The Queen vs. Nguyen Son Tran

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CITATION: R. v.

Tran, 2015 ONSC 5607


COURT FILE NO.: CF-15-90000036
DATE: 20150903

SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE


BETWEEN:
HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN
and
NGUYEN SON TRAN

)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
Defendant )
)
)
)
)
)

Kandia Aird, for the Crown

Kim Schofield, for the Defendant

HEARD: June 19, 30, July 2-3, July 17,


September 3, 2015

E.M. MORGAN J.
[1]

Who spilled heroin on the console of the Defendants Toyota Camry?

I.

The blended voir dire

[2]
On January 13, 2014, the Defendant was stopped in his car for a driving infraction. He
was arrested and charged with possession of heroin when the officer who pulled him over
spotted white powder visible on the centre console of his vehicle. The Defendant was
subsequently re-arrested and charged with possession for the purpose of trafficking once his car
was searched and a larger quantity of drugs was found.
[3]
The police officers who searched his car seized 11.01 grams of heroin neatly wrapped in
plastic and carefully tucked away behind the steering column. They seized another 0.32 grams of
loose heroin powder spilled on the console of his car. In addition, the police found 0.65 grams of
heroin in the back seat of the police scout car where the Defendant was placed just after his arrest
and where he sat while being driven to the police station.

2015 ONSC 5607 (CanLII)

ONTARIO

[4]
The trial before me sitting as judge alone commenced with a blended voir dire. If the
drugs seized by the police are admissible, the testimony and other evidence presented during the
evidentiary hearing will count as trial evidence. The question on this application is the
admissibility of the seized drugs; that question, in turn, depends on whether the police officers
that searched the Defendant and his automobile were acting within their lawful authority, or
whether the Defendants rights were breached by that search.
II.

The traffic stop

[5]
Several police witnesses testified as to the initial encounter between the Defendant and
the police officers leading to the Defendants arrest on January 13, 2014. The Defendant himself
also testified. Each of those narratives tells a slightly different version of events. These
differences are crucial to a determination of whether the search of the Defendants car was a
lawful one.
[6]
P.C. Jeffrey Tout testified that at 4:45 p.m. that day he was driving a marked police van,
and was stopped on Broadview Avenue at Gerard Street observing traffic. He indicated that,
looking westbound, he saw a white Toyota Camry pass through the intersection on a red light
and nearly hit a pedestrian. Officer Tout said that he followed the car into a Green P parking lot
nearby and approached the driver when the car pulled over.
[7]
The Defendant was the sole occupant of the vehicle. Upon request the Defendant
produced his drivers license, insurance, and vehicle permit, which Officer Tout then took back
with him to his own vehicle and relayed the information over the radio to the police dispatcher.
While waiting for the dispatcher to get back to him with respect to the documents, Officer Tout
said that he heard the Defendant rev his car engine and saw the Defendants car rocking back and
forth. Officer Tout indicated that he had pulled his police van in front of the Defendants Toyota,
and at this point became concerned about his van if the Defendant were to try to pull away.
[8]
Officer Tout stated that just as he was exiting his own vehicle to approach the Defendant
again, he was advised over the radio about charges of possession for the purposes of trafficking
pending against the Defendant. He also testified that when he approached the drivers side
window of the Toyota, the Defendant was turned toward him as if trying to block his view of
something in the car with his body.
[9]
Officer Tout stated that at that point he saw a quantity of white powder spilled on the
centre console of the Toyota. Given the information he had just received from the dispatcher,
Officer Tout said that he concluded that the powder was likely an illegal drug. He testified that
he told the Defendant to get out of the car, and that the Defendant, who is disabled, did so with
the help of crutches. Officer Tout then placed the Defendant under arrest for possession of a
controlled substance.
[10] A somewhat different version of the traffic stop was told by the Defendant on the witness
stand. The Defendant indicated that he was indeed driving in the Broadview and Gerard area,

