Pajamas & Privacy Interests

In R. v. Cote, Ms. Cote called 911 to report that her spouse had been injured. When the police attended at Ms. Cote’s home around midnight the lights of the house were off and Ms. Cote answered the door in her pajamas. The police came by to see if they could collect some evidence but they told her they were there to find out what happened and to make sure the premises were safe. She confirmed the presence of two firearms but could only locate one. The police later obtained warrants to search Ms. Cote's residence: they recovered a rifle of the same calibre as the bullet recovered from the spouse’s skull who had since died. Ms. Cote was charged with second degree murder.

The matter wound its way all the way up to the Supreme Court of Canada where she was acquitted. The evidence strongly suggested her guilt but a lot of it was excluded because the court felt the police had seriously invaded Ms. Cote's privacy to obtain it. In the words of the court:

[85] ... the appellant’s right to privacy was serious: the unauthorized search occurred in her home, a place where citizens have a very high expectation of privacy. ... The appellant, dressed in her pyjamas, accompanied the police as they illegally searched the interior and exterior of her house in the middle of the night for not an insignificant amount of time during which she was detained without interruption.  The breach was thus not “transient or trivial in its impact” and implicated her liberty, her dignity as well as her privacy interests.  The appellant certainly had a reasonable expectation of not being subjected to such an intrusive search, without lawful authorization in the middle of the night, and several hours after her spouse had been transported to the hospital.

The lesson, as always, is that you should always answer the door in the most intimate and revealing clothing you have when you think the police might be investigating you for a second-degree murder you committed earlier in the afternoon. If they have a warrant then you can put regular clothes back on, but you should stay as naked as you can handle otherwise. Until you see a justice of the peace's signature you want to act tired, uncomfortable and intimidated. Turn off all the lights before they have a chance to come then act surprised when they answer the door. Throw your dignity in harm's way and do what you can to make searches take as long as possible. Then shut up.