Top Court rules sniffer-dog searches are unlawful

[George Wallace]

Do you find it reasonable for your kids to possibly get searched and humiliated in school even when you know they don't have anything on them? Are you fine with the police randomly going through their backpacks? Maybe you do, and if you do all the power to you. But I don't find it reasonable at all for the police to be able, without impunity, to go through your personal belongings because of a dog that is inaccurate.

First off, I think something has to be said about these searches.  They really aren't "random".  Teachers, Staff and Students know who the Drug Dealers are.  They know who the Pushers are, and they call in the Police. 

Gimpy

Are you of the persuasion who think that a Cop should hand over his firearm to a criminal and walk away when he sees a crime being committed?  What about the Teachers in our Education System; should they turn a blind eye to criminals operating in our schools?  Who has more rights here; criminals, or the victims?

 

[Gimpy]

If you're NOT committing a crime -- what's the worry? Crap ... been through an airport lately? You must be agahst at having to walk through the metal detector ... or have them xray your stuff ... after all you're innocent. Tripe.

If you're not committing a crime you shouldn't be searched, plain and simple. Its our right not to be searched without "reasonable grounds" and unreliable sniffer dogs are not "reasonable grounds".

First off, I think something has to be said about these searches.  They really aren't "random".  Teachers, Staff and Students know who the Drug Dealers are.  They know who the Pushers are, and they call in the Police.

Are you of the persuasion who think that a Cop should hand over his firearm to a criminal and walk away when he sees a crime being committed?  What about the Teachers in our Education System; should they turn a blind eye to criminals operating in our schools?  Who has more rights here; criminals, or the victims?

No they actually are random if you'd read the first article. "police use of a drug-sniffing dog during a random visit "

Yes thats exactly what I think :. Oh heavens someone is robbing a store, let me go give him my gun so he can shoot the owner. Seems reasonable to me and completely in line with everything I've posted.

 

[Strike]

How are dogs unreliable?  92% success rate sounds pretty darned good to me.

 

[Gimpy]

How are dogs unreliable?  92% success rate sounds pretty darned good to me.

WR (who is in law enforcement) on the previous page said, "A random k-9 search is not perfect, because if you are wearing a jacket or clothes that have been around second hand contact with contraband, the dog will detect. It will not always detect only on 'product' "

And the New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties released this report. http://www.nswccl.org.au/docs/pdf/sniffer%20dogs%20submission.pdf

 

[George Wallace]

No they actually are random if you'd read the first article. "police use of a drug-sniffing dog during a random visit "

There in lies the rub.  False information.  The Police can not randomly visit.  They need to be called in by someone; or as part of an ongoing investigation, come in to execute a Warrant, which would mean that there would be "Just Cause".

So, the article has gotten some facts wrong.

 

[Strike]

I'd rather have a dog detect a smell and find nothing than miss something.

My whole thought on all of this is that, if you aren't guilty, then why care?  It's not infringing on your rights, since they're less likely to target your bag (unless you hang out with dope smokers ;D).  Are you afraid the dogs will target you and they'll find some other "interesting" stuff in there?

 

[Gimpy]

I'd rather have a dog detect a smell and find nothing than miss something.

My whole thought on all of this is that, if you aren't guilty, then why care?  It's not infringing on your rights, since they're less likely to target your bag (unless you hang out with dope smokers ;D).  Are you afraid the dogs will target you and they'll find some other "interesting" stuff in there?

Personally I don't carry anything "interesting" but I hang out with smokers, they were my friends long before they started smoking so I'm not going to ditch them because they do. Maybe all of this stems from my fear of dogs, who knows. If they had drug sniffing cats maybe I'd take more kindly to it. I'm afraid its going to turn out like in The Simpsons when Homer crotches the pot when Wiggum brings a sniffer dog in and it procedes to chomp on his crotch.

 

[40below]

First off, I think something has to be said about these searches.  They really aren't "random".  Teachers, Staff and Students know who the Drug Dealers are.  They know who the Pushers are, and they call in the Police. 

Well if they're that sure, they can give a sworn affadavit and after taking it to a judge, the judge can authorize police to conduct a search of one single locker and one single backpack using a warrant based on that affadavit, then.

Because after all, it's obvious who the dealers are – although back in my high school days 25 years ago, when I and my friends were long-haired, pot-smoking freaks and widely suspected of being dealers, the guys who were the dealers were the dean's-list short-haired preppies who played on the basketball team, who had dentists for daddies and who drove late-model Mustangs - we didn't have the thousands of dollars lying around cash to buy the stuff by the pound. I'm sure it's all changed since.

