About: R v Patrick

R v Patrick, [2009] 1 S.C.R. 579, 2009 SCC 17, is a constitutional decision by the Supreme Court of Canada on the limits of police powers for search and seizure. The Court found that police have the right to take garbage bags placed for collection at edge of a property without warrant. In this case, the accused abandoned his privacy interest when he placed his garbage for collection at the rear of his property where it was accessible to any passing member of the public. His section 8 rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms were not violated when a police officer seized bags of garbage at the rear of his property and used the contents of seized bags as evidence of criminal activity.