How Long Can Police Detain You Without A Charge?

Many of my clients over the years have asked me the question, Mike, how long can the police detain me without charging me with a criminal offence? Boy, that’s a great question, and I’m going to answer it for you today. Well, the short answer is 24 hours. But I want to explain it this way. There are two types of defence in Canada. There’s investigative detention, and that’s a very short-term detention. Let me give you an example. Let’s say the police come upon an accident scene, and they kind of suspect you were involved in the accident, they want to ask you questions. Well, you’re under a quick detention with them. You’re not free to go anywhere. They ask you some questions. They determine you’re not liable for the accident. You didn’t commit a criminal offence, and you’re on your way, it might be 10, 15, 20 minutes.  Or they are investigating a crime scene, and you happen to be at the crime scene, they think you’re a suspect. They detain you, ask you questions. Okay, you’re not involved. Pretty good. That’s called investigative detention. That’s a short-term thing, totally different thing that I’m about to talk about. There’s such a thing called arrest and detention. That’s where the police think you are. You’re a criminal, that you’ve committed a criminal offence. Maybe they they’re trying to develop reasonable probable grounds. Or maybe they already think you have that reasonable problem grounds, but they’re going they’re going to arrest you. And their purpose, they’re bringing you back to the police station. Maybe they’re gathering other evidence from other sources. Maybe they want to interview you. Maybe they’re undecided about charging you, and the interview process can help. Maybe you’ll confess or tell them a story about what happened that they like, and they can charge you. So that’s called arrest detention. In that particular circumstance, they can only hold you 24 hours, if they don’t charge you with that criminal offence or a criminal offence, within 24 hours, you have to be released, or you’re going to have Charter rights under Section nine to be free from arbitrary detention. Furthermore, there’s a section of criminal code, section 503, if the police do try to charge you, if they do have reasonable and probable grounds, they have to do it 24 hours. And most importantly, they need to bring you in front of the Justice of the Peace within 24 hours to determine your status, whether you should be released, whether a bail hearing should be lead. That’s very, very important. So, the police have a very considered decision to make. They’re going to interview you, interrogate you. You should exercise your right to silence. Don’t say anything you I’ve got videos on the Reid technique and how they break you down and why you should exercise your right to silence, why you should talk to a lawyer and why you should shut up. And hopefully you’ll be on your way within 24 hours. Now if, for some reason, they screw up, and I’ve seen police screw up and hold a person 24 hours mistakenly, you may have certain Charter remedies about getting certain evidence excluded, our arbitrary detention, and you’re entitled to bring an application get in front of a judge to get released. Okay, so with arbitrary detention. So, these types of things are all set on section 503, of the Code. 24 hours is the operative word. So, the clock’s ticking. We’re here under arrest. You can look at the clock on the wall and say, “My God, if they don’t charge me within 24 hours, I can get the heck out of here”, or they’re going to charge you. So that’s it in a nutshell. That’s the answer to the question, how long do police have to charge me when I’m under detention.