POLICE ALLOWED TO MAKE OVERNIGHT HOUSE CALLS

Officers Can Use Search Warrants At Any Hour: Judge

Winnipeg police can continue making overnight house calls on suspected drug
dealers after a judge yesterday dismissed allegations they are
"trespassing" by using illegal search warrants.

Queen's Bench Justice Perry Schulman said there are no legal grounds to
force police to execute a warrant during daytime hours only, as a defence
lawyer had argued on behalf of his client.

"As long as there is evidence on which a determination can be made, the
warrant will comply...whether it authorizes execution during the daytime,
the nighttime or any time," said Schulman.

Defence lawyer Sheldon Pinx had argued the drug case against his client,
Wendell Duncan, should be thrown out of court based on an unlawful search
by police -- despite the fact police seized cocaine and large quantities of
cash.

But the Crown defended the merits of police search warrants which let them
give early wake-up calls to suspected drug dealers, saying drug trafficking
is not a "nine-to-five" job.

Pinx's arguments, made last month before Schulman, put the practices of
city cops under a microscope and threatened to have far-reaching
implications on current and future drug cases in Manitoba courts. "A strong
message must be sent to police by the courts, that we are not going to
condone police in this city obtaining fishing licences. Their conduct in
this case was nothing short of outrageous," Pinx argued.

"They must be told and they must be given limits to their conduct."

Armed with a search warrant, investigators found a small quantity of
cocaine and $50,000 cash, allegedly from the sale of drugs, inside Duncan's
home in July 2000.

Duncan was charged with trafficking cocaine and possession of the proceeds
of crime.

Police had obtained the warrant a day earlier from a magistrate, who issued
a standard form under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA) which
gives police the authority to search the property "at any time".

Police executed the warrant at 12:25 a.m. Pinx challenged the validity of
the warrant, and others like it, saying the magistrate is required by law
to impose conditions upon police when issuing warrants.

In the Criminal Code, a warrant must be executed between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m.
unless otherwise stated by the magistrate, who must provide reasons for the
exception.

But no such time limit provisions exist in the CDSA.

The trial continues.