SNIFFER DOGS FACE EXPULSION FROM SCHOOLS

Top Court To Rule On Case In Which Dog Found Drugs In Student's Bag

When a seasoned sniffer dog named Chief detected drugs in a teen's
backpack, he began a legal battle that reaches the Supreme Court of
Canada today in a test of how far police can go in conducting random
searches in high schools.

The court will be asked to consider whether police in Sarnia, Ont.,
were violating the student body's Charter 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,
acknowledged in earlier court 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 in their classrooms for 11/2 to two hours while
police searched the school, including backpacks piled in a corner of
the gym. After a signal from Chief, police zeroed in on one pack, 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 courts on the grounds police had
violated his Charter right to be free from unreasonable search and
seizure.

The issues at the Supreme Court include whether Chief was actually
conducting a search and whether students are entitled to privacy when
it comes to their personal backpacks.

"Students spend so much of their time in a school environment and one
of the life lessons you should learn in school is that you are not
going to be locked up and searched by the police when no one believes
you have done anything wrong," said Jonathan Lisus, a lawyer for the
Canadian Civil Liberties Association, which is siding with A.M.

"Schools are not supposed to abdicate their authority to discipline
kids to the police. It should be done as a last resort, not as a first
resort."

The association contends that student backpacks -- which are "like a
portable study and bedroom all rolled into one" -- are highly personal
and should be treated as such.

"There isn't any reason why a 17-year-old girl shouldn't have the same
expectation of privacy in her backpack than a 21-year-old woman does
in her handbag or a 35-year-old man does in his brief case," said Mr.
Lisus.

Crown lawyers counter Chief was not conducting a search, but that he
only sniffed out a potential trouble spot and tipped off police,
giving them "reasonable" suspicion to believe that drugs were present
- -- an accepted bar for conducting searches.

"The dog's nose did not permit anybody to see into the backpack," said
the Crown's legal brief.

Moreover, a Supreme Court ruling in favour of the teen could also have
serious ramifications for the future of police dogs to help save lives
by rooting out explosives during random police patrols of trains,
buses and subways, said the Crown.

The school board maintains schools, because of their duty to protect
students, are in a league of their own when it comes to searches,
which can include calling in the police.

"School boards and their officials exercise a form of control over
children comparable to that of a parent," said the board's written
submission. "As a result, the law imposes a heightened degree of
attentiveness."

The appearance of police and their sniffer dogs, which happens
routinely in schools, acts as a deterrent that helps keep out drugs,
said Paul Wubbin, the board's director of education.

He said he's confident most parents are in favour of ridding schools
of drugs, even if it means students don't always enjoy the same rights
normally given to adults.