Drugs and Ducks
As a firm believer in the existance of grey, I often get those moments in life when you have to scratch your head and ask, how light or dark of shade of grey can a person legitimately go? Since life is neither black and white all the time, but there is always a sort of grey area, you have to accept a certain form of give and take. For instance, you can't always say "to hit another person is wrong and you should be punished in this fashion if you strike another person". Why? well, that is the black and white version. Did you strike the person? yes, guilty (white), did you strike the person? no, not guilty (black). What about the grey? Did you strike that person? yes, why did you strike that person? because he had just beat my wife to the ground with a baseball bat and was coming towards me to do the same so to protect my life I beat him up (grey).
Then we get to this matter where a drug sniffing dog entered a Canadian school and found bags of pot and 10 magic mushrooms on a student. Being the land of freedom and having our rights not only written but basically shoved up every lawyers/police officers ass ever time someone is accused of something, it had to be discussed not if the person was guilty or not guilty, but also right down to if the way he was discovered was legit. Was there probably reason to conduct the search on the individuals place of being that would have reasonably lead the officers to believe that a crime was being commited. The kid goes to school, doesnt go up to a narc and say "pst, wanna get high? I can sell you stuff" but instead just goes about with a vacant expression like kids in schools these day do. Obviously not reasonable suspicion for a police officer to be out in the parking lot with a K-9 drug sniffer to say "yep, we are going in cause they are acting suspicious".
Are we, as a Canadian society, so wrapped up in our belief in rights and freedoms that we don't want to open our eyes and see the common sense? have we really gone so far as to paint our society black and white? where instead of "did/didnt you strike?" as black/white, it is now "did/didnt he get a proper search and seizure?" as black/white. Should be it be taken as just asking if the procedure followed hurt the individual or created an unfair environment for the search? A police officer comes in, grabs a student at random, takes his backpack into a private area with no other witnesses and comes out with 10 bags of pot and says "I found this in your backpack just now" screams of unfair, doesnt it? a police officer and drug sniffing dog walk down a school hallway and the dog goes nuts at a student and, in plain sight of everyone else so there is no doubt that the drugs are not planted. What is the problem in those cases? decorum and suspicion are there. I would say that as long as a certain sense of decency and respect is observed (searching in public and then profusely apologizing if they made a mistake) then why not allow this type of search? not like they threw him into the room, beat him with a rubber hose until he admitted falsely that the drugs were his.
Oh, and on a much lighter note, MY DUCKS HAVE KNOCKED THE RED WINGS OUT OF THE RACE! Yep, Ducks are now going to be playing the Senators on May 28th. Now, my loyalties are divided. Do I cheer for the Ducks, my mighty Ducks that I sooo desperately want to win the Stanely Cup just so that there could be the name DUCKS on the hollowed cup of Canadia....OR do I cheer for the only Canadian team left in the race for the cup, to land the Stanely Cup in Canada so we can rub it in the Americans faces. Hmmmmm, where do my loyalties stand on this one???
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070522/police_searches_070522/20070522?hub=Canada
Supreme Court hears appeal on police dog searches
Updated Tue. May. 22 2007 7:56 PM ET CTV.ca News Staff
Canada's highest court heard an appeal Tuesday focusing on a drug-sniffing dog that uncovered five bags of marijuana and 10 magic mushrooms in the backpack of an Ontario high school student during a police sweep.
At issue is whether the unannounced police visit to the school in 2002 amounted to an unreasonable search under the Charter of Rights.
The incident launched a five-year court battle over privacy rights that has gone all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.
A decision is expected next fall in a case that will help determine whether police can use sniffer dogs to conduct random searches at schools and other public places including malls, parks, sport arenas and beaches.
The court will decide whether the unannounced police visit to St. Patrick's high school in Sarnia, Ont. on November 2002 amounted to an unreasonable search and seizure under the Charter of Rights.
Students spent nearly two hours in their classrooms while dogs patrolled the halls.
The teen, known only as A.M., was charged with marijuana trafficking after police found five bags of marijuana and 10 magic mushrooms in his bag.
