TOP COURT TO HEAR DEALER'S APPEAL

A Windsor lawyer will go to the Supreme Court in a case that could
give Canadians more power to fight extradition to countries where they
face prosecution for crimes they have already been convicted of in
Canada.

The Supreme Court said Thursday it will hear the appeal Frank Miller
filed on behalf of his client Talib Steven Lake -- who pleaded guilty
in 1998 to three counts of trafficking crack cocaine to an undercover
officer, two of possessing proceeds of crime and one of conspiracy to
traffic.

"We're absolutely elated," Miller said. "I think the Supreme Court may
do something on this and I think Lake should be allowed to stay in
Canada."

Lake was arrested in late 1997 in a larger OPP operation. He arranged
the deal with an undercover officer in Ontario, sold about 90 grams of
crack cocaine to him in Detroit near the Renaissance Center, and was
later arrested in Windsor.

Lake spent a year in jail before confessing and was sentenced to
another 3 1/2 years in penitentiary.

The United States requested Lake's extradition after he had served
three years in Canada and was released. A Superior Court judge
approved the extradition in 2004. Then Liberal justice minister Irwin
Cotler signed the order to surrender Lake to U.S. authorities.

Miller took the case to the Ontario Court of Appeal, which ruled that
Lake could be extradited.

The minimum sentence in the U.S. for trafficking more than 50 grams of
crack cocaine is 10 years.

The Supreme Court will not likely hear Lake's appeal before late fall
or early winter.

Miller, along with Toronto lawyer John Norris, will argue that Section
6 of the Charter of Rights allows citizens to stay in Canada unless
there's a good reason for extradition. Miller questions the ethics of
making someone serve time in one country and then serve more time in
another country for the same offence -- especially since both Canadian
and American law prohibit consecutive sentences for the same crime.

"If he goes over to the States he essentially gets a consecutive
sentence," Miller said. "That's unfair. Very unfair."

Miller said his 34-year-old client has already "turned his life
around," has served his sentence, and now works a daily factory job in
Windsor.

Miller feels the case hinges on what is known as the 1989 Cotroni
decision. The Supreme Court ruled that Frank Santo Cotroni, accused of
planning to sell heroin in the U.S., could be reasonably tried in Quebec.

But Miller said interpretation of the law across Canada has been "all
over the map," and that courts have generally let most extraditions
proceed -- except in cases where the accused may face the death penalty.

"The Supreme Court could be taking this case to clarify what they mean
by their Cotroni decision," said Miller, noting that all but Lake's
actual transaction happened in Canada. "And this is the perfect-storm
case to do it with. We know that he can be prosecuted in Canada for
the crime -- because he already was.

"If Lake can't win on the basis of Section 6 of the charter, then
Section 6 might as well not exist."