Spousal Communications Privilege: Cases That Should Have Gone to the Supreme Court of Canada, But Didn’t!
Welcome to Cases That Should Have Gone to the Supreme Court of Canada, But Didn’t! This week, lawyer Kyla Lee discusses spousal communications privilege.
Acumen Law Corporation lawyer Kyla Lee gives her take on a made-in-Canada court case each week and discusses why these cases should have been heard by Canada’s highest court: the Supreme Court of Canada.
Sheena Cuthill, along with her husband and brother-in-law were all charged in the death of a Mr. Lane.
In the course of the investigation into the murder, the police obtained a production order which allowed them to gain access to text messages sent by Mrs. Cuthill to her husband and to her brother-in-law.
Mrs. Cuthill argued at trial that those text messages were inadmissible because they were spousal communications. Because the documents were obtained by a production order as opposed to a warrant, Mrs. Cuthill argued that her spousal privilege was violated by police. The court disagreed and she and her husband were both convicted of murder.
The Supreme Court of Canada missed the opportunity here to clarify when spousal privilege applies in the digital age and the application of spousal privilege to a broad understanding of communication that now exists in our legal system.
Watch the video for more.