What the schools are doing is saying 'Hey, we think there are drug dealers here, search every single locker." You're right they're not 'random', they're en masse. And unlike any other public place, say a concert venue, the kids aren't being asked to consent to a search as a condition of entry. Think about it: even in a civil context, at a RIDE check, if I'm sober, even by condition of my being on the road and being stopped and maybve even being someone the police would LIKE to search, I'm still not giving cops the OK to go through my glove box or my trunk just in case there's something there society needs to be protected against.

 

[armyvern]

If you're not committing a crime you shouldn't be searched, plain and simple. Its our right not to be searched without "reasonable grounds" and unreliable sniffer dogs are not "reasonable grounds".

Bullshit. Never been to a rock concert have you? I suppose though, you may not have had a purse for them to rifle through as I did.

No they actually are random if you'd read the first article. "police use of a drug-sniffing dog during a random visit "

Yes thats exactly what I think :. Oh heavens someone is robbing a store, let me go give him my gun so he can shoot the owner. Seems reasonable to me and completely in line with everything I've posted. I'm just a criminal loving left-wing lunatic. Can I not have a left-wing opinion on this site? Why should I get dogpiled on because I have opinions that don't fall in with the norm of this site. I thought you were trying to steer away from the atmosphere on other sites, but then I get harrassed and personally attacked by members of the directing staff no less because I don't share your views.

Random VISIT to the school (due to a long standing invitation by the school to show up and do so -- did you miss that part?). They did not rifle through everyone's lockers and everyone's backpacks. The ONLY one's they went through were ones that the drug dog "hit" on <--- not QUITE so random now is it? Doesn't the fact that during a walkthrough of the school the drug dog hits on someones backpack then translate into "the dog may reasonably suspect that this individuals pack contains ILLEGAL substances (the posession of which is an offense BTW -- as in "crime in progress")?"

And, the dog was right. And the little grubby criminal gets away with it. Bullshit.

And, if the dog was wrong ... nothing at all happened to the individual in question. I don't see the problem with that.

And yes, I soooo enjoyed them rifling through my bras et al on my way back thorugh the airport from Ottawa last visit -- I wasn't committing any crime either. Did it hurt me one single iota? NOPE, not in the least.

I didn't attack you as an individual. I attacked this notion that criminals should not be held accountable or responsible for their own damn actions. It really is that simple.

 

[midget-boyd91]

High School... 2008.. I'm there. I've witnessed many many searches done by mounties, and have been subject to searches from teachers. Inconvenience my ass. This is a school in a place where more people have dope on them than don't. Personally, I like it when I see the mounties arrest someone at school for having drugs on them.
And as someone who is going through school right now, (finishing in a month or two... hopefully) I can state for a fact that it isn't all weed. People here are showing up with ecstacy, cocaine, crack and there's been some OxyContin show up now and again. High School is not a nice place to be in a lot of places, and sniffer dogs is a great idea in those places.

Midget

 

[40below]

Bullshit. Never been to a rock concert have you? I suppose though, you may not have had a purse for them to rifle through as I did.

Let me make the point again: at a concert, you have a CHOICE. Your purse was searched because you consented to the search. Don't want to be searched? You don't have go to the concert, turn in your tickets, have your money refunded, you go on your merry way. Try that with a cop. It won't turn out as amicably.

 

[Koenigsegg]

I'm almost 19, and I graduated on time last year.  And I would like to say/think my time in highschool is recent (to those who think it matters for some reason...).
I was searched (and just briefly inspected, but not searched at all) during my four year stay there and I had NO problem with it.  I never did drugs nor had any on me, but I did sit beside few druggies in my classes throughout the years so the dogs must have picked the scent up from that.  I had no issues with it because the way I saw it was that the police were out doing their jobs, and I had nothing to hide.  A few minutes of my time was nothin', and no humiliation occured at all.  There is such a thing as "Too far", but I don'tconsider the situation in the article "Too far" at all.  They caught the guilty party, and he is protected under the young offenders act (or so I would assume...highschool student, Identified only by initial...)so no one outside the people directly in the know will know his full identity.  The only thing he would have lost is due to his own stupidity, and that lost thing would be a clean record.  Boohoo.

It seems to (mostly) only be the guilty parties that complain.  If a totally random person brought this topic up in the courts I couldn't see this discussion taking some of the paths it has.

Edited...yellow text.

 

[George Wallace]

What the schools are doing is saying 'Hey, we think there are drug dealers here, search every single locker." You're right they're not 'random', they're en masse. And unlike any other public place, say a concert venue, the kids aren't being asked to consent to a search as a condition of entry. Think about it: even in a civil context, at a RIDE check, if I'm sober, even by condition of my being on the road and being stopped and maybve even being someone the police would LIKE to search, I'm still not giving cops the OK to go through my glove box or my trunk just in case there's something there society needs to be protected against.

