A PROPER LIMIT ON POLICE SEARCHES

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.