The Supreme Court ultimately overturned Latimer's conviction due to the Crown's improper actions at the jury selection stage.

Latimer, who had poisoned his 12-year-old quadriplegic daughter with carbon monoxide in 1993, became the target of the police's suspicion after Tracy's autopsy.

When the jury was being selected, the Crown counsel and Royal Canadian Mounted Police intervened to query candidates for the jury on their positions regarding controversial matters such as abortion and euthanasia (matters related to Tracy's death, which Latimer claimed was a mercy killing).

The Court then turned to whether the police's decision not to tell Mr. Latimer he was being arrested and could face a murder charge breached section 10(a) of the Charter.

Latimer argued that since the police did not call the detention an arrest, he was not fully aware of how serious the trouble he was in was.

Latimer could be expected to understand the seriousness of the situation since he was told he was being detained in connection with Tracy's death.

However, Saskatchewan happened to have different hours during which one could make a free telephone call to directly obtain duty counsel.

As the Court wrote, the Crown counsel's actions during jury selection "were nothing short of a flagrant abuse of process and interference with the administration of justice".