POLICE NEED GOOD REASON TO POKE IN YOUR POCKETS

The Supreme Court of Canada, by deciding that a pedestrian's pockets are
protected from being poked around in by the police, has found the right
balance between ensuring the safety of law enforcement officers and
upholding the constitutional rights of Canadians.

As the court makes clear, police officers need to protect themselves, but
their right to safety is separate from their powers of investigation.

In December 2000, Winnipeg police were investigating a nearby burglary and
stopped Philip Mann late at night because he fit the description of the
suspect. So far, so good.

If he was the person they were looking for, he might have had housebreaking
tools that could be used as weapons, so they frisked him. That was fine, too.

But they went too far by snaking a hand into the "kangaroo pouch" on the
front of his shirt, having felt something soft and crinkly therein. It
turned out to be marijuana, and they arrested him for that (but not for
anything to do with the burglary.)

If the thing in his pocket had been metallic and shaped like a gun or a
knife, the police could have taken it out. "The search must ... be confined
in scope to an intrusion reasonably designed to locate weapons," Justice
Frank Iacobucci writes for the majority of the Court. Otherwise, it's none
of the police's business, however suspicious it might be.

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms says the police can't go riffling
through your things without a good reason, which is fundamental to
Canadians' freedom to go out in public. If the charges against Mr. Mann had
been allowed to stand, police could have started searching anyone they even
slightly suspected of any crime, and then arresting anyone who turned out
to be up to any kind of no good -- and violated the privacy of a lot of
innocent people along the way.