21/02/2017 – Jurisdiction Alberta
Part 58 published on 01/06/2018
Police did not need a search warrant to obtain garbage left in a condominium’s communal garbage bin
Mr. Piasecki was residing in a townhouse condominium. He was under surveillance. Police saw him leave his home with two white garbage bags. He walked down a lane between two rows of units and entered a garage that had been configured as a garbage receptacle for the townhouse complex. Police also saw that, when he left the garage, he no longer had the garbage bags.
Shortly thereafter, police entered the unlocked garage, and retrieved the garbage bags from a large industrial bin in the garage. The police had no consent to enter the garage, and no search warrant for this purpose. The question was whether the contents of the garbage bags could be used in evidence; or whether this was not possible because they had been acquired by unlawful search.
The Court held that the search was lawful and allowed the retrieved garbage into evidence. The Court said:
In the end, and balancing all the factors identified in (the case of R. v Patrick), I conclude that this search without a warrant was justified. The strong evidence of abandonment more than cancels out the private location in which garbage was stored in the townhouse complex.
