R v Le

Le entered a backyard with friends. Three police officers arrived, asked questions, and ultimately found a firearm and drugs on him. The SCC majority held that he was detained from the moment officers entered the backyard. The reasonable-person assessment of detention must be informed by historical and contemporary social realities including racial profiling and over-policing of marginalised communities.

Le, a young Asian-Canadian man, was visiting friends in a backyard in a Toronto townhouse complex. Three police officers entered without authority, demanded ID, and asked what was in his bag.

When was Le detained for s.9 purposes? Should systemic factors inform the analysis?

Detained from when officers entered. Evidence excluded under s.24(2). Acquittal restored.

Detention under s.9 is assessed from the perspective of a reasonable person in the accused's circumstances. Where the accused belongs to a community subjected to disproportionate police attention, that lived reality is part of the circumstances. Race-based and other systemic factors inform the analysis.

Brown and Martin JJ for the majority emphasised that ignoring social realities about policing produces distorted reasonable-person standards. The s.24(2) Grant analysis must take into account the seriousness of state conduct in light of these realities.

Significant for criminal procedure in racialised-community contexts. Refines Grant. Compatible with Tim (2022) and Beaver (2022) on Grant's holistic application.

R v Le, 2019 SCC 34, [2019] 2 SCR 692.

Wagner CJ, Abella J, Moldaver J, Karakatsanis J, Côté J, Brown J, Rowe J, Martin J, Gascon J