He was later cleared by two courts on the grounds police had violated his right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure.
"Chef" the dog's handler acknowledged he had no grounds for obtaining a search warrant beforehand and no direct knowledge of drugs inside the school.
Several lawyers argued bringing sniffer dogs into a school was too heavy-handed, and infringed on student's privacy rights.
"In the post-9/11 era the security of the state, in my opinion, is taking precedence over the autonomy of the individual," lawyer Alias Sanders told CTV News.
"I think principals have and need to have the power to make sure their school is safe, they are the people who know what's going on in the school," said Martha MacKinnon, executive director of Justice for Children and Youth, a legal aid clinic that acts on behalf of children.
"What they don't need is to just give the police carte blanche to come in and do as they like," she added.
But lawyers for the police and school board said students were warned about the possibility of drug searches.
"Through that consultation they arrived at a policy of zero tolerance of drugs," said Public Prosecutions Service Canada lawyer Jolaine Antonio. "Parents were informed of possibility of all kinds of observations being made including ... dogs being brought into the school."
The Court of Appeal ruled the search caused some concern and it upheld a trial judge's decision to acquit A.M. of his charge.
"This was a warrantless, random search with the entire student body held in detention,'' the court stated in their ruling last year.
Admitting the drugs into evidence would strip A.M. and any other student in a similar situation of their right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, the court said.
The Crown is disputing there was no actual search, claiming there are no privacy issues attached to searches of smells in the public air.
"A dog sniff alone is not a search; it only supplies information that may lead to one,'' lawyers Robert Hubbard and Alison Wheeler said in submissions filed with the Supreme Court on behalf of Ontario's attorney general.
Lawyers Frank Addario and Emma Phillips warned in a brief filed on behalf of Ontario's Criminal Lawyers' Association that the decision could have serious repercussions.
Their brief stated excluding "emissions'' from personal belongings from Charter protection could lead to police intrusions including the monitoring of sounds coming from inside houses and communications from wireless technology.
The Civil Liberties Association contended in their brief that the real issue is "what the police were doing in the school in the first place and how they came to apply their dog's snout to the backpacks of students who had been confined to their classrooms.''
The initial search breached school board policy, which states, police are only to be used as a last resort and all searches are to be directed by teachers.
With a report from CTV's Rosemary Thompson
Then we get to this matter where a drug sniffing dog entered a Canadian school and found bags of pot and 10 magic mushrooms on a student. Being the land of freedom and having our rights not only written but basically shoved up every lawyers/police officers ass ever time someone is accused of something, it had to be discussed not if the person was guilty or not guilty, but also right down to if the way he was discovered was legit. Was there probably reason to conduct the search on the individuals place of being that would have reasonably lead the officers to believe that a crime was being commited. The kid goes to school, doesnt go up to a narc and say "pst, wanna get high? I can sell you stuff" but instead just goes about with a vacant expression like kids in schools these day do. Obviously not reasonable suspicion for a police officer to be out in the parking lot with a K-9 drug sniffer to say "yep, we are going in cause they are acting suspicious".
Are we, as a Canadian society, so wrapped up in our belief in rights and freedoms that we don't want to open our eyes and see the common sense? have we really gone so far as to paint our society black and white? where instead of "did/didnt you strike?" as black/white, it is now "did/didnt he get a proper search and seizure?" as black/white. Should be it be taken as just asking if the procedure followed hurt the individual or created an unfair environment for the search? A police officer comes in, grabs a student at random, takes his backpack into a private area with no other witnesses and comes out with 10 bags of pot and says "I found this in your backpack just now" screams of unfair, doesnt it? a police officer and drug sniffing dog walk down a school hallway and the dog goes nuts at a student and, in plain sight of everyone else so there is no doubt that the drugs are not planted. What is the problem in those cases? decorum and suspicion are there. I would say that as long as a certain sense of decency and respect is observed (searching in public and then profusely apologizing if they made a mistake) then why not allow this type of search? not like they threw him into the room, beat him with a rubber hose until he admitted falsely that the drugs were his.
