N.S. judge throws out charges after accused did not speak with lawyer for 7 hours

The Supreme Court of Nova Scotia is seen in Halifax on July 18, 2025. (Callum Smith/CTV Atlantic)

A Nova Scotia Supreme Court judge has dismissed charges against a man who was found allegedly holding nine plastic baggies of cocaine after they learned police did not allow him to contact his lawyer for seven hours.

In a written decision, Justice John P. Bodurtha said Patrice Jean-Noel’s charter rights were breached when police did not implement his right to counsel for more than seven hours after his initial arrest on Feb. 9, 2022. Bodurtha said all evidence obtained due to the breach would be excluded, resulting in Jean-Noel’s charges being dropped.

Section 10(b) of the charter says everyone has the right to “retain and instruct counsel without delay” following an arrest or detention.

“Despite the police conduct not being egregious or malicious or explicitly in bad faith, it was still a serious breach, and the length of delay was unreasonable and unjustifiable,” Bodurtha said in the decision. “The police in this case did not uphold their obligations.”

According to the written decision, Halifax Regional Police launched an investigation into Jean-Noel in January 2022 and arrested him in a vehicle in Cole Harbour in February. They allegedly seized the nine baggies – which each allegedly contained 0.8 grams of cocaine – along with more than $4,000 in cash.

Police then executed a search warrant at a residence and allegedly seized roughly 394 grams of cocaine and two digital scales.

The decision says police read Jean-Noel his rights following his arrest around 10:08 a.m., at which point Jean-Noel requested a constable get his cellphone from his vehicle to get his lawyer’s number. The constable retrieved the number and Jean-Noel was taken to the prisoner care facility on Gottingen Street.

According to the decision, the duty counsel phone room at the facility was occupied and there were a few people in line for it. A constable gave Jean-Noel’s lawyer’s number to a booking officer and the accused was processed and booked into cells.

“It was not until 5:10 pm (approximately seven hours later) that Mr. Jean-Noel was able to speak to his lawyer, Mr. Hutchinson, for the first time since his arrest,” the decision reads.

The decision says the Crown conceded that the delay breached Jean-Noel’s charter rights, but it argued the breach was not “sufficiently connected to the seizure of the incriminating evidence” against the accused.

“I do note that the search warrant was obtained the day before the arrest of Mr. Jean-Noel, and that there was a plan in place to arrest and investigate him, with officers assigned specific roles,” Bodurtha said. “It cannot be said to be a spontaneous or dynamic arrest – the operation was planned and went according to plan. A seven-hour delay before being able to instruct counsel is bad enough for a spontaneous or dynamic arrest, but in this case, it is even worse.

“This was a planned investigation where the police specifically identified an individual who was tasked with ensuring that Mr. Jean-Noel exercised his section 10(b) Charter right. For approximately seven hours the police failed at completing this task.”

The decision notes that the lack of a causal link between the breach and the evidence seized is not determinative since the evidence was still collected in a way that violated Jean-Noel’s rights.

“In my view, the evidence should be excluded,” the decision reads. “The police conduct was not on the extreme end of the spectrum of flagrant or abusive breaches. There was no evidence of outward malice or bad faith with respect to the police conduct in this case.

“There is not enough evidence before me to find this is a systemic problem with the HRP (Halifax Regional Police), but if the approach taken in Mr. Jean-Noel’s case is their standard approach, it risks breaching more individuals’ s. 10(b) rights, and consequently not having serious crimes be tried on their merits.”

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