2015 ONSC 5607 (CanLII)

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[11] The Defendant testified that roughly a year previously, he had been arrested by Officer
Elliot and plead guilty to possession of heroin in respect of drugs found in the same Toyota
Camry as he was driving that day. According to his guilty plea, the Defendant was driving the
car which contained drugs which belonged to someone else. At the time of the Defendants
previous arrest, the car was searched and heroin was found inserted behind the steering column,
in the same place that Officer Elliot found the drugs this time around.
[12] The Defendant testified that after passing through a traffic light, he pulled into a parking
lot near Broadview and Gerard. He said that a uniformed policeman Officer Tout approached
his car. According to the Defendant, he had not run a red light and there was no traffic reason for
him to have been stopped.
[13] The Defendant stated that as Officer Tout approached his car, he was speaking on a cell
phone. The Defendant could not make out the entire conversation, but was sufficiently within
earshot of Officer Tout to hear him say into the phone the phrase, Exactly him. It was as if
Officer Tout was verifying the Defendants identity to the person on the other end of the line.
[14] I note parenthetically that Officer Tout testified that he usually does have a cell phone,
but that he cannot specifically recall having his cell phone with him on the day of the
Defendants arrest. Officer Elliot recalls having a cell phone on him that day. Another police
officer attending at the scene, D.C. Fraser Douglas, also recalls having his cell phone with him
that day, but testified that he cannot recall whether anyone at the scene used a cell phone.
[15] The Defendant testified that no more than two minutes after he was stopped, Officer
Elliot and Sgt. Taylor arrived on the scene. He said that it was Officer Elliot who removed him
from the drivers seat after retrieving his crutches from the car. The Defendant is disabled, and
explained in his testimony that he is partly paralyzed in his legs and one arm. Officer Elliot was
aware from their encounter the previous year that the Defendant has a disability that requires him
to use crutches. According to the Defendant, Officer Elliot immediately placed him under arrest
for possession of heroin, and then proceeded to search his car.
[16] Yet another version of the initial contact with the Defendant was narrated at trial by
Officer Douglas, who claimed that it was he, and not Officer Elliot and Sgt. Taylor, who was
first at the scene in assisting Officer Tout with the search and arrest. Officer Douglas related that
upon his arrival in the parking lot, he was told by Officer Tout that there were drugs in the
Defendants car. He said that he did not see the white powder himself, but that after the
Defendant was removed from the vehicle he proceeded to conduct a search of the car.

2015 ONSC 5607 (CanLII)

and that when stopped at a red light he by chance saw in the car next to him D.C. Benjamin
Elliot, whom he recognized as the officer that had arrested him the previous year. Officer Elliot
was riding in a car driven by his partner, Sgt. Michael Taylor. The two police officers were
wearing ordinary street clothes and were riding in an unmarked vehicle.

[17] According to Officer Douglas, a police car with Officer Elliot and Sgt. Taylor arrived
shortly after him. He said that he and Officer Elliot together conducted a thorough search of the
Defendants car. The tapes of the radio conversations between the various officers and the police
dispatchers, however, suggest that Officer Douglas timing is off. He confirmed in his testimony
that he advised the dispatcher of his arrival at the parking lot to assist Officer Tout, radioing in
with the phrase Mark me out with the neighbourhood safety unit. This communication took
place at 5:19 p.m.
[18] Sgt. Taylor, on the other hand, radioed from his car at 4:51, half an hour before that time,
to say that he and Officer Elliot were on their way to the scene and that they would arrive there
in two minutes. Apparently, they were right in the Broadview and Gerard area when Officer
Tout radioed about the Defendant having been stopped, although both Officer Elliot and Sgt.
Taylor denied having seen the Defendant in his car moments before entering the parking lot. In
any case, it is clear from the timing of the statements over the police radio that Officer Elliot and
Sgt. Taylor were on the scene before Officer Douglas arrived.
[19] This timing is confirmed by the drawings several of the witnesses produced showing the
configuration of automobiles in the parking lot at the time of the Defendants arrest. Officer Tout
showed his own car to be in front of the Defendants Toyota, with Sgt. Taylors car almost
directly behind the Defendants Toyota.
[20] The Defendant produced a drawing of his memory of the automobiles showing that Sgt.
Taylors car was indeed directly behind him, and that a third police car that of Officer Douglas
was behind and to the right of that one. In other words, unless some complex and inexplicable
maneuvering of automobiles was done during the course of the Defendants arrest, Officer Elliot
and Sgt. Taylor had entered the lot and pulled up behind the Defendant before Officer Douglas
arrived in his vehicle.
[21] This is a minor inconsistency, and could be chalked up to faulty memory of an innocuous
fact were it not for the suspicion that Officer Douglas, in asserting that he arrived on the scene
first, was attempting to deflect attention from the front-and-centre roles played by Officer Elliot
and Sgt. Taylor. As related below, Officer Douglas went on to testify that it was he that
conducted the thorough search of the Defendants vehicle, even though it was made clear by both
Officer Elliot and the Defendant that it was Officer Elliot who did the real search.
[22] The most striking inconsistency in the testimony, however, belongs to Officer Elliot and
Sgt. Taylor. This important portion of the evidence is related two partners explanations of why
they came to assist Officer Tout in the first place.
[23] Officer Elliot testified that in January 2014 he was in the major crimes unit, and in the
late afternoon of January 13th he was on general patrol with Sgt. Taylor. Officer Elliot stated in
his examination-in-chief that he did not see the Defendant in his car as the Defendant had
suggested; rather, he said that his attention was alerted when he heard over the radio that PC

