La Cour d’appel de l’Ontario a rendu récemment une décision, R. v. Fearon, 2013 ONCA 106, relative au pouvoir de fouille accessoire à l’arrestation mettant en cause un téléphone cellulaire.
L’accusé a été arête après avoir commis un vol. Il a été arrêté de façon légale et en procédant à la fouille accessoire à l’arrestation, les policiers ont retrouvé sur lui un téléphone cellulaire (ce n’était pas un téléphone intelligent). Le cellulaire était allumé et n’était pas protégé par un mot de passe. Les policiers ont regardé le contenu du téléphone et ont retracé des photos ainsi que des messages textes incriminants.
Au procès, l’accusé a présenté une requête en vue de faire exclure cette preuve invoquant qu’une expectative de vie privée caractérisait le contenu de son téléphone cellulaire. Ainsi, un mandat d’arrestation se devait d’être lancé, argumentait-il. La Cour ne lui a pas donné raison.
En appel, certains ont argumenté que le téléphone cellulaire devait faire l’objet d’une exclusion relativement au pouvoir de fouille accessoire à l’arrestation. La Cour d’appel de l’Ontario fut en désaccord.
Cependant, il ressort de la décision que si le téléphone portable avait été protégé par un mot de passe, il n’aurait pas été opportun de prendre des mesures pour ouvrir le téléphone cellulaire et examiner son contenu sans avoir préalablement obtenu un mandat de perquisition.
Voici les passages pertinents :
[72] The problem I have with the appellant’s position and, in particular, the position of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, is that it would appear to mark a significant departure from the existing state of the law on the basis of a record that does not suggest it is necessary. While I appreciate the highly personal and sensitive nature of the contents of a cell phone and the high expectation of privacy that they may attract, I am of the view that it is difficult to generalize and create an exception based on the facts of this case. The facts of this case, with the correct application of the existing law, suggest that the search and seizure of the cell phone at the scene of the arrest were carried out appropriately and within the limits of the law articulated by the Supreme Court in Caslake.
[73] In this case, it is significant that the cell phone was apparently not password protected or otherwise “locked” to users other than the appellant when it was seized. Furthermore, the police had a reasonable belief that it would contain relevant evidence. The police, in my view, were within the limits of Caslake to examine the contents of the cell phone in a cursory fashion to ascertain if it contained evidence relevant to the alleged crime. If a cursory examination did not reveal any such evidence, then at that point the search incident to arrest should have ceased.
[74] The appellant directed this court to statements made by the trial judge in Little, where she concluded at para. 147 that the cell phone in issue “functioned as a mini-computer”. Furthermore, the court in Little found that the contents of the cell phone “were not immediately visible to the eye” and were “extracted by a police officer with specialized skills using specialized equipment.” There was no suggestion in this case that this particular cell phone functioned as a “mini-computer” nor that its contents were not “immediately visible to the eye”. Rather, because the phone was not password protected, the photos and the text message were readily available to other users.
[75] If the cell phone had been password protected or otherwise “locked” to users other than the appellant, it would not have been appropriate to take steps to open the cell phone and examine its contents without first obtaining a search warrant.
[76] In short, I find myself in the same position as this court found itself in Manley. To quote from the reasons of Sharpe J.A. again, it is “neither necessary nor desirable to attempt to provide a comprehensive definition of the powers of the police to search the stored data in cell phones seized upon arrest.”
[77] It may be that some future case will produce a factual matrix that will lead the court to carve out a cell phone exception to the law as articulated in Caslake. This is not that case. To put it in the modern vernacular: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
