POLICE LEARN TOUGH LESSON

Police are entrusted with powers of authority that few others in
society have. There are, however, limits to those powers and on
Tuesday we saw what happens when police do not adhere to these limits.

Suspects go free.

In this case, a man who was arrested on Big Nickel Mine Road in
September 2005 carrying a duffel bag containing six kilograms of
opium was cleared of criminal charges after a Sudbury judge ruled
police violated his rights under Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The violation centered around the methods police used to search the
man's duffel bag and their failure to read him his rights. Police had
responded to a report of a suspicious, well-dressed man at another
location and at some point, they came across a 54-year-old man
hitchhiking on Big Nickel Mine Road. They offered to drive him to
several destinations, including a bus depot or the western limits of
the city so he could continue hitchhiking. But before the could get
into the cruiser, police told him, they would have to search him. The
opium was discovered during that search.

The nuances of searching people and when to read them their rights
are the stuff of courtroom legends and Hollywood productions. But
when it comes to real-life situations, we would hope the police know
where the legal line is.

In this case, the judge was heavily critical of the situation in
which the police came to discover the drugs. Said Superior Court
Justice Patricia Hennessy in dismissing the criminal charges: "There
were numerous and multiple breaches" of the man's rights. The
officers, Hennessy said, should have read the man his rights before
searching his bag.

The "entire conversation," said Hennessy, "seems contrived to get
(the person) into the cruiser in order to search the bag. There was
no legitimate investigative purpose for the search."

In other words, police essentially went fishing. That they reeled in
a good catch in $600,000 worth of opium - which can be cut to make
many different kinds of drugs, including heroin - was fortunate. That
the drugs are off the streets is fortunate. That no one will face
justice over such a large amount of drugs is very unfortunate.