SUPREME COURT REJECTS PRIVACY OF TRASH

Former U Of C Swimmer To Begin Serving Drug Sentence

Canadians have no constitutional right to the privacy of the trash
they set outside for collection, as a Calgary man learned Thursday.

Russell Stephen Patrick will have to begin serving a four-year prison
sentence after the Supreme Court of Canada, in a7-0 decision, ruled
he had no right to privacy after police, during a 2003 investigation,
picked through his trash on the curb.

Patrick, convicted of producing and trafficking ecstasy, argued in a
court hearing last fall that police violated his rights against
unreasonable search and seizure when they rummaged through his
rubbish in the middle of the night, obtaining enough evidence to
obtain a warrant to search his home which led to the charges.

The former University of Calgary swimming star, who once held
national and world records, was sentenced to four years in prison in 2006.

He has been out on bail pending an appeal of his sentence.

He had wanted the court to put an end to the common police practice
of sifting through garbage looking for evidence.

However, Justice Ian Binnie concluded Patrick's privacy rights"were
abandoned when he placed the bags for collection."

Inane-mail sent to the Herald on Friday, Patrick, who had no prior
criminal record, said he was "disappointed" with the ruling, but
appreciated the opportunity to have his case heard.

Patrick, 33, also said he's grateful for the sup-port of family,
friends and co-workers.

"I regret all of the stress that this situation has caused them," he
said. "I am relieved in the sense that it is finally over and that I
now have some closure.

"My life has been in a state of perpetual limbo causing many
sleepless nights. My focus now is to get my affairs in order, to say
goodbye to loved ones and to get through each day one by one."

Patrick, who competed for Canada at the 1994 Commonwealth Games, was
found guilty in 2006 of producing and trafficking more than 86,000
ecstasy tablets.

Patrick said he has spent the five years since his arrest rebuilding his life.

"I distanced myself from negative influencing acquaintances,
reconnected with family and friends and done volunteer work," he wrote.

"I hope that after serving my time I am able to pick up where I left
off and that I will be accepted back into society . . . I am
profoundly sorry for my actions."

Patrick's case has been closely watched by provincial governments,
civil libertarians, and criminal defence lawyers.

"This is really back to the fundamentals," said his lawyer, Jennifer
Ruttan. "If you're doing things in public, you can't expect you'll
have privacy, but you should when it comes to your home . . . if we
start diminishing the territorial privacy aspect of this case, we
really have no place to express our individual freedoms."

The key issue before the Supreme Court was whether our garbage--which
can contain personal information such as financial records, medical
information and one's DNA -- is constitutionally protected from
unfettered state intrusion.

Ruttan, in written arguments filed in Supreme Court, said that
Patrick's "reasonable expectation of territorial privacy" of his home
naturally includes its perimeters and that police should need a
judge's permission to go through garbage, just as they do to enter a
house or tap a phone.

The Crown countered that Patrick gave up his privacy rights when he
abandoned his unwanted garbage, an argument that succeeded in the
Alberta courts.

The Crown also asserted that combing garbage for clues -- a common
police practice nationwide -- is tantamount to "old-fashioned police footwork."