2015 ONSC 5607 (CanLII)

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[24] Indeed, Officer Elliot was quite emphatic that the first four letters of the Defendants
license plate BJAV stuck in his mind from last years arrest. He testified that after hearing
the Defendants license plate, his memory and the connection to the prior arrest started to flow.
He recalled that the Defendant was arrested for transporting heroin in a car with exactly the same
license plate as that which he heard Officer Tout read to the dispatcher.
[25] In fact, Officer Elliot went so far as to indicate that the license plate was so familiar to
him that he did not have to refer to any papers or to any other reference to accurately record the
Defendants license plate as BJAV 836 in his notes. According to Officer Elliot, hearing the
license plate during the radio exchange between Officer Tout and the dispatcher triggered his
recollection of the Defendant and prompted him to attend at the parking lot to assist Officer
Tout.
[26] This account was confirmed in the notes of Sgt. Taylor. His notebook, which was read to
him in cross-examination and which he confirmed for the record, makes specific reference to his
having heard the Defendants license plate. Sgt.Taylors notes state: Overheard on radio that PC
Tout #5255 has vehicle stop in Green P parking lot on Gerard Street East, Ontario marker BJAV
836. DC Elliot has investigated this before.
[27] Remarkably, the dispatch tapes, which were played in full at the hearing, make no
mention whatsoever of the Defendants license plate. If the license on the vehicle stopped by
Officer Tout was known to Officer Elliot and Sgt. Taylor, it was from something other than the
radio calls to which they attributed this knowledge. In cross-examination, Officer Elliot
responded to this revelation by saying dryly, It appears I was mistaken. Having been caught
placing great emphasis on supposedly hearing something that turns out never to have been said,
he seemed lost for words.
[28] For his part, Sgt. Taylor denied having heard the license plate number over the radio, and
equally denied that his notes say that he heard the license plate over the radio. At the same time,
he was at a loss to say how or why he wrote the Defendants exact plate number into his notes as
something that he had heard over the radio prior to attending at the Green P lot. Moreover,
although this notes make it obvious that he already knew who the Defendant was before he and
Officer Elliot arrived at the parking lot, in cross-examination he denied that Officer Elliot had
filled him in on the Defendants identity.
[29] Sgt. Taylors explanations for the discrepancies in his notes and his testimony were
evasive and weak. Ultimately, he said little more than that this is just the way he happened to
write the incident up. He concluded, somewhat dismissively, that his notes might not be in
chronological order. Like Officer Elliot, he had no real explanation at all for the false
information that the two Officers so coincidentally shared.

2015 ONSC 5607 (CanLII)

Tout had stopped a motor vehicle whose license plate he recognized from his arrest of the
Defendant the previous year.

