If the Supreme Court Were on Facebook: Evaluating the Reasonable Expectation of Privacy Test from a Social Perspective

Patrick, the Supreme Court of Canada’s latest landmark privacy decision, will have a tremendous impact on policing in years to come. In Patrick, police officers sifted through the curbside garbage of Mr. Patrick, discovered compelling evidence of drug production in its contents, used the information to secure a warrant to enter his residence, and found an ecstasy lab once inside. The Supreme Court, in upholding the decision of the Alberta Court of Appeal, denied Patrick’s claim to a reasonable expectation of privacy in his garbage.

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Tessling, Brown, and A.M.: Towards a Principled Approach to Section 8

Alberta Law Review ◽

10.29173/alr381 ◽

2015 ◽

Author(s):

William MacKinnon

Keyword(s):

Supreme Court ◽

Historical Development ◽

Search And Seizure ◽

Reasonable Expectation ◽

Section 8 ◽

Individual Privacy ◽

The Supreme Court ◽

Reasonable Expectation Of Privacy

This article analyzes the Supreme Court of Canada's search-and-seizure jurisprudence in anticipation of the Court's forthcoming decisions on the admissibility of evidence obtained by police dog searches in Brown and A.M. After reviewing the historical development of s. 8, the author then goes on to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the Court's analysis of sense-enhancing aids and the reasonable expectation of privacy' in Tessling. The article ultimately argues that the Court ought to eschew a case-by-case model for establishing the existence of areasonable expectation of privacy, and go beyond the facts of Brown and A.M. in order to adopt a more principled approach to s. 8. The author maintains that a more principled approach is necessary because stale actors need clearer guidance if they are to successfully balance individual privacy with the use of sense enhancing aids.

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Consent Searches for Electronic Text Communications: Escaping the Zero-Sum Trap

Alberta Law Review ◽

10.29173/alr2494 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 1

Author(s):

Steven Penney

Keyword(s):

Supreme Court ◽

Criminal Code ◽

Electronic Text ◽

Supreme Court Of Canada ◽

Lower Court ◽

Reasonable Expectation ◽

Section 8 ◽

The Supreme Court ◽

Oral Communications ◽

Zero Sum

In R. v. Marakah, a majority of the Supreme Court of Canada decided that senders of electronic text communications maintain a reasonable expectation of privacy over their messages even after they are copied to recipients’ devices. The dissenters argued, in contrast, that any such expectation is objectively unreasonable given senders’ inability to control the messages after delivery. The Supreme Court did not settle the question, however, of whether this expectation can be defeated by a recipient’s voluntary decision to allow police to search his or her own device. Indeed, each side intimated that such a consent would be difficult, if not impossible, to obtain.This article argues, nonetheless, that courts can and should use consent doctrine to avoid the “zero-sum” model of section 8 adjudication that characterizes the majority and dissenting reasons in Marakah. Properly interpreted, that doctrine preserves Marakah’s core holding — that senders do not reasonably expect unfettered state access to their received text communications — while also giving effect to recipients’ autonomous decisions to assist police.However, as with oral communications, a recipient’s consent to disclose a sender’s text communications to police should only defeat the sender’s expectation of privacy over preexisting messages. Contrary to several lower court decisions, this article argues that the acquisition of future, incoming communications from recipients’ devices (with or without consent) invades senders’ reasonable expectations of privacy under section 8 of the Charter and constitutes an “interception” requiring judicial authorization under section 184.2 of the Criminal Code.

