Offer of help may jeopardize confession admissibility

R. v. Gilbertson (2012) BCSC[1] 20-04-12


Gino Arcaro M.Ed., B.Sc.

Part I - Editorial

As business owner, I find this case to be an outrage. In a nutshell, a convenience store clerk went to work, trying to make an honest living. The clerk then faced death by being robbed at knifepoint. After an investigation, the accused was arrested and was interrogated twice by two separate officers. Here's the first shocker (verbatim from the judgment): "According to the accused's evidence, he had smuggled some speed into his cell the night before, and had it with his breakfast, which was shortly before the interview commenced." Unbelievable.
Then, the accused confessed. Again, verbatim from the judgment: "He said he was threatened to do the robbery because he owed money to a dope dealer. He explained that he did the robbery to help pay off his drug debt... he agreed that the photo of the man in the convenience store was him."
The British Columbia Supreme threw out the confession because of the way the interrogating police officer offered to personally help the accused person with his drug addiction.
As an ex-detective, I've been in interrogation rooms, I've testified at voir dires, I was testifying at trials since the Charter's rookie season. I have experienced outrageous decisions where crime victims were all but forgotten and the severity of the crime ignored. By the time I finished the reading the Gilbertson judgment, the same thing happened - I had to remind myself that a victim's life was threatened during a major crime.
This article is divided into three parts:
Part 1: this editorial,
Part 2: the case & ruling
Part 3: conclusion - practical application