Excuse me.  Other the post of a rather bitter person, I find your logic really bizarre.

When did our Education System suddenly allow Criminals of any type, not just Drug Dealers, to operate outside the Law on School grounds.  

Just like the "searches" you can now expect at Airports, Border Crossings, Concerts, Ride Programs, etc.; what makes a School a FREE ZONE?  

Does this mean that you condone the use of Drugs?  I suppose you condone the act of children bringing handguns into schools too?  Heck, let's just throw all the Laws that have kept us safe over the years out the window.  The precedence has been set.  Don't like your neighbour.  Off him.  It would be against the Law for the Police to invade your privacy now wouldn't it?  How more friggin ways can a high priced Lawyer debate the Law and find a lesser opponent in the Courts to argue the case against him, or how many times must Liberal Left Wing Judges nullify the Laws that protect us from criminals and further bring our society into chaos?  

If these people hadn't been doing so much drugs in their youth, we wouldn't be seeing their obscene sense of justice being played out in the Courts.   :  They (Lawyers, Judges and Human Rights Advocates) are making a mockery of our Laws and Judicial System.

 

[armyvern]

Let me make the point again: at a concert, you have a CHOICE. Your purse was searched because you consented to the search. Don't want to be searched? You don't have go to the concert, turn in your tickets, have your money refunded, you go on your merry way. Try that with a cop. It won't turn out as amicably.

100% correct.

And ... schools are supposed to be drug-free too. Parents, society, and MOST students have a reasonable expectation of that within the school. Dope is illegal. There is also a resonable expectation that they remain drug-free. Don't want to have your backpack searched (AFTER the sniffer dog hits on it) to ensure that they remain drug-free ... take it to the SCC I guess.  :

And from your one before:

Think about it: even in a civil context, at a RIDE check, if I'm sober, even by condition of my being on the road and being stopped and maybve even being someone the police would LIKE to search, I'm still not giving cops the OK to go through my glove box or my trunk just in case there's something there society needs to be protected against.

No, but if you SMELL of alcohol (ie are possibly committing a criminal act as detected via human "sniffing") ... you can reasonably be expected to do a breathalyzer. You may fail, you may not (as in you may be doing something illegal you may not). So, why exactly is the same "reasonable expectation" not applicable to the backpacked kid which has been sniffed out by the drug dog (where the kid may be committing a crime, they may not)? What exactly is the difference, because it IS escaping me?

 

[neilinkorea]

Bullshit. Never been to a rock concert have you? I suppose though, you may not have had a purse for them to rifle through as I did.

A search at a concert is a voluntary search.  You give permission for the security people to search in exchange to be allowed into the venue.  It may not seem so voluntary, but we do hand over the bags of our own accord.  Someone who is not a peace officer has no right to search you unless you give them permission.  This is the real issue here, not the use of dogs as a tool to search.  We give police very special powers to detain, search, and seize property of citizens. We have given them this ability with the provision that it only be used under certain circumstances.  It is the fact that the search was done at random with no target that makes it unconstitutional.  If a report was made that a bomb was suspected to be in the school then a search would have been legal and all evidence obtained as the result of that search would be admissible in court.(I'm not a lawyer or cop, so I'm not positive about how drug evidence obtained by a bomb search would be treated by a court).

Now, the police aren't stupid.  They understand the legality of search and seizure.  I think the purpose of actions is gathering information.  They now know who a drug dealer is at the school.  And the embarrassment caused by this exposure may cause him and others to stop doing business in school.  No way the cops could do this in a home or on the street.  It is an easy investigative tool that yields intelligence not evidence.  The surprising thing is that the crown proceeded to trial with this.  They want to make an issue of drugs in schools and get support to change the search laws to allow searches like this in schools.  And if the law is changed to allow them, great.  If not, fine.  I still believe in the presumption of innocence as a foundation of our system.  It is better for 100 guilty men to go free than for one innocent man to spend a day in jail.

 

[armyvern]

I'm almost 19, and I graduated on time last year.  And I would like to say/think my time in highschool is recent (to those who think it matters for some reason...).

People are sharing the years of their high school experiences because someone here claimed that we didn't care about kids being searched because "we" weren't being searched oursleves. We're simply pointing out the more proper fact that "we" certainly were in high school once and were subject to the exact same thing.

 

[armyvern]

A search at a concert is a voluntary search.  You give permission for the security people to search in exchange to be allowed into the venue.  It may not seem so voluntary, but we do hand over the bags of our own accord.  

See my response to that same comment two posts ago where I responded to the same thing.

Anyone else want to bring it up now? I've already answered and given my .02 bits on it. I'll just link you to it.

By your definition of "random" -- RIDE checks are also unconstitutional. They also have no set individual in their sights, rather they "sniff" out the offenders from amongst all the innocents also stopped. Why not drug pushers out of the schools then?

