Top Court rules sniffer-dog searches are unlawful

[40below]

Are you that thick??

That is EXACTLY what the subject of this thread is. The Supreme Court of Canada upholding the "Rights" of a little criminal drug dealing child --- as higher and mightier than the RIGHTS and EXPECTATIONS of parents, teachers, and kids to be in safe and drug free (and, I'll re-iterate once again: drug posession IS illegal-- it IS a crime) enviornments at school.

A school where the kids are well aware that searchs occur and that there is ZERO tolerance for drugs. PERIOD.

Sorry if it offends you, but I'd much rather ensure that the court of this land upheld the rights of law abiding citizens without infringing upon their rights, to appease a criminal. That's NOT a crime -- rather, I'd call it "common sense" and the SCC and you ... need to get some.

I'm not going to respond to George Wallace's quite frankly unprofessional outburst – I read through your TOS, I see a lot of talk about expectation of respect and civility among members regardless of rank or service, we'll leave that for what is.

This is what I want to point out:

The Supreme Court of Canada upholding the "Rights" of a little criminal drug dealing child --- as higher and mightier than the RIGHTS and EXPECTATIONS of parents, teachers, and kids to be in safe and drug free (and, I'll re-iterate once again: drug posession IS illegal-- it IS a crime) enviornments at school

A criminal drug-dealing child is one who has been convicted of drug dealing by the courts of law. What we are talking about here, what you are in a rush to put in jail, are citizens of Canada who have not been convicted of anything but who are subject to an illegal search that you yourself would never put up with. Could be your kids. Could be mine.

 

[George Wallace]

I'm not going to respond to George Wallace's quite frankly unprofessional outburst – I read through your TOS, I see a lot of talk about expectation of respect and civility among members regardless of rank or service, we'll leave that for what is. 

Really.  It just shows your indecisiveness in this whole argument.  You haven't entered this with any coherent thought.  Could I point out what I was responding to?  Perhaps you don't remember this:

Dude, I'm unclear as to 'us' is that I'm mocking, but in my personal life I'm slightly to the right of Atilla The Hun, yet if you're suggesting, in the posts that I've repeatedly made, that the only way to take away our personal freedoms is to give the state and the police unfettered access to search our belongings whenever they feel like it without any probable cause in the name of 'freedom' and then arrest us based on what they happen to turn up – then I'll wear my blinders.

We are only asking you, outright asking you, to make up your mind.  You can not have it both ways, at your own personal discretion, as to when a Law applies to you and when it does not.

 

[armyvern]

A criminal drug-dealing child is one who has been convicted of drug dealing by the courts of law. What we are talking about here, what you are in a rush to put in jail, are citizens of Canada who have not been convicted of anything but who are subject to an illegal search that you yourself would never put up with. Could be your kids. Could be mine.

If it were my kid -- it wouldn't have made it to the SCC, nor would I have bailed his butt from jail. He knows what the law says and I'm not about to go about to go about giving him "outs" when he breaks it. And, like I have already stated NUMEROUS times here in this thread -- I HAVE been searched. So has my locker. I lived. I'm here to tell about it.  : I even got stopped randomly at a RIDE check once where I was aksed to provide a breath sample!! I passed ... and carried on; I certainly harboured no ill feelings towards the LEOs for doing their jobs, nor did I feel that I had been ILLEGALLY violated and deprived of my RIGHTS to a WARRANTED SEARCH due to their only "sniffing" alcohol emanating from my vehicle and my subsequent "innocence" in passing that test. It was my mother who was hammered after I had picked her up from her Christmas party. They asked -- I provided. I lived through that too. Why?? Because I KNEW I wasn't doing anything wrong.

Same question still stands -- and you still haven't told me the difference:

Why is obtaining a searched breath sample as evidence during a random RIDE check when they smell something on your breath "constitutional", but obtaining a searched backpack drug stash during a random school check when they smell something not Constitutional? Why is the evidence obtained because of "smell" considered a legal search for one instance and not the other? I'm still waiting.

And, your response does absolutely NOTHING with this ruling to protect my, my kids, and their teachers right to a drug free and safe enviornment at school -- it rather does the EXACT opposite. And, have you no doubt -- Little Johnny who just got off his charges due to this little gaff by the SCC --- was posessing the crap in his backpack (which IS illegal) ... a fact even he admitted to.

