APPEAL TARGETS PROSECUTION METHODS

A pending Nova Scotia Court of Appeal decision could change the way
large-scale police investigations are prosecuted, says a federal
Crown attorney.

The case involves three conspiracies from one drug investigation and
a question of whether Brian James Bremner's conviction for smuggling
drugs into one jail precludes the Crown from prosecuting him for
trying to bring more drugs into another prison a few weeks later.

"If Mr. Bremner is successful, it would require the Crown to include
many different types of conduct within a broader type of charge,
which could make the trials lengthier," federal Crown attorney James
Martin said.

"Trials are long enough as it is."

Mr. Bremner, a Spryfield drug dealer also known as B.J. Marriott,
was convicted of conspiring to traffic drugs into the Burnside jail
from June 17 to June 20, 2002, during Operation Midway, an
undercover police investigation targeting local mid-level drug
dealers and suppliers.

He later pleaded guilty to conspiring to traffic cocaine with
Margaret Mary Sampson and Gary (Boo) Michael Boudreau between May 27
and May 31, 2002, and conspiring to traffic hashish with Ms. Sampson
and his uncle Teddy Bremner during the same time into Springhill Institution.

But he withdrew his plea after a tussle over whether the proposed
four-year sentence, recommended jointly by federal Crown attorney
Susan Bour and defence lawyer Warren Zimmer, would be served
concurrently or consecutively to one for his two-year term from his
previous Operation Midway conviction.

Justice Walter Goodfellow later agreed with his lawyer's argument
and threw out the charges after ruling that Mr. Bremner's conspiracy
conviction included the overall conspiracy and an accused cannot be
convicted of both.

Mr. Martin and Ms. Bour brought the case to the Court of Appeal
panel Wednesday, where Mr. Martin argued, in part, that Mr. Bremner
couldn't have been convicted of the second set of conspiracy charges
with the evidence presented at trial.

And while evidence in some conspiracy cases supports a charge
related to the entire operation, Mr. Martin argued that the evidence
in this case supports the separate charges.

"From the Crown's perspective, you would like to have the
flexibility where the law allowed to keep matters, prosecutions, as
simple as possible," Mr. Martin said.

Mr. Zimmer said outside court Wednesday that his client was charged
with "the same conspiracy, just dressed up a different way."

"Some of the people may have changed and some of the wording may
have changed but, in essence, it was exactly the same conspiracy
charge," he said.

His client, who is appealing his conviction for possessing cocaine
for the purpose of trafficking from May 27 to May 30, 2002, has
already been convicted of the overall conspiracy, Mr. Zimmer said.