L’autorisation de perquisitionner dans un lieu emporte celle de fouiller les espaces et contenants se trouvant dans ce lieu

R. v. Charles, 2012 ONSC 2001

Lien vers la décision

[61]           Defence counsel argued that the police had no power under the search warrant to open the safe, but rather were required to apply for a second warrant to examine its contents.  I disagree.  The search warrant empowered the police to search the apartment and its contents.  If, in the course of that search, they encountered a desk, they were empowered to look inside the desk.  That would include opening the drawers of the desk and looking inside those drawers.  They would not be required to get a new warrant if a desk drawer was locked.  The warrant provides them with all the authority they need to look inside the locked drawer.  There is nothing about a safe that makes it any different from a locked drawer.  There is every reason to believe that a person who is believed to be a drug dealer, who is found to have crack cocaine and a large amount of cash on his person, and who has a safe in his closet, is likely to have placed either drugs or proceeds or both in the safe.  Indeed, there is every reason to believe that is why he would have acquired a safe in the first place.

*** Note de l'auteur de ce blog: ce passage est cité avec approbation par R. c. Vu, 2013 CSC 60, par 39 ***