[Newsbot]

Title: Charter challenge: Civil liberties vs. justice
Category: Law & Order
Posted By: uwish
Date: 2009-02-02 14:38:47
Canadian

[uwish]

This scare the shit out of me. I want the 'bad' guys off the streets just as much as the next guy but not if the police can't do it correctly.

The charter isn't something you can 'choose' to ignore when it suits you. This is a very dangerous road to go down.

[martin14]

jesus, reward the cops for being even more stupid and irresponsible.. just great.

I hope the Supreme Court gives this a real kick in the nuts.. the trial judge deserves one too.

[DrCaleb]

Amazing.

""Believe it or not, I worry about the public loss of respect for the Charter," Moldaver said while moderating a panel discussion at the Ontario Bar Association's annual conference."

So, instead of punishing people for breaking the law, you propose rewarding them?

The Police, I mean.

And this clown calls himself a judge?

"Instead, "the message (from the courts) is, 'Whenever police are going to investigate a serious crime, take chances with civil liberties, cut corners – if you hit the jackpot, we will reward you by admitting the evidence,' " he said."

[Dayseed]

Here's an interesting sidenote about R v. Harrison. The police officer on the stand couldn't articulate reasonable grounds to give his reasons for pulling over the SUV, but objective ones, that is, grounds which exist despite the officer not knowing them, existed in abundance.

If there are enough objective grounds which exist to effect a search, should the court allow that evidence to be adduced at trial even though the officer who conducted the search doesn't know them. That is, can an officer's search be okay despite the officer?

Defense lawyers aren't interested in jurisprudence; they're interested in stacking the law to acquit their clients. Quite frankly, I don't give a shit what they have to say regarding evidence admissability. The Crown is gung-ho on getting all evidence in. Judges have to do the balancing act between cops and crooks.

The system works just fine. If it bugs a few defence lawyers no end, good.

[DrCaleb]

Dayseed Dayseed:

If there are enough objective grounds which exist to effect a search, should the court allow that evidence to be adduced at trial even though the officer who conducted the search doesn't know them. That is, can an officer's search be okay despite the officer?

I'm going to have to say 'No'. Just my 2 cents. I don't want to live in a society where I can be randomly pulled over and searched, and anything found can be used as evidence against me.

ie: You will not find more evidence of me speeding in the trunk or glove box of my car.

[martin14]

Dayseed Dayseed:

If there are enough objective grounds which exist to effect a search, should the court allow that evidence to be adduced at trial even though the officer who conducted the search doesn't know them. That is, can an officer's search be okay despite the officer?

I'll kick in a "no" as well.

Ignorance is not an excuse regarding the law.

The ignorance, greed or stupidity of police officers should not be excused or rewarded either.




You can maybe excuse police in for example Eastern Europe, the pay is crap,
training is zero, respect from the population less than zero.
Not so in Canada; we have the resources to train our police properly,
they get paid very well for that.

[Yogi]

So, if I happen to be driving down the highway some day, and a cop is having a 'slow day' and decides to 'pull me over for the hell of it' and then sees that I have what appears to be fresh blood all over my hands, a machete on the seat beside me, and a bag of human body parts in the back seat, I get 'a walk'??? Hooray for 'the charter!!!

[DrCaleb]

Yogi Yogi:

So, if I happen to be driving down the highway some day, and a cop is having a 'slow day' and decides to 'pull me over for the hell of it' and then sees that I have what appears to be fresh blood all over my hands, a machete on the seat beside me, and a bag of human body parts in the back seat, I get 'a walk'??? Hooray for 'the charter!!!

And in the meantime, how many people will have to be pulled over and their rights violated before your situation comes true?

The presumption of innocence goes far further back than the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. You have a better chance of curing the human urge to kill one another than you do by pulling over everyone and searching them for no reason.

[Dayseed]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

And in the meantime, how many people will have to be pulled over and their rights violated before your situation comes true?

The presumption of innocence goes far further back than the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. You have a better chance of curing the human urge to kill one another than you do by pulling over everyone and searching them for no reason.

I don't think people here are too apprised of the actual facts in the case at hand. Harrison and his friend Friesen were driving cross-country with a trunk full of cocaine. The cop pulled over the car because he stated that he noticed the SUV didn't have a front plate, but once he activated his equipment he saw it was an Alberta plate. Rather than let the two go, he pulled them over anyway.

Once he got questioning them, their stories stunk to high heaven. Neither was the registered rentee of the vehicle, they claimed to be coming from BC despite having an Alberta rental they couldn't explain, they both knew each other for radically different periods of time, one said they had just met and the other said they knew each other for a while and neither knew what was in the boxes in the trunk.

Those are the objective facts.

The cop blew the Charter twice. He arbitrarily detained them. Once he noticed that the vehicle had an Alberta plate, his reason for pulling them over was vitiated; Alberta doesn't require a front plate. His second error was not notifying them of their rights prior to asking them if he could search the trunk.

