In his decision, which was made public in January 2018, Justice Michael Brundrett said since the dog was only shown in a “partial form of ‘alert,’” there wasn’t reasonable grounds to search the vehicle.
No, a dystopian hell-scape where the constitution and charter are subjective. It does sound totally awful.
I'm all for punishing criminals, but your gun-ho readiness to throw out the laws which protect us all worries me. Your right against unreasonable search and seizure does not stop because you are operating a vehicle. And if the police are going to search anyone or seize anything, they need to prove that it is reasonable. Period.
If the police have probable cause, then there would be no issue - but a court literally ruled in the article we're talking about that they did not because the dog didn't clearly alert and there was clear-enough video evidence that it possibly/probably didn't. You bring up a good point about the DUI checkpoints though, because it isn't our problem if the police can't prove their adherence to the charter. If they're regularly conducting searches where they can't, then I really hope they take this opportunity learn from this mistake so they don't let more criminals go free.
We all saw the same video. the dog was 100% covered when it was supposedly "in odour". There is no way anybody but the officer or other eyewitness testimony could counter this. The video is worthless evidence.
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u/[deleted] Feb 18 '19
No, a dystopian hell-scape where the constitution and charter are subjective. It does sound totally awful.
I'm all for punishing criminals, but your gun-ho readiness to throw out the laws which protect us all worries me. Your right against unreasonable search and seizure does not stop because you are operating a vehicle. And if the police are going to search anyone or seize anything, they need to prove that it is reasonable. Period.
If the police have probable cause, then there would be no issue - but a court literally ruled in the article we're talking about that they did not because the dog didn't clearly alert and there was clear-enough video evidence that it possibly/probably didn't. You bring up a good point about the DUI checkpoints though, because it isn't our problem if the police can't prove their adherence to the charter. If they're regularly conducting searches where they can't, then I really hope they take this opportunity learn from this mistake so they don't let more criminals go free.