Page: 6

The search

[30] There are also several versions of how the search of the Defendants vehicle proceeded.
Officer Douglas says that he conducted a thorough search of the car, and that he was assisted in
this once Officer Elliot arrived on the scene. Officer Douglas does concede that it was Officer
Elliot who eventually found the drugs on the drivers side of the car. He expressed surprise that
he missed finding them himself, but indicated that he had focused on the passengers side and
back seat while Officer Elliot searched the drivers seat and surrounding area.
[31] Officer Elliots description of the search differed significantly from that of Officer
Douglas. He indicated that he found the drugs in the Defendants car very quickly after
commencing his search. He said they were hidden behind the steering column, in precisely the
same place that the Defendant had hid them the previous year. He explained that he did not need
any assistance in the search as he was experienced with this Defendant and knew exactly where
to look.
[32] The Defendants narrative was entirely different. He stated that Officer Elliot searched
the car thoroughly and did not find anything. He said that eventually the Officer got frustrated
and told him to say where the drugs were hidden, or else he would call in a dog unit. According
to the Defendant, he said nothing in response, and Officer Elliot returned to searching the car and
eventually came out holding the drugs wrapped in plastic. According to the Defendant, as Officer
Elliot emerged from the car, he said out loud, I found it.
[33] One of the more bizarre aspects of the search is that a Scene of Crime Officer (SOCO)
was called to investigate and record the state of the Defendants vehicle after it was searched,
and not before. This officer, P.C. Erika Machacek, testified at trial and provided precious little in
the way of helpful information. She testified that on Sgt. Taylors instructions she paid specific
attention to the white powder that was spread around the centre console of the car. She
photographed the console and seized the powder for evidence. It was unclear why she was the
one who seized the drugs, as that is not typically the SOCOs function.
[34] What was clear is that the functions that are typically done by a SOCO gathering
fingerprints and other forensic evidence from the crime scene were useless under the
circumstances. The Defendants vehicle had already been thoroughly searched and the evidence
at the scene had been disturbed by the searching officers. The one scenario on which a SOCO
relies an undisturbed crime scene had already vanished by the time she was called.
[35] Officer Machacek all but conceded the oddity of the circumstances under which she was
called to the scene, although straight answers were difficult to obtain from her. She indicated that
as a SOCO she has training in preserving the integrity of a crime scene, but was barely willing to
concede that in conducting the search before calling in the SOCO, the Officers had acted
contrary to best practices and had effectively spoiled the integrity of the scene.

2015 ONSC 5607 (CanLII)

III.

Page: 7

[37] The impression that Officer Machacek gave in her testimony was that she knew she had
been called to investigate a crime scene where something had happened that she did not
understand, or to which she was not privy. I did not get the impression that she was an active part
of any conspiracy; rather, I got the impression that she sensed that some coordinated police
misconduct was afoot, and she was trying hard to get through her testimony without giving
anything away.
IV.

Was the search legal?

[38] It is the theory of the defense that the heroin sprinkled on the console of the Defendants
car was placed there by the police. Defense counsel argues that Officer Elliot knew the
Defendant and his Toyota Camry from the previous years arrest, and when he happened to see
the Defendant drive by he called Officer Tout and told him to stop the Defendant until he and
Sgt. Taylor could arrive. Counsel for the defense contends that the Officers then searched the
Defendants car, and in the process they spilled some heroin in a visible location in order to give
themselves a pretext for having conducted the warrantless search.
[39] It is the theory of the Crown that the Defendant is a known and experienced heroin
trafficker who by chance encountered the same police officer twice, and so got caught hiding
drugs in the same spot in his car as he had done the previous year. Counsel for the Crown
contends that the Defendant must have been using some of the heroin as he was driving his car,
and that he tried to hide it when he was pulled over. According to the Crown, some of the heroin
must have spilled onto the console, and seeing the spilled white powder gave the Officers cause
to search the vehicle.
[40] The issue on this blended voir dire is whether the warrantless search of the Defendants
car was an unreasonable search and seizure contrary to section 8 of the Canadian Charter of
Rights and Freedoms (the Charter). In Hunter v Southam Inc., [1984] 2 SCR 145 and R v
Collins, [1987] 1 SCR 265, the Supreme Court of Canada held that a warrantless search is prima
facie unreasonable. The Crown then has the burden of showing that the search was, on the
balance of probabilities, reasonable.
[41] It goes without saying that a traffic stop alone would not justify the police searching the
Defendants car for drugs. As the Supreme Court of Canada indicated in R v Caslake, [1998] 1
SCR 51, at para 16, a search is only justifiable if the purpose of the search is related to the
purpose of the arrest. Once the Defendant was arrested for possession of the visible heroin, the
police would have had grounds to search his car for the rest of the hidden heroin. The question,
therefore, is whether the heroin that was visible on the console of the car legitimately gave the
police cause to conduct a further search.

2015 ONSC 5607 (CanLII)

[36] Officer Machacek was what can only be described as a nervous witness. Her testimony
was hesitant, her answers were tentative, and she was far more evasive and argumentative than
one would expect from an officer trained to collect and explain forensic evidence.