Oh, and on a much lighter note, MY DUCKS HAVE KNOCKED THE RED WINGS OUT OF THE RACE! Yep, Ducks are now going to be playing the Senators on May 28th. Now, my loyalties are divided. Do I cheer for the Ducks, my mighty Ducks that I sooo desperately want to win the Stanely Cup just so that there could be the name DUCKS on the hollowed cup of Canadia....OR do I cheer for the only Canadian team left in the race for the cup, to land the Stanely Cup in Canada so we can rub it in the Americans faces. Hmmmmm, where do my loyalties stand on this one???
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070522/police_searches_070522/20070522?hub=Canada
Supreme Court hears appeal on police dog searches
Updated Tue. May. 22 2007 7:56 PM ET CTV.ca News Staff
Canada's highest court heard an appeal Tuesday focusing on a drug-sniffing dog that uncovered five bags of marijuana and 10 magic mushrooms in the backpack of an Ontario high school student during a police sweep.
At issue is whether the unannounced police visit to the school in 2002 amounted to an unreasonable search under the Charter of Rights.
The incident launched a five-year court battle over privacy rights that has gone all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.
A decision is expected next fall in a case that will help determine whether police can use sniffer dogs to conduct random searches at schools and other public places including malls, parks, sport arenas and beaches.
The court will decide whether the unannounced police visit to St. Patrick's high school in Sarnia, Ont. on November 2002 amounted to an unreasonable search and seizure under the Charter of Rights.
Students spent nearly two hours in their classrooms while dogs patrolled the halls.
The teen, known only as A.M., was charged with marijuana trafficking after police found five bags of marijuana and 10 magic mushrooms in his bag.
He was later cleared by two courts on the grounds police had violated his right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure.
"Chef" the dog's handler acknowledged he had no grounds for obtaining a search warrant beforehand and no direct knowledge of drugs inside the school.
Several lawyers argued bringing sniffer dogs into a school was too heavy-handed, and infringed on student's privacy rights.
"In the post-9/11 era the security of the state, in my opinion, is taking precedence over the autonomy of the individual," lawyer Alias Sanders told CTV News.
"I think principals have and need to have the power to make sure their school is safe, they are the people who know what's going on in the school," said Martha MacKinnon, executive director of Justice for Children and Youth, a legal aid clinic that acts on behalf of children.
"What they don't need is to just give the police carte blanche to come in and do as they like," she added.
But lawyers for the police and school board said students were warned about the possibility of drug searches.
"Through that consultation they arrived at a policy of zero tolerance of drugs," said Public Prosecutions Service Canada lawyer Jolaine Antonio. "Parents were informed of possibility of all kinds of observations being made including ... dogs being brought into the school."
The Court of Appeal ruled the search caused some concern and it upheld a trial judge's decision to acquit A.M. of his charge.
"This was a warrantless, random search with the entire student body held in detention,'' the court stated in their ruling last year.
Admitting the drugs into evidence would strip A.M. and any other student in a similar situation of their right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, the court said.
The Crown is disputing there was no actual search, claiming there are no privacy issues attached to searches of smells in the public air.
"A dog sniff alone is not a search; it only supplies information that may lead to one,'' lawyers Robert Hubbard and Alison Wheeler said in submissions filed with the Supreme Court on behalf of Ontario's attorney general.
Lawyers Frank Addario and Emma Phillips warned in a brief filed on behalf of Ontario's Criminal Lawyers' Association that the decision could have serious repercussions.
Their brief stated excluding "emissions'' from personal belongings from Charter protection could lead to police intrusions including the monitoring of sounds coming from inside houses and communications from wireless technology.
The Civil Liberties Association contended in their brief that the real issue is "what the police were doing in the school in the first place and how they came to apply their dog's snout to the backpacks of students who had been confined to their classrooms.''
The initial search breached school board policy, which states, police are only to be used as a last resort and all searches are to be directed by teachers.
With a report from CTV's Rosemary Thompson
posted by Capt_Canuck at 4:35 PM
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