Wendell Clayton Case Study

The accused, Wendell Clayton, was found in possession of a loaded illegal handgun which is banned under Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-46. A caller inside the coffee time store called 911 at about 1:22 reporting that there were around 10 black guys in the parking lot of The Million Dollar store, a strip club, across the street from him. The caller reported that certain individuals, 4 of the 10 black guys had guns on them and were openly displaying their handguns in the middle of the parking lot. Police immediately responded and within minutes the officers set up a roadblock in front of the exits to the location. As there were two entrances into the club’s parking lot, the officers positioned their vehicles so everything and anything harmful

The Majority of the court 's decision includes McLachlin C.J. and Bastarache, Deschamps, Abella, Charron and Rothstein JJ. The court had to decide in this case whether the seriousness of an offence or knowing that one might be a threat to public safety can be a justification to stop anyone without having solid evidence against them. The court stated that both Mr. Clayton and Mr. Farmer were guilty of carrying concealed weapons in a public place. The police had the right to search them even though their car didn’t match the description described by the 911 caller because the officers have to be consistent with their duty towards public safety and act in accordance to the seriousness of the

v. Clayton, held that the police officers did not infringe Mr. Clayton and Mr. Farmer’s rights under ss. 8 and ss. 9 of the Charter as their unusual behaviour gave the officer reasonable grounds to conduct a pat down search. This case is significant to us for various reasons. First of all this case shows us the circumstances, when a police officer has the right to detain an individual without a search warrant. R. v. Clayton is an excellent example of how public safety is a police officer’s main priority whether it means for them to be following the common law or violating it to protect the public. The officer received a call from a person who was in high danger of being in an environment where one could get killed. The police officers took no time to get to the location and block every possible exit (in this case 2) outside of the area described by the caller. This goes to show the seriousness of a situation when prohibited handguns a brought in a public place. The caller described 4 specific cars on the phone however cops decided to stop the first car to approach the rear exit regardless of the fact that it wasn’t one of the cars described by the caller. In addition to that, this goes to show that anyone in an area with a possible threat to public safety can be stopped to search even if they don’t have anything to do with the crime or weren’t described as a suspect. Furthermore this case is a great example of how