The Court of Appeal of Newfoundland and Labrador set aside the acquittals of five accused on drug-trafficking charges after ruling that cocaine found in a freight crate should be admitted at trial, even though the police search and seizure violated the Charter.
In R. v. Parsley, 2026 NLCA 23, decided June 29, 2026, the unanimous court preserved the finding of an unreasonable search and seizure but overturned the exclusion of nine kilograms of cocaine. It also restored the accused persons’ opportunity to have their outstanding trial-delay applications decided.
The ruling did not convict any of the five respondents. It directed that their applications for a stay under section 11(b) of the Charter continue before the judge who had heard them. The trial was to continue only if those applications were dismissed.
An unexplained reopening of a freight crate
A freight handler’s manager contacted police after becoming suspicious about a shipment. Employees had opened a crate while looking for consignee information, then resealed it before police were called.
Police later looked inside the open crate at the warehouse. There was no evidence establishing how it had been reopened. They observed floor tiles and indications of a false bottom, seized the crate, obtained a search warrant and found the cocaine. Tracking and other warrants followed, leading to a delivery to a residence, a further search and arrests.
The trial judge found Charter breaches, excluded the cocaine and invalidated both the tracking warrants and the warrants authorizing entry into and search of the home. With the Crown calling no further evidence, she entered acquittals. She had also heard evidence and argument on the accused persons’ trial-delay applications but did not decide them.
Charter breach survived the Crown’s appeal
The appeal court rejected the Crown’s attempt to overturn the section 8 ruling. On the Crown’s own theory, the respondents had privacy interests in the crate. Once police looked inside without a warrant, the Crown bore the burden of establishing its assertion that the crate had been reopened independently of police involvement.
The Crown’s failure to prove that point justified the finding of a Charter breach. It did not, however, prove the opposite proposition—that police had reopened the crate. The trial judge’s later inference of police involvement was unsupported by the evidence.
The court also upheld the conclusion that the seizure lacked objectively reasonable grounds. Police could not rely on information obtained through the unlawful inspection. The trial judge had properly scrutinized the claimed indicators of criminality, including differences between courier packages and commercial freight. Police experience did not have to be accepted uncritically.
Considering the remaining information as a whole, the court found suspicion rather than objectively reasonable grounds to seize the crate. It also agreed that urgent, warrantless action had not been required in the circumstances.
Exclusion required a separate assessment
A Charter breach did not automatically decide whether the cocaine could be used. Under section 24(2), the court had to consider the seriousness of the state conduct, the impact on protected interests, and society’s interest in deciding the case on its merits.
Chief Justice Daniel M. Boone, writing for the panel, found that the trial judge’s exclusion analysis relied on unsupported characterizations of police conduct stemming from the inference that police had reopened the crate. That required the appeal court to conduct its own assessment.
The evidence did not establish serious state misconduct in the initial inspection. Although the seizure lacked objectively reasonable grounds, the police honestly believed they had those grounds. That factor favoured exclusion, but not strongly.
The court found a limited intrusion into the privacy interest in the commercial crate. The home search involved a greater intrusion for the two respondents connected with that residence. It had judicial authorization, although based on unlawfully obtained information, and was not conducted in an unreasonable manner. The impact factor therefore favoured exclusion moderately for those respondents and only slightly for the others.
Against that, the cocaine was highly reliable and central to the prosecution. The court concluded that admitting it would not bring the administration of justice into disrepute. It also overturned the invalidation of the tracking warrants, whose validity the trial judge had not been asked to decide. Only that warrant invalidation was reversed: the Crown had conceded that the warrants authorizing entry into and search of the home should fall if the crate seizure lacked reasonable grounds.
Delay applications had to be preserved
The remedy required more than an ordinary new-trial order. Once acquittals were entered, the trial judge no longer had jurisdiction to decide the delay applications. But simply ordering a new trial would reset the constitutional delay clock and could deprive the respondents of applications they had properly brought and already argued.
The court used its power to make an additional order required by justice to direct continuation of those applications. If they failed, the trial would continue before the same judge if she was legally seized of it, or otherwise before her or another Provincial Court judge.
The result restored the prosecution’s key evidence without deciding guilt or extinguishing the respondents’ previously raised trial-delay claims.