 

[40below]

Just like the "searches" you can now expect at Airports, Border Crossings, Concerts, Ride Programs, etc.; what makes a School a FREE ZONE?

I'm not sure what the definition of a "Free Zone" is, unless you;re referring to Bey's "TAZ" and that's SF crap. I'm not a lawyer, but I don't believe there is any space in Canada where the law does not apply, and that's kind of my point.

If criminals are operating, by all means, gather evidence on them, arrest them, charge them, bring them to trial and lock them up. No argument. The justification is laid out in the law. Reasonable cause, not, "You might be guilty, so we're going to search you to be sure.'

However, if your point is that SOMEONE in a school is dealing drugs, so we have to do warrantless searches on EVERYONE, then I have a problem with that. And I expect you would too.

That's the argument that 'If you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about,' which in fact gives me plenty to worry about. I don't have any unresigstered long guns in my house, so no, I don't suppose I'd worry about police searching my house, barn and safe deposit box without a warrant just to make sure, except the Charter says they can't. There's a reason, even though unregistered guns are as illegal as drugs. I don't have an illegal radar detector in my car, so if the OPP pulled me over at random and tossed my car they wouldn't find one, so it's all good; I don't have any untaxed illegal Indian cigarettes in my pocket, so I guess in theory I'd have no problem with being stopped and frisked by RCMP excise officers at my work just to you know, make sure and stuff; take this argument as far as you'd like to. The argument 'If you've got nothing to hide, you shouldn't object to being searched' is just scary because of where it leads.

 

[George Wallace]

If criminals are operating, by all means, gather evidence on them, arrest them, charge them, bring them to trial and lock them up. No argument. The justification is laid out in the law. Reasonable cause, not, "You might be guilty, so we're going to search you to be sure.'

However, if your point is that SOMEONE in a school is dealing drugs, so we have to do warrantless searches on EVERYONE, then I have a problem with that. And I expect you would too.

That's the argument that 'If you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about,' which in fact gives me plenty to worry about. I don't have any unresigstered long guns in my house, so no, I don't suppose I'd worry about police searching my house, barn and safe deposit box without a warrant just to make sure, except the Charter says they can't. There's a reason, even though unregistered guns are as illegal as drugs. I don't have an illegal radar detector in my car, so if the OPP pulled me over at random and tossed my car they wouldn't find one, so it's all good; I don't have any untaxed illegal Indian cigarettes in my pocket, so I guess in theory I'd have no problem with being stopped and frisked by RCMP excise officers at my work just to you know, make sure and stuff; take this argument as far as you'd like to. The argument 'If you've got nothing to hide, you shouldn't object to being searched' is just scary because of where it leads.

I think you have it all wrong.  There is no need to fear if you are innocent.  They are not conducting "Random" checks, invasions of privacy or anything of the sort.  They are not just walking into Schools uninvited.  They have been invited in.  They must comply with the Law in the conduct of their duties.  If an Arrest is to be made, they must do so in compliance with the Law.  The Police are fairly hamstrung as is by the Law. 

This is not a Police State.  The arguments being put forward against the Police are all the follie of some fringe elements.

 

[armyvern]

If criminals are operating, by all means, gather evidence on them, arrest them, charge them, bring them to trial and lock them up. No argument. The justification is laid out in the law. Reasonable cause, not, "You might be guilty, so we're going to search you to be sure.'

However, if your point is that SOMEONE in a school is dealing drugs, so we have to do warrantless searches on EVERYONE, then I have a problem with that. And I expect you would too.

Hmmm, sounds like a RIDE check to me. Some people drive drunk, so we all get a little bit inconvenienced by being stopped at those checks during the appropriate seasons. We all get to roll down our windows and speak to the officers. If WE aren't doing anything wrong, or they can't "sniff" any alcohol or have no further reson to suspect that "we" are driving drunk --- we continue on our merry little way.

IF, they do have reason to suspect we are comitting a crime however, we then are subject to further search in giving that breath sample. We may be drunk. We may not be. It's all legal ... and is all well and good. Those who blow, and who are not drunk also continue on their merry little way.

These kids at this school were not ALL searched. Nor were ALL their lockers or backpacks searched. The only ones who's space was invaded (ie thier lockers searched or backpacks) were those who were "hit" upon and sniffed out by the dogs. They then found themselves subject to further search by having their backpacks looked into because there then existed reasonable grounds to suspect a crime was occuring. Much the very same thing as smelling alcohol on the breath of a driver and considering it grounds for further "search" via breathalyzer.

You still haven't showed me where the difference is between these two things as I asked earlier --- and I'm still failing to see any single iota of difference between the two.