THE DAMAGE IS ALREADY DONE

With all the ballyhoo in the daily newspapers, especially in Toronto, about
six former members of the city cops' drug squad being accused of taking the
law into their own hands, there quickly grew a public perception of chaos
in the courts.

According to criminal law practitioners, that's far from the case. The
corruption allegations - which eventually led to the six being charged last
week with 40 criminal counts including extortion, theft, and obstruction of
justice - have been around since 1995. The RCMP, at the behest of Toronto
Police Chief Julian Fantino, have been investigating since August 2001. The
"chatter" about bad cops had been doing the rounds of criminal lawyers'
Internet listservs and meetings for years before that.

There were a slew of drug cases that had been stayed for "undisclosed
reasons," says lawyer Paul Copeland. No one was really saying why, but, it
turns out, about 115 various drug charges were quietly put to rest. "It was
all pretty secretive." Lawyers had a sense of what was going on, says
Copeland, they were expecting something. Although, he adds, it's stunning
that it took this long.

However, as time passed the number of cases still in the system, either in
the trial stage or with those found guilty of charges arising from the drug
squad investigations in prison dwindled. The six accused officers haven't
been actively involved in any court cases for a couple of years, says
Copeland, and there's probably not that many people left in prison who had
dealings with either the six charged or four other officers accused of
being co-conspirators but not indicted.

There may be cases where those who feel they were wrongfully convicted
because of tainted evidence or investigations are brought to light but
there'll be no wholesale overturning of convictions.

The one bright spot out of all of this for defence lawyers is that cops'
credibility has suffered. Copeland points out that at one time judges
always used to see police officers as 100-per-cent credible. Over the
course of his 35 years of practice, he's seen that change and after this,
judges will become even more careful with police evidence. So it'll be
easier for defence to raise doubts and put forward defences such as "the
drugs were planted."

The public's concern about criminals getting off has already come true with
the staying of those 115 charges. It's unlikely that after all this
publicity there'll be much further impact on convictions in the system or
how defence counsel do their jobs.