SUPREME COURT CORRECT ON STRIP SEARCHES

You'd think the police wouldn't need to be told by the highest court in the
land that it's a no-no to strip-search suspects in public.

Common sense, never mind basic decency, suggests that police in a democracy
based on human rights as well as the rule of law shouldn't be allowed to
poke around in an accused drug dealer's buttocks in a restaurant.

The Toronto police, however, never saw it that way. In their eyes,
apparently, it was perfectly all right to forcibly strip-search a suspected
cocaine trafficker in a public place rather than take him to a nearby
police station to do the search.

The circumstances surrounding Ian Golden's 1997 arrest are so horrific
you'd think our cops were taking lessons from some of their extremist
counterparts in the U.S. who, as everyone knows, have been known to subject
suspects to some particularly brutal investigative procedures.

That Golden was carrying cocaine there is no doubt. The cops retrieved a
package of 10.1 grams of crack cocaine from his behind.

He was subsequently convicted of possession of a narcotic for the purpose
of trafficking and jailed for 14 months.

But in a ruling Thursday, the Supreme Court of Canada overturned Golden's
conviction on the grounds that the strip search wasn't done in a reasonable
manner.

Golden, who probably wasn't walking around with cocaine in his butt just
for the hell of it, is likely rubbing his hands with glee in anticipation
of a lawsuit against the cops.

If he does, he has a good chance of winning - lots of taxpayers' money.

The unfortunate part of all this is that if the police had bothered with
the two-minute drive to the police station to pull Golden's pants down, his
conviction would not have been overturned and the police wouldn't have
blackened their image in the public's mind.

Law-and-order types are likely to use the Supreme Court's ruling as an
excuse to moan that drug dealers now have free rein to engage in their
nefarious activities and that police hands are tied.

Not at all. The court simply ruled that police don't have an automatic
right to strip-search suspects. When they do strip-search, it must be on
"reasonable and probable grounds" and in a manner that doesn't violate the
Charter of Rights.

Such searches should only be conducted at the police station except under
urgent circumstances requiring the accused to be searched beforehand, the
court said.

How the Toronto police thought they could have possibly gotten away with
humiliating Golden in the manner they did is alarming.

Accused drug dealers are not known for being co-operative and Golden
wasn't. On the basement stairwell, he hip-checked and scratched the officer
trying to retrieve the bag of cocaine.

So the cops took him back into the restaurant, which had been cleared of
customers, pulled down his pants and used rubber dishwashing gloves to
remove the package while Golden was face down on the floor. Why they didn't
simply frisk him, handcuff him and take him to the station for a strip
search is a mystery.

But there's a stern lesson here for other police forces which may feel they
possess broader powers than society actually allows.

Do your jobs properly in the first place and the riffraff won't come back
to haunt you.

The ruling "essentially confirms what virtually everyone except the police
thought was the status quo," says University of Calgary law professor Chris
Levy.

There are certain standards that society expects to be followed with regard
to strip searches, he says, adding that many police forces adhere to those
common-sense rules. Golden's experience, however, is proof that there are
some cops who play by their own rules. We don't need these Rambos. "Public
humiliation and degradation are not the price of being arrested," says
Canadian Civil Liberties Association lawyer Frank Addario.

Cops who think public accountability is a trifling matter had better think
again.