TOP COURT TO RULE ON USE OF SNIFFER DOGS

Critics Say Using Animals to Detect Drugs in Public Places Is
Unreasonable Search, Seizure

A case that started with a dog named Chief trying to sniff out drugs
at an Ontario high school culminates in a Supreme Court of Canada
ruling today on whether police can use scent-tracking canines for
random searches in public places, including schools, parks, malls,
airports and bus terminals.

"This has far-reaching implications way past schools," said Paul
Wubben, director of education for the St. Clair Catholic District
School Board in southern Ontario, where principals routinely call
police to bring in sniffer dogs to help rid schools of drugs.

At issue in the Supreme Court is whether sniffer dogs are an invasion
of privacy that amounts to unreasonable search and seizure under the
Charter of Rights. The court will hand down rulings in two separate
cases that have sparked enormous commentary and speculation in legal
circles, in the absence of any clear Canadian law.

The decisions could put an end to random sweeps with sniffer dogs,
which are commonplace.

In the case that has attracted the most attention, the court will
decide whether police in Sarnia, Ont., violated the student body's
constitutional rights by bringing a scent-tracking dog into St.
Patrick's High School in November 2002.

The police, who had received a standing invitation from the
principal, admitted in earlier proceedings that they were not acting
on a tip, they had no reason to believe student safety was threatened
and that it would have been a "fruitless exercise" to try to obtain a
search warrant.

Students were confined to their classrooms for almost two hours while
police searched the school, including backpacks piled in a corner of
the gymnasium. After a signal from Chief, police zeroed in on one
backpack, in which they found 10 bags of marijuana, 10 magic
mushrooms and assorted drug paraphernalia.

A student identified as A.M., who was 17 at the time, was criminally
charged, but later cleared by two Ontario courts on the grounds that
police had violated his Charter rights.

The Crown, which is leading the charge against A.M., contends that no
search took place because the dog was only sniffing the public air
and tipped off police to a trouble spot, giving them "reasonable"
suspicion to believe that drugs were present -- an accepted bar for
conducting searches.

"A dog sniff alone is not a search," the Ontario attorney general
said in a court brief. "It only supplies information that may lead to one."

Mr. Wubben said the appearance of police and their sniffer dogs,
which continues routinely at schools in his board, acts as a
deterrent that helps keep out drugs. He said he is confident most
parents are in favour of ridding schools of drugs, even if it means
students do not always enjoy the same rights normally given to adults.

The Crown asserts that a ruling in favour of A.M. could also have
serious ramifications for the future of police dogs to help save
lives by detecting explosives during random police patrols of trains,
buses and subways.

In a companion case, the Supreme Court will rule on the fate of
Gurmakh Kang Brown, who was caught with cocaine in his luggage after
RCMP conducted a random search with a sniffer dog, Chevy, at the
Calgary Greyhound Bus depot six years ago. The investigation was part
of Operation Jetway, a national RCMP program to monitor the
travelling public for drugs, weapons and other illegal contraband.

The Alberta Court of Appeal ruled against Mr. Brown, concluding that
odours emanating from the air outside his luggage do not trigger
privacy rights.