 

[40below]

Really.  It just shows your indecisiveness in this whole argument.  You haven't entered this with any coherent thought.  Could I point out what I was responding to?  Perhaps you don't remember this:

We are only asking you, outright asking you, to make up your mind.  You can not have it both ways, at your own personal discretion, as to when a Law applies to you and when it does not.

George, there's a law on the books and there's a law as applied. If I understand your point - and if you and the others could put aside your personal attacks on me long enough to articulate it, you can go back to pointing out I'm stupid, I'm a libbie, I'm a bad parent later, - this ruling prohibits random drug searches in high schools. Not bombs, not guns, not even drugs but if there's evidence that anyone there is dealing or using them, the police can execute the usual warrants that they'd use on, well, you, if they had evidence. Why is that bad? And why are warrantless searches good for the little lawn-crossing punks but not good enough for the cops to toss your house on a whim? 

 

[Koenigsegg]

The subject matter of the sniff is not public air space," said the ruling in the case by Justice Louis LeBel. "It is the concealed contents of the backpack.

If you really want to picky, and potentially childish, that same sentence could again be used in the context of a RIDE check.
The subject matter of the smell of booze is the concealed contents of your human body.
Yet they can open you up and perform a check (breathalizer), but they cannot open a backpack and check for weed or explosives?

Both are illegal, both circumstances revolve around your personal "belongings"(?),  so why can they rummage through you, but not a back pack?

I'm seeing a sort of contradiction here...If can't do one, they shouldn't be able to do another.  And if that happens, every one will be screaming bloody murder that so many people are being hurt or killed by drunk drivers and that drugs are so much more rampant in the schools.  It's all or nothing, can't have it both ways.

 

[George Wallace]

40below

Totally unrelated to this subject, but reflecting back to a discusion on the Pistol range this afternoon, these "Judgements" and Charter cases are in effect now creating a situation, as a person on the range stated, whereby the "Police officer on the scene might as well just hand over his sidearm to a criminal caught in the act of perpetuating a crime."  This is how rediculous these "Judgements" are starting to look.  You have been arguing, basically, along those lines.........And no "Personal Attacks" are being made in stating these facts.

 

[40below]

If you really want to picky, and potentially childish, that same sentence could again be used in the context of a RIDE check.
The subject matter of the smell of booze is the concealed contents of your human body.
Yet they can open you up and perform a check (breathalizer), but they cannot open a backpack and check for weed or explosives?

Both are illegal, both circumstances revolve around your personal "belongings"(?),  so why can they rummage through you, but not a back pack?

I'm seeing a sort of contradiction here...If can't do one, they shouldn't be able to do another.  And if that happens, every one will be screaming bloody murder that so many people are being hurt or killed by drunk drivers and that drugs are so much more rampant in the schools.  It's all or nothing, can't have it both ways.

Ah, but here's the legality- you can build your own highways and drive on them wasted all night long and the cops can't touch you. You drive on a public road, with a pulic DL, you are consenting to such a search - you're an adult and driving is a privilege, not a right. A kid in school has not consented to such a right – and if you think a public school is as public as a highway, drop by one tomorrow, find a comfy chair in the library or the office and just kind of hang around and see how many minutes it takes you to be told to leave or the police will be called.

 

[1feral1]

Actually, your argument has brought me around. People who possess goods in contrvention of the CCC must be found out and jailed through random police searches. If we can both agree on something here, and I think we do agree, it's that we also support the jailing of people who have illegal venison in their freezers, illegal radar detectors in their cars, who are stealing unsecured WiFi from their neighbours and who are smoking untaxed cigarettes. And the only way we will catch these criminals is massive police searches on every house, vehicle and person in the nation - it's not like these people are going to give themselves up. All those items are as illegal as pot in schools, and civil liberties merely stand in the way of law enforcement being able to do its job.

I am beginning to sense a very open agenda here WRT civil libertarian rights etc. Your sarcasam is not winning you any points.

 

[armyvern]

Ah, but here's the legality- you can build your own highways and drive on them wasted all night long and the cops can't touch you. You drive on a public road, with a pulic DL, you are consenting to such a search - you're an adult and driving is a privilege, not a right. A kid in school has not consented to such a right – and if you think a public school is as public as a highway, drop by one tomorrow, find a comfy chair in the library or the office and just kind of hang around and see how many minutes it takes you to be told to leave or the police will be called.

