, in an endurance contest in which the police interrogators, taking turns with one another, hold all the important legal cards.

Justices Louis LeBel, Morris Fish and Rosalie Abella also raised concerns in their own dissent.

In their joint opposition, delivered by LeBel and Fish, they emphasized this right was not been granted to suspects on the condition that it not be exercised when they are most in need of its protection — notably in an interrogation when they are particularly vulnerable and in an acute state of jeopardy.

Cross posted at Let Freedom Rain