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[43] Counsel for the defense points out that there is no evidence, other than the testimony of
the police and the post-search photos taken by Officer Machacek, that heroin was spilled in the
Defendants car. No empty or half empty bag has been produced from which it supposedly
spilled, no implements for using heroin were found on the Defendant or in his vehicle, no heroin
was spilled on the Defendants clothing, and nothing else was discovered in the search to
indicate that the Defendant was in the process of using or transferring or handling heroin when
he was stopped by Officer Tout. The loose heroin lying openly on the console of the car is
inexplicable.
[44] Indeed, the Crown itself portrays the Defendant as an experienced heroin user and
trafficker who knows how to package heroin powder in tight plastic wrapping, and to hide those
packages in obscure crevices of his automobile. It seems unlikely, to say the least, that he would
leave unwrapped heroin powder lying visibly around his car when he went to all the trouble of
wrapping the rest of the heroin in plastic and inserting it behind the steering wheel.
[45] Furthermore, if it happened that the Defendant, who admits to being an occasional drug
user as a means of controlling the pain from his injuries, had spilled some of the heroin when
Officer Tout pulled him over, it stands to reason that he would wipe it off the console rather than
leave it there exposed to the Officers sight. Officer Tout claims that when he approached the
car, the Defendant turned his shoulders square to the window as if to block the view of the
console; but why would he leave the powder on the console when he could have just swept the
substance away with a wave of his hand? There is something in Officer Touts account that
simply does not add up.
[46] The sense that something is amiss in the police description of the Defendants car and the
exposed heroin is augmented by the apparently collusive nature of Officer Elliots and Sgt.
Taylors false testimony regarding the license plate. As indicated above, Sgt. Taylor testified that
he did not know the Defendant prior to January 13, 2014 or hear his license plate read over the
radio, and yet he recorded in his notes the Defendants precise license plate number that he
supposedly didnt know or hear.
[47] Officer Elliot twice testified that he was alerted to the fact that the Defendant was
stopped in his car by the same license plate number that he also supposedly heard on the radio,
but that turns out to never have been said over the radio. Neither of the Officers had an
explanation for this. It is obvious that the two partners had discussed the matter in advance and
had agreed to cite the same license plate as the cause for their attendance at the scene, but they
nevertheless denied doing so.

2015 ONSC 5607 (CanLII)

[42] Counsel for the Crown agrees that if it is not established that the police saw heroin on the
console of the car, the evidence seized in the search would have to be excluded. In that case,
there would necessarily be serious credibility issues with respect to the police testimony, and
saving the evidence under s. 24(2) of the Charter would not be appropriate.

[48] It is fair to say that Officer Elliot and Sgt. Taylor were caught flatfooted by the
recordings of the radio calls that were played for them on cross-examination. Officer Elliot took
the witness stand first. Not only did he have to concede that he had testified in chief that the
license plate number had alerted him to the Defendants traffic stop, but he had to likewise
concede that he had testified to that effect months before at the preliminary inquiry.
[49] Sgt. Taylor took the stand second, and was very careful not to say that he was alerted to
the scene by a license plate number; indeed, he was so careful about this that it was evident to me
that he had been alerted to this line of questioning before taking the stand. His notes, which he
made just after the event, not only indicated that it was a license plate number that got his
attention, but they actually spelled out letter-by-letter and number-by-number the very license
plate that in cross-examination he claimed not to have heard.
[50] Defense counsel explained that she had purposely not asked Crown counsel for pre-trial
disclosure of the dispatch tapes; instead, she requested that I order them produced at the opening
of trial. She explained that from prior experience she knows that the police review the tapes
before they testify if they are produced in Crown disclosure, which then gives them a chance to
fashion their testimony so that it conforms to the recordings. On the other hand, she noted that
the police do not have a chance to review the dispatch tapes if they are delivered directly to court
during the first days of trial, and so their testimony will not be fashioned to conform with them.
[51] I can only conclude that the strategy worked. Officer Elliot and Sgt. Taylor together
concocted a false story about hearing the Defendants license plate over the radio, and stuck to
that story until it was undermined by the recordings of the very radio transmissions they had
heard. This collusion leads inevitably to the conclusion that there was something other than the
license plate that lead the two Officers to the Defendant that day.
[52] It is doubtful that Officer Elliot and Sgt. Taylor heard some other identifying fact about
the Defendant pronounced by Officer Tout over the radio. If that were the case, they would have
testified to the real fact instead of going off on a tangent about the non-existent broadcast of a
license plate number. Rather, I conclude that it was Officer Elliot and Sgt. Taylor that alerted
Officer Tout to the Defendant and told him to stop him until they arrived on the scene, and not
the other way around. This is the sequence suggested by the Defendants narrative of the events.
When the Defendant heard Officer Tout state into the cell phone, Exactly him, he was likely
listening to Officer Tout confirm the Defendants description to Officer Elliot.
[53] The defense contends that having orchestrated the traffic stop of the Defendant, the
Officers then orchestrated the pretext to search his car. It is hard to disagree with this logic. Why
else would a major crimes squad officer alert a traffic patrol officer to the presence of a known
drug trafficker and have him stop that person in his car, if not to search the car for drugs?
[54] There were no grounds for Officer Elliot to obtain a search warrant, as the Defendant had
done nothing but to drive by him on a public road. Officer Elliot required some evidence of an
ongoing offense to be openly visible in order to justify a search of the car. It is the defense