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Under the Law

Phi Delta Kappan ◽

10.1177/0031721717734198 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 99 (2) ◽

pp. 76-77

Author(s):

Julie Underwood

Keyword(s):

Public School ◽

Supreme Court ◽

School Personnel ◽

School Shootings ◽

High Stakes ◽

Reasonable Expectation ◽

Fast Pace ◽

The U.S ◽

Reasonable Expectation Of Privacy ◽

Made In

School personnel must often balance a student’s right to privacy with a school’s interest in protecting all students. A recent decision by the Ohio Supreme Court — Ohio vs. Polk (2017) — brings to light the complexity of these competing concerns and the high-stakes decisions that must be made in the fast pace of a public school. Does a student have a reasonable expectation of privacy when he leaves a backpack behind? Is the school behaving appropriately when personnel open an unattended backpack? In this case, the Ohio Supreme Court gave the benefit of the doubt to the school in concluding that the more thorough search of the first bag was reasonable. In doing so, they focused on the threat of violence in the schools and the incidents of school shootings in the U.S., stating that schools have a “compelling interest [to ensure] that unattended book bags do not contain dangerous items.” The author concludes that it seems reasonable to expect that bags that are left unattended will be opened not just to identify the owner but to determine if they represent a threat to the general safety. Extending that rationale to the schools which may experience many unattended bags throughout the day seems reasonable.

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Malpractice & Negligence: Cal. Supreme Court Clarifies Negligence Provisions under State’s Elder Abuse Act

The Journal of Law Medicine & Ethics ◽

10.1017/s1073110500012973 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 27 (2) ◽

pp. 203-203

Author(s):

Kendra Carlson

Keyword(s):

Health Care ◽

Supreme Court ◽

Health Care Providers ◽

Elder Abuse ◽

Skilled Nursing Facility ◽

Pressure Sores ◽

Care Providers ◽

Nursing Facility ◽

Skilled Nursing ◽

The Supreme Court

The Supreme Court of California held, in Delaney v. Baker, 82 Cal. Rptr. 2d 610 (1999), that the heightened remedies available under the Elder Abuse Act (Act), Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code, §§ 15657,15657.2 (West 1998), apply to health care providers who engage in reckless neglect of an elder adult. The court interpreted two sections of the Act: (1) section 15657, which provides for enhanced remedies for reckless neglect; and (2) section 15657.2, which limits recovery for actions based on “professional negligence.” The court held that reckless neglect is distinct from professional negligence and therefore the restrictions on remedies against health care providers for professional negligence are inapplicable.Kay Delaney sued Meadowood, a skilled nursing facility (SNF), after a resident, her mother, died. Evidence at trial indicated that Rose Wallien, the decedent, was left lying in her own urine and feces for extended periods of time and had stage I11 and IV pressure sores on her ankles, feet, and buttocks at the time of her death.

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Medical and Legal Issues Raised by the Protz Decision Issued by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Guides Newsletter ◽

10.1001/amaguidesnewsletters.2017.julaug03 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 22 (4) ◽

pp. 12-13

Author(s):

LuAnn Haley ◽

Marjorie Eskay-Auerbach

Keyword(s):

Supreme Court ◽

Scientific Evidence ◽

Workers Compensation ◽

Sixth Edition ◽

Complex Concept ◽

The Supreme Court ◽

Compensation Claims ◽

Recent Edition ◽

Impairment Ratings ◽

Definition Of

Abstract Pennsylvania adopted the impairment rating provisions described in the AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment (AMA Guides) in 1996 as an exposure cap for employers seeking predictability and cost control in workers’ compensation claims. In 2017, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania handed down the Protz decision, which held that requiring physicians to apply the methodology set forth in the most recent edition of the AMA Guides reflected an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power to the American Medical Association. The decision eliminates the impairment-rating evaluation (IRE) mechanism under which claimants were assigned an impairment rating under the most recent edition of the AMA Guides. The AMA Guides periodically are revised to include the most recent scientific evidence regarding impairment ratings, and the AMA Guides, Sixth Edition, acknowledges that impairment is a complex concept that is not yet defined in a way that readily permits an evidence-based definition of assessment. The AMA Guides should not be considered standards frozen in time simply to withstand future scrutiny by the courts; instead, workers’ compensation acts could state that when a new edition of the AMA Guides is published, the legislature shall review and consider adopting the new edition. It appears unlikely that the Protz decision will be followed in other jurisdictions: Challenges to using the AMA Guides in assessing workers’ compensation claims have been attempted in three states, and all attempts failed.

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