IMPAIRED DRIVING CONVICTIONS COMPLICATED

Proposed Bill C-16 Will Help In Prosecutions, Police Recruits Told

The days of stopping an impaired driver and simply getting them to try
to walk a straight line or touch their nose to prove they're under the
influence are over.

Investigating impaired driving cases is extremely complicated and a
mistake -- even a little one -- could ruin any chance of a conviction.

"I prosecute a lot of murders and most of the murders I prosecute
aren't as complicated as criminal driving fatality prosecutions," said
Jonathan Hak, a Calgary Crown prosecutor and expert on impaired
driving cases.

Hak spent the afternoon Friday going over the finer points of impaired
driving law with a group of police recruits at the Centre for
Advancement in Community Justice.

The soon-to-be cops were schooled on everything from the necessary
criteria before a breath sample can be collected to the lack of legal
action that can be taken to prove a driver is impaired by drugs, not
alcohol.

"If you have a driver, right now, that is solely impaired by drugs
there is no legal mechanism to get blood samples from that person to
test," he said.

"Drug-impaired drivers are becoming a more frequent phenomenon on our
streets and the law hasn't caught up with that yet. I've been a
prosecutor for 17 years and I've always lamented that gap in the
Criminal Code."

But that loophole could soon be no more.

Bill C-16, which is before Parliament, proposes to amend the Criminal
Code to give police the ability to collect fluid samples for analysis
from drivers they suspect are stoned.

"It would allow for roadside sobriety testing of drug-impaired drivers
and would allow for the taking of blood, urine or other bodily fluids
for testing purposes," said Hak. "If this bill makes it through
Parliament it, for the first time, will give the police and, therefore
the Crown, a tool that we never had before.

"There's no political reason not to pass this legislation. The only
people who wouldn't like it are drug-impaired drivers."

Hak, who successfully prosecuted the case against a drunk truck driver
who hit and killed RCMP Cpl. Graeme Cumming and civilian Daniel Entz
while they sat in a police cruiser along Highway 3 in 1999, says
police have to be more diligent than ever from the moment they pull
over an impaired driver until after their testimony in court.

"It is so easy to make a mistake," he said, adding even a slip of the
tongue could make or break a case.

Hak explained a nervous police officer testifying in court could
compromise the prosecution's case simply by telling the judge an
intoxilyzer was used to analyse a breath sample instead of calling the
roadside screening device by its proper name -- Intoxilyzer 400 D.

"We lose cases because of this," he said. "Defence lawyers always
exploit these gaps."

In Alberta, one in 20 drivers involved in fatal collisions is
impaired.