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[55] D.C. Elliot and Sgt. Taylor are experienced police officers on the major crimes unit. It
stands to reason that had they and Officer Tout genuinely seen a substance that appeared to be
heroin scattered openly and haphazardly on the console of the Defendants car, they would have
called the SOCO to properly examine and document the crime scene before disturbing it with
their own search of the vehicle. They did not do so, but rather called the SOCO later, after the
fact, in order to have a purportedly independent officer document the presence of heroin on the
console. This course of conduct by the police suggests a strategy designed to cover their tracks
rather than a proper police investigation.
[56] The Court of Appeal has indicated that in a case such as this one involving evidence of
police misconduct, I must attempt to place that evidence along a continuum of misconduct.
[T]he graver the states misconduct the stronger the need to preserve the long-term repute of the
administration of justice by disassociating the courts processes from that misconduct. That
disassociation is achieved by excluding the evidentiary fruits of the state misconduct: R v Blake,
2010 ONCA 1, at para 23.
[57] The Supreme Court of Canada held in R v Harrison, [2009] 2 SCR 494, at para 56, that
one way to measure the states misconduct is to determine the extent to which an expectation of
privacy has been breached. In making this assessment, the relevant factors will include the place
where the person is stopped, the likelihood of the police conducting checks at the place in
question or with respect to the activity being engaged in, the duration of the stop, the grounds for
the detention and the attitude of the police officers during the stop: Harrison, at para 54, citing
Dedman v The Queen, [1985] 2 SCR 2, at 16-17.
[58] Harrison and Blake both demonstrate that even where police misconduct falls short of
obstruction of justice, it can serve as a basis to stay a prosecution involving the possession and
trafficking of a substantial quantity of drugs. Here, the false creation of a pretext to search the
Defendants vehicle, combined with the collusive fabrication of a story by the two lead Officers
as to why they came to assist in the traffic stop of the Defendant, certainly amounts to
egregiously wrongful conduct. This police misconduct outweighs the roughly 12 grams of heroin
found by the police. That quantity of drugs is, of course, a serious matter; but the misconduct
evidenced here is entirely beyond anything that the courts can accept.
[59] Where the police conducted themselves in less than good faith, as here, it is necessary for
the administration of justice to disregard the evidence that they have so collected: Harrison, at
para. 62. As the Supreme Court said in R v Collins, [1987] 1 SCR 265, at para 23, A search will
be reasonable if it is authorized by law, if the law itself is reasonable and if the manner in which the
search was carried out is reasonable.
[60] If the heroin was planted on the console by the police, and was not actually left there by the
Defendant, then the ensuing search was not authorized by law. I conclude that is indeed what

2015 ONSC 5607 (CanLII)

position that the Officer solved this problem by simply depositing the requisite evidence in the
form of powdered heroin spread across the console of the car.

Page: 11

happened here. All of the heroin that was found pursuant to this pretext for a search is, as they say,
fruit of a poisoned tree.
Disposition

[61] The search of the Defendants vehicle and the place where he was seated in the police
vehicle upon his arrest violated his rights under section 8 of the Charter. The drugs seized during
the course of that search are not admissible as evidence.
[62]

The charges against the Defendant are dismissed.

Morgan J.
Date: September 3, 2015

2015 ONSC 5607 (CanLII)

VI.

CITATION: R. v. Tran, 2015 ONSC


COURT FILE NO.: CF-15-90000036
DATE: 20150903
ONTARIO
SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE
HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN
and
NGUYEN SON TRAN
Defendant

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT


E.M. Morgan J.

Released: September 3, 2014

2015 ONSC 5607 (CanLII)

Page: 12

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