Really. My next door neighbor in Belleville was charged for, and convicted of impaired driving, on his lawmower. On his lawn, after we called the stupidiot in for driving into his kids' swingset etc (while his kids were out playing too --). There's lots of privately owned roadways and driveways -- and if you're under the impression that you can drive those drunk, legally and with no possibility of arrest and conviction, you're waaaaaaaaayyy off base.

And yes, schools (even public schools) are controlled enviornements. Controlled enviornments that specificly identify that there is ZERO tolerance for drug posession on their premises -- a fact that those students (and their parents) are well aware of --- same goes for the searchs. What a BS arguement that is.

Next thing you know -- we'll be shouting how their infringing on their civil liberties and right to be obese by taking the soda out of the vending machines.  :

 

[40below]

40below

Totally unrelated to this subject, but reflecting back to a discusion on the Pistol range this afternoon, these "Judgements" and Charter cases are in effect now creating a situation, as a person on the range stated, whereby the "Police officer on the scene might as well just hand over his sidearm to a criminal caught in the act of perpetuating a crime."  This is how rediculous these "Judgements" are starting to look.  You have been arguing, basically, along those lines.........And no "Personal Attacks" are being made in stating these facts.

I don't know what's being said on pistol ranges, I sit in courts most days.

I say this without prejudice: I know what comes out of the barrel of a gun, you folks should spend a few days seeing what comes out of the mouth of a judge and do it in person, not through Law & Order. There's probably a courthouse near you, admission is free and the seats are OK. It frustrates me no end to see people who've never been in court make statements like the one you've made above. There isn't even a perp who would agree with that ludicrous statement, let alone the most liberal crimal defence lawyer I know. Or the cops I spend eight hours a day with sitting through a trial. They're smart guys and women whose sidearms are part of their work clothes, but that's pure hyperbole.

 

[armyvern]

I guess not given your last post.

That still doesn't explain how my neighbour manged to be charged and convicted. Nor does it explain why breath samples obtained during a random RIDE check as a result of "smells" providing the "just cause" are legal while backpack seizures of illegal substances are not.

 

[40below]

Really. My next door neighbor in Belleville was charged for, and convicted of impaired driving, on his lawmower. On his lawn, after we called the stupidiot in for driving into his kids' swingset etc (while his kids were out playing too --). There's lots of privately owned roadways and driveways -- and if you're under the impression that you can drive those drunk, legally and with no possibility of arrest and conviction, you're waaaaaaaaayyy off base.

Jeez, I was just in Belleville driving Subarus from Bay's yesterday. Glad I didn't run him down. Anyway, he'll win on appeal. They can charge you, but you can be impaired as you like on your own land and you can't be convicted of .08 unless you commit another crime while intoxicated or the landowner has formally allowed police to patrol that land.

 

[the 48th regulator]

Jeez, I was just in Belleville driving Subarus from Bay's yesterday. Glad I didn't run him down. Anyway, he'll win on appeal. They can charge you, but you can be impaired as you like on your own land and you can't be convicted of .08 unless you commit another crime while intoxicated or the landowner has formally allowed police to patrol that land.

So he would not be charged with public intoxication?

dileas

tess

 

[armyvern]

Jeez, I was just in Belleville driving Subarus from Bay's yesterday. Glad I didn't run him down. Anyway, he'll win on appeal. They can charge you, but you can be impaired as you like on your own land and you can't be convicted of .08 unless you commit another crime while intoxicated or the landowner has formally allowed police to patrol that land.

Well, he was convicted ... and it's been quite a few years now (circa 01 - 02 / between a couple of my tours). He's probably even got his license back in the past couple years.

He wasn't a very friendly neighbour after that. But, oh well -- I couldn't really give two ... his kids were in the friggin' yard. IDIOT -- I have (and had) ZERO sympathy for him.

Be vary wary if you need to drive down Country Club in the future; he may be out there again. Really don't see why he wouldn't be given the state of court sentences these days.

 

[40below]

I guess not given your last post.

That still doesn't explain how my neighbour manged to be charged and convicted. Nor does it explain why breath samples obtained during a random RIDE check as a result of "smells" providing the "just cause" are legal while backpack seizures of illegal substances are not.

Ignorance of the law is no excuse, even on behalf of your lawyer. What I'm suspecting is that he was not charged with drunk driving but "care and control", which you can get hit with if the cops find you drunk behind the wheel even on private property. Carries the same penalty if your keys are within your reach or in the ignition.

/ not a lawyer
// not interested in helping the guilty go free

 

[QV]

Another good reason why we should elect our judges not to have some limp wristed do gooder be appointed.