However, the objective fact is that if neither of them claim to know what's in the trunk, they don't have an expectation of privacy. The Charter protects people, not things.

Once the cop searched the trunk, he found the cocaine and arrested them both.

So, the Charter breaches were ruled to be minor ones although flagrant, arbitrary detention by pulling them over and failure to read them their rights, although I disagree they needed to have their rights read since they couldn't object to the search without incriminating themselves.

However, given that 35 kgs of cocaine is a huge deal, the two lied and I bet dollars to dogshit they didn't buy the 35 kgs themselves. They were muling for somebody else that they covered for since they're the only two who were charged.

On a balance of the two breaches of the law, cocaine trafficking and abitrary detention, the Judges ruled correctly that the cop acted in good faith investigating a crime whereas Harrison was a drug-dealer hauling maybe a million dollars worth of cocaine across the country. Plus, there were objective reasons to support the cop's actions, so why reward the crooks?

The Judge on the panel wanted to know if the OCA would have allowed the search if it were a home is moot; it wasn't a home. Don't change the facts of the case to suit an agenda.

The defence lawyers claim of a slippery slope, but they usually neglect to tell the press of those Court decisions regarding evidence which greatly benefit them; R v. Land and R v. Wilson anybody?

The OCA was correct. Harrison is guilty as shit and committed a material crime. The cop didn't fabricate evidence, he just screwed up for the right reasons. In this case, being apprised of all the circumstances, Harrison should go to jail.

[Yogi]

I have been pulled over and checked out just for the hell of it and then released, many times. I expect it to happen again in the future. Doesn't bother me a bit and I don't see why it would bother anyone else who isn't breaking the law at the time!

[martin14]

Police can invent any reason to pull you over, but not notifying of rights ?

Thats a biggie.

and Yogi, you have not had the pleasure of being pulled
over and then shaken down for money

[Dayseed]

martin14 martin14:

Police can invent any reason to pull you over, but not notifying of rights ?

Thats a biggie.

and Yogi, you have not had the pleasure of being pulled
over and then shaken down for money

I think you're looking only at the shock value of it. On closer inspection, if you don't have any expectation of privacy over something, nor do you claim any ownership of it, why do you need your rights read to you?

In this case, Harrison said they weren't his boxes and he didn't know what was in them. However, given the circumstances, it's pretty obvious he was lying through his teeth. Does Harrison's deception regarding the boxes at the roadside mean he should be read his rights anyway? If the cop then reads him his rights despite his protests, Harrison is stuck in a no-win situation. If he exercises his rights, he's given de facto notice of his ownership of the boxes. If he stays mum, which is his right, the search goes on and he gets nailed for the cocaine, but he has a defence at court.

And what hasn't been touched on is the cop's good faith and Harrison's bad faith. I'm kind of hoping somebody cares to argue that particular point, because there's an interesting jurisprudent argument to be made for it.

[DrCaleb]

Dayseed Dayseed:

The cop blew the Charter twice. He arbitrarily detained them. Once he noticed that the vehicle had an Alberta plate, his reason for pulling them over was vitiated; Alberta doesn't require a front plate. His second error was not notifying them of their rights prior to asking them if he could search the trunk.

No, I read the article before commenting.

So, it's OK to pull people over and search them for no reason and not inform them of their charter rights, so long as the cops finds something incriminating? I don't care if it was bootleg whisky or coke or the body of a teenager in baggies.

Don't you see the path that leads down? Was he going to find more evidence of not needing a front plate in Alberta, in that trunk?

Dayseed Dayseed:

However, the objective fact is that if neither of them claim to know what's in the trunk, they don't have an expectation of privacy. The Charter protects people, not things.

Once the cop searched the trunk, he found the cocaine and arrested them both.

So, the Charter breaches were ruled to be minor ones although flagrant, arbitrary detention by pulling them over and failure to read them their rights, although I disagree they needed to have their rights read since they couldn't object to the search without incriminating themselves.

Are charter rights listed on some sort of scale? Right to unlawful search and seizure is more or less important than wrongful incrimination? Why does objecting to the search automatically incriminate them?

I think this whole thing stinks of the cops so called 'duty' to prevent crime. A duty that never existed somehow has led us here.

[sandorski]

Here in Coquitlam, Cops were doing Home Searches for GrowOps. In 1 case they searched the wrong house and the Homeowners ended up getting Municipal Building Code Violations out of the deal. It was quite the controversy at the time as the Homeowners ended up with some huge ass Bill they couldn't afford. This all wasn't really the Cops fault, as City Personnel were present due to the nature of the search, or something like that, but is a fine example of the perils of just allowing free reign to Law Enforcement.

It sucks when Criminals get away with something, but if you let the Cops do whatever the Hell they want, many won't be much better than the Criminals.