DRUG DEALER WAS IN WRONG, SO WAS COP

A Surrey man caught with a van load of marijuana plants walked out of
court a free man because a judge found police unlawfully detained him
and searched his vehicle.

The man had just driven away from a suspected drug house being watched
by a Surrey Mountie. The officer testified she stopped the van because
its licence plate was dangling by a single screw.

When she approached the van, the officer said, she smelled marijuana,
arrested the suspect, searched the vehicle and found 135 plants in the
rear compartment.

The court didn't believe her, however, and found she'd stopped the van
because it came from the suspect house and that, the judge said,
violated the driver's Charter rights.

"There is no general right to detain and search based on a hunch," the
judge said.

"The constable's stated reason for stopping the van was not, I have
found, the real reason for her doing so, which shows bad faith."

Because the search was ruled unlawful, none of the evidence it
produced could be used in court, and the accused, who admitted running
a grow-op, went free.

Police officers, like the rest of society, have a responsibility to
obey the law. Using illegal means to apprehend suspects amounts to a
perversion of the rule of law.

Police officers are part of an apparatus created to uphold and enforce
laws designed to protect all of us, not just from drug dealers and
murders, but also from overzealous or unscrupulous authority.

There will certainly be loud criticism of the judge for her decision
but the truth is she simply acted to protect all Canadians from the
abuse of police power.

This man went free because a police officer failed to do her job and
tried to take a shortcut.