LOL, I agree. 

OK, here we go again: if the police stop you at a RIDE check.

And you are sober.

...They cannot demand you identify yourself...

Sure they can.  And if you fail to provide your valid DL, you won't be driving away.

This ruling was not surprising considering the ongoing trend in this country with crime and criminals.  I still fail to see how the air outside someone's bag or locker is considered private.  Because that is what the dog sniffs - the air outside of the item. 

 

[1feral1]

I don't think there is enough butter on my popcorn..... op:

 

[Greymatters]

Very entertaining read!  Just have to finish reading all of this - so many posts in such a short time!

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

What we are talking about here, what you are in a rush to put in jail, are citizens of Canada who have not been convicted of anything but who are subject to an illegal search that you yourself would never put up with. Could be your kids. Could be mine.

...and how do you know what I would put up with?

Ignorance of the law is no excuse, even on behalf of your lawyer. What I'm suspecting is that he was not charged with drunk driving but "care and control", which you can get hit with if the cops find you drunk behind the wheel even on private property. Carries the same penalty if your keys are within your reach or in the ignition.

/ not a lawyer
// not interested in helping the guilty go free

Obviously,.....try a study/rewrite on this whole paragraph.

 

[George Wallace]

You have a very muddled thought process.  Everything seems to "Whooshing" right over your head.  This is another case of your contradictory thoughts adding to our confusion: 

Ah, but here's the legality- you can build your own highways and drive on them wasted all night long and the cops can't touch you. You drive on a public road, with a pulic DL, you are consenting to such a search - you're an adult and driving is a privilege, not a right. A kid in school has not consented to such a right – and if you think a public school is as public as a highway, drop by one tomorrow, find a comfy chair in the library or the office and just kind of hang around and see how many minutes it takes you to be told to leave or the police will be called.

However, a Police officer can request you give a Breathalyser while you are parked in a "private" parking lot outside a bar.

I don't know what's being said on pistol ranges, I sit in courts most days.

I say this without prejudice: I know what comes out of the barrel of a gun, you folks should spend a few days seeing what comes out of the mouth of a judge and do it in person, not through Law & Order. There's probably a courthouse near you, admission is free and the seats are OK. It frustrates me no end to see people who've never been in court make statements like the one you've made above. There isn't even a perp who would agree with that ludicrous statement, let alone the most liberal crimal defence lawyer I know. Or the cops I spend eight hours a day with sitting through a trial. They're smart guys and women whose sidearms are part of their work clothes, but that's pure hyperbole.

I won't even comment on your response as you seem to have totally failed to grasp any portion of the point being made as it passed over your head.

Ignorance of the law is no excuse, even on behalf of your lawyer. What I'm suspecting is that he was not charged with drunk driving but "care and control", which you can get hit with if the cops find you drunk behind the wheel even on private property. Carries the same penalty if your keys are within your reach or in the ignition.

/ not a lawyer
// not interested in helping the guilty go free

Mame.

From what we have seen, and correct us if we are wrong, these are your points:


1.   A Police Officer smelling Alcohol on your breath has "Just Cause" to ask you to submit to a Breathalyser Test.  Failure on your part to do so is a Criminal offence.  This is no way an infringement on your "Privacy".

2.   The Police Sniffer-dogs in a Public Place sniffing Drugs in a Backpack is not "Just Cause" and is against one's Charter Rights and an infringement on their "Privacy".

3.   The Police Sniffer-dogs in a Public Place sniffing Explosives in a Backpack IS "Just Cause" and is NOT against one's Charter Rights and NOT an infringement on their "Privacy".

4.   You argue that Police enforcing the Laws in Public places, are infringing on a person's privacy if they search a person's private belongings (car, backpack, etc.) WITHOUT "Just Cause".  We all agree on that.  What we all disagree on is that you don't accept the Dog sniffing an illegal substance in one case (drugs), unlike the Police officer sniffing alcohol, but accept the dog sniffing in another case (explosives); as creating "Just Cause".  If indeed you spend a lot of time in court, then you will realize that a "Precedence" has been set and all dogs and instruments used to "sniff" illegal substances are now an infringement on a person's privacy and do not lend a Police officer "Just Cause" to further carry out his/her duties.  People will now have reason to object to "Sniffers" in Airports, Court Houses, etc. 

5.   Your arguement on the Public Schools "not being as public as the highways" just adds to the confusing nature of your argument.

Have you realized yet, the contrary ways of your arguments?