ILLEGAL SEARCH OVERTURNS POT CONVICTION

In the summer of 2006, Salmon Arm RCMP caught a distraught man
swimming in Shuswap Lake trying to get away from a group of imaginary
killers. The officers -- responding to a call from a car full of people
the man had pepper-sprayed earlier -- were able to convince Vincent
Edward Larson to come to shore, where he told them would-be killers
had invaded his home.

While Larson was in hospital undergoing a mental examination, two
officers went to his home in Salmon Arm. There was no evidence of
intruders, but they did find a marijuana growing operation. They
returned to the house with a search warrant.

On Thursday, British Columbia's Court of Appeal overturned Larson's
conviction for unlawfully producing marijuana after a judge deemed the
initial warrantless police search of his home was illegal.

"The initial search had been prompted by Mr. Larson reporting, during
a paranoid delusion, that he had been the victim of a home invasion,"
Appeal Court Justice Harvey Groberman said in his reasons for
judgment. "The police decided to search his house on the strength of
that report, without obtaining Mr. Larson's permission for a search,
and without consulting him as to the necessity of conducting one.

"After locating a grow operation on the initial search, the police
obtained a warrant, and conducted a second search pursuant to that
warrant."

In the ambulance en route to Shuswap General Hospital, Larson told
police people were shooting at him from passing vehicles and said he
was scared to go back to his house until it was safe, according to
court documents.

Groberman argued that without a warrant or his permission to enter the
house the Mounties had violated Larson's Charter right to protection
against unreasonable search. The violation of this right should have
excluded police evidence of the growing operation, Groberman concluded.

Justice Daphne Smith seconded the acquittal, but Justice Mary Newbury
disagreed.

"It is unrealistic to suggest that the police could have sought Mr.
Larson's consent to entry, given that he was suffering from delusions
at the time; or that the police could have waited until his delusions
had subsided," Newbury said.

If the police hadn't gone into Larson's home there was a potential
risk to public safety "that medical aid would not be made available
immediately to someone who needed it," Newbury said.

Groberman said police had no reason to believe there was a threat to
Larson's or the public's safety. He also said there was no "urgency"
to enter the house because any invaders would likely already have left
and Larson -- in the hospital at the time -- was in no danger of
immediately returning home.

For illegally growing the marijuana, Larson originally received a
12-month conditional sentence prohibiting him from using alcohol or
illegal drugs and possessing weapons.