POLICE DOG SCHOOL SEARCH FACES SUPREME COURT TEST

A case that began when officers showed up at a Sarnia, Ont., high
school with a drug-sniffing dog is about to test the limits of police
powers in Canada.

The Crown appeal, to be heard today by the Supreme Court of Canada,
will help determine whether police can use sniffer dogs to conduct
random searches of schools and other public places, such as parks,
sports stadiums, beaches and malls.

At issue is whether an unannounced police visit to St. Patrick's high
school in November 2002 amounted to an unreasonable search and seizure
under the Charter of Rights.

Students spent nearly two hours locked down in their classrooms while
police combed the school with their dog, who led them to five bags of
marijuana and 10 magic mushrooms in a backpack belonging to a student
known as "A.M."

The dog's handler acknowledged he had no grounds for getting a search
warrant beforehand and no direct knowledge of drugs inside. But police
had a long-standing invitation from the principal to come with their
dog, he said.

"What this comes down to is whether using police and police dogs in
this way is a proper ... exercise of power," said Jonathan Lisus, a
lawyer representing the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, which is
intervening in the case.

"Do we want an environment where schools and children are
policed?"

To the Ontario Court of Appeal, there was more than a whiff of
illegality about the incident.

"This was a warrantless, random search with the entire student body
held in detention," the court said in a ruling last year, upholding a
trial judge's decision to acquit A.M. of possession for the purpose of
trafficking.

Admitting the drugs into evidence would strip A.M. and any other
student in a similar situation of their right to be free from
unreasonable search and seizure, the court said.

But the Crown disputes there was ever any "search."

The use of a drug-sniffing dog does not amount to a search because
there is no privacy interest attached to smells in the public air,
lawyers Robert Hubbard and Alison Wheeler said in submissions filed
with the Supreme Court on behalf of Ontario's attorney general.