Legal Issues In Policing

E86| A collision, an odour, a medical blood draw & an ITO. Was the reasonable belief standard met?

Season 3

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In this episode, Mike discusses the New Brunswick Court of Appeal decision R. v. Gallant, 2024 NBCA 135 where a police officer applied for and received a warrant to seize and analyze blood samples taken by hospital staff for medical purposes. The affiant’s ITO referenced police reports from two other officers as a basis for their reasonable grounds to support the warrant. This included (1) the circumstances surrounding a serious accident as reported to an officer by another driver and (2) the very strong odour of alcohol coming from the accused’s breath as detected by an officer accompanying him in the back of an ambulance on the way to the hospital. Did the affiant’s grounds supply a sufficient basis for the search warrant? And what sort of test does the reviewing judge use in deciding whether the authorizing judge could have issued the warrant?

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