DRUG DEALER'S GARBAGE CASE GOES TO THE SUPREME COURT

The Supreme Court of Canada is about to tackle trash -- specifically,
a Calgary drug dealer's garbage used as evidence to convict the
former swimming star.

One of the most significant cases of the fall session, which begins
this week, will be heard on Friday when the bench considers whether
police should be permitted to continue their longtime practice of
rummaging through garbage set outside for municipal collection.

Lawyers for Calgary drug dealer Russell Patrick will argue that
coffee grounds, bill remnants, bank statements, empty pill bottles,
dinner scraps and other discarded refuse is private information that
should be constitutionally shielded from the eyes of the state.

"Household waste may disclose a variety of personal information
including one's lifestyle choices, DNA, finances, health and
identification," lawyer Jennifer Ruttan says in a court brief.

Patrick is challenging the power of Calgary police to seize four bags
of trash from his property, gleaning enough evidence of drug
manufacturing to obtain a warrant to search his home and subsequently
charge him with possessing and trafficking ecstasy.

A former national swimming star who set a national and a world
record, Patrick was sentenced to four years in prison in 2006. He
wants the Supreme Court to overturn his conviction on grounds that
the constitutionally protected sanctity of one's dwelling includes
the trash stored in bins outside and that police violated his charter
right against unreasonable search and seizure.

The Crown contends Patrick gave up his privacy rights when he
abandoned his unwanted garbage, an argument that succeeded in the
Alberta Court of Appeal.

"The charter has not transformed the act of putting out the trash
into a privileged and confidential communication between householder
and garbage collector," lawyers Ron Reimer and Jolaine Antonio say in
a written court submission.

The Crown asserts that combing garbage for clues is tantamount to
"old-fashioned police footwork."

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association, one of several intervenors
in the case, rejects the argument that picking through refuse is fair
game because it has been abandoned, noting in a written submission
that city bylaws nationwide prohibit "scavenging" garbage.

Moreover, association lawyers Jonathan Lisus and Alexi Wood warn that
allowing police to persist with the practice makes them "free to
harvest waste in 'bad neighbourhoods' to build databases of information."

But the Crown counters garbage combing "is an unpleasant,
time-consuming manual process to which police resources will only be
devoted in the course of focused criminal investigations."

The court begins its busy fall sitting Tuesday with another appeal
from Alberta launched by a group of Hutterites, who will argue a
provincial law requiring photographs on drivers licences violates
their religious belief against having their pictures taken.