POT LUCK FIND NOT FOR COURT: LAWYER

Allowing a cache of pot seized by police to be admitted into evidence will
give cops "carte blanche" to barge into peoples' homes, a lawyer argued
yesterday.

Defence counsel Noel O'Brien said his mother and daughter clients were
victims of a breach of their Charter rights when police entered their home
Sept. 11, 2001.

And O'Brien said the 265 marijuana plants found inside the Harvest Creek Cl.
N.E. residence should be ruled inadmissible.

Thi Phu Dinh, 63, and Dung Kim Le, 32, each face charges of cultivation,
possession for the purpose of trafficking and electricity theft in
connection with the police raid.

But O'Brien said Const. Nicole Martin had no reason to enter their home
shortly after 4 a.m. on that date -- a move which resulted in the discovery
of the plants in the basement.

Martin was responding to a 90-minute-old complaint from a neighbour who
called to report flickering lights and a loud electrical noise.

When the officer arrived and found the home in darkness, she entered the
front door before calling out to identify herself to the occupants.

FOUND DOPE INSIDE

She later found the dope and police then got a warrant to seize the plants,
which were in various stages of growth.

O'Brien said except in instances where police are investigating crimes in
progress, officers can't enter homes without permission.

"It is impossible ... to find a case where any court has justified an
unannounced entry into a dwelling place at four in the morning," he told
Justice Rosemary Nation.

He noted the call to which Martin was responding was a "priority three"
complaint -- the lowest level police investigate.

"An example is a reported missing bicycle," O'Brien said.

"In the absence of some reasonable and probably grounds to believe there was
some ongoing offence (being committed) that was an unlawful entry."

O'Brien said allowing the evidence in will set a dangerous precedent.

"If this police officer is allowed to do that in this particular case, then
it's a carte blanche to any police officer with the flimsiest of reasons to
go up to any residence and just enter," he said.

Crown prosecutor Louise Proulx argued Martin believed a break in may have
occurred earlier and was acting in good faith.

Nation